The other evening I participated in a business meeting with high level business professionals.  These individuals are regionally recognized as the top performers in their  specific field.   These folks have the experiential bite marks from being in the trenches and learning first what constitutes a “going concern”.   Through  our discussions each of them shared their thoughts about their internal business paradigm as it related to personal and personnel competencies.   It was truly rewarding to be among a group of professionals who had 2 significant areas of commonality.

First may sound a little trite, but all of them have read and reread Sun Tzu, The Art of War and have embraced many of its strategies.

The second is one that smacks the face of the Id and Ego.  Everyone at the table surrounds themselves with people with higher skills, experience and yes even intelligence to be thermometer of potential success.

Taking the opportunity to explore various aspects of business development issues, I become energized when each of them clearly articulated their personal business passion, and were humble enough to recognize the areas in which they need support. While pride is generally a large wall seldom circumvented, collectively this group was comfortable leaving their pride at the door threshold, and seeking counsel, direction, and willing to take unsolicited criticism.

The overarching sentiment was that all new Einstein’s definition of insanity:  “Doing the same thing over and over again and expect a different result.”  But was even more interesting was that they resonated with my statement, “we can only rise to our highest level of incompetence.”

Here is to another discussion with some people whom I have tremendous respect and encourage them to speak unthrottled truth.

Recently I was engaged with a client discussing a broad range of audio and video options within their dwelling. As we were going through a preliminary discovery session, a young girl (about 14) walks in the room. The parents politely took an opportunity to introduce me to their lovely daughter. As she was leaving, the mom inquired what the girl was going to do. The girl responded that she was going to go on Facebook.

As the girl departed, I noticed a facial expression change on both of the parents. Recognizing that sales has alot to do with reading people, I was mentally challenged. Should I take a step into the personal, relational world or stay focused on the business at hand.

Well, for those that know this particular individual, you know which direction I took. Throwing chance to the wind I asked if everything was alright. The mom stated frustratedly, that she is concerned as to what is happening on Facebook with her daughter.

Gently, and I do mean gently, I broached the subject on the awareness level of parents regarding social media. I pointed out a couple of issues which have gotten recent press (sexting, photos on facebook, bullying).

I apologized in advance regarding my next statement. I had suggested that kids pressure parents into thinking that social media tools (facebook, myspace, myface, twitter, etc.) are a right. Using a boatload of reasons to justify this right. As parents we are presented with the challenge of either being the friend, or being the parent. The friend accepts the persuasive argument, and balances fulfilling the child’s desire with access to these tools. Yet, the oversight, or view into the child’s world of communication is left with subjective intrusion.

I shared my perspective regarding children and the use of the internet. This lead to a deeper discussion which was quite powerful for the family.

But through all of this let me share the end results, they are quite surprising.

• The father requested that I facilitate a dialogue with the daughter (which was awesome, with tears on both sides).
• The father requested that I make changes to the home network router, precluding unsupervised access to these social sites.
• I got hugs from everyone in the family.
• Have established a client relationship which it’s foundation is based upon trust, and open communication. With an invitation to meet with a couple of neighbors to talk about what I do.

Who would have thought that being sensitive to the needs of the client, outside of my scope of professional services would have facilitated this kind of response. Well, not me, nor my friend Marc Wolfe, nor the guys that meet with me every Tuesday morning when the rest of the town is fast asleep.

When any transaction is evaluated from a singular perspective of expense only, something gives at the end.

For me, I would not  like to have my wife’s brakes on her van replaced by the lowest bidder.

And what is IT.  THE solution for the numerous difficulties and challenges in dealing with multiple AV sources, various video output formats, HDCP encryption, numerous archives in different locations, connectivity portability, 1080p archival capabilities, 1080p playback capabilities, control, access, and the list continues to be built.

In previous posts I have claimed the ability to deliver “What you want, when you want it, wherever you are.”  This is a reality and I am currently demonstrating the capabilities to my clients.

I wanted to attach an image for those with visual processing.  I have left out the connectivity and the signal path flow on purpose.

Enjoy:

I have been spending my evening hours doing research on various technologies and products which are complimentary to the audio and video experience.  Based upon the broad diversity of clients we support, to remain ahead of our competition I intellectually invest through research, study, reading and basement tinkering.  This investments pays dividends in delivering customized customer centric value added solutions.

Recently I have encountered a plethora of resources which is positioned to radically enhance our customer value proposition in the overall lifestyle experience.

Spring boarding off of the energy of job well done on related to being part of solving  a Hatian relief problem I am refueled to dive in and demonstrate some unbelievable power to my colleagues.

The events in Haiti have been traumatic with numerous bodies requiring various degrees of staging for burial.  The request came for an expedited morgue.  It does sound morbid, but is a necessary need in storing bodies.  I was able to do the pr-equalification and make the necessary connections.  This morning I found out that through numerous people working overtime last night that a 30′ x 60′ building has been loaded on a plane in North Carolina, complete with the necessary cooling equipment.  The packaging was so efficient even Ikea would be impressed.  It is scheduled to arrive this afternoon and be functional by this evening.

The crazy part about this was that no commercial power is available and they needed a large generator to power the building.  Our team of resources rallied together to find one available in Baltimore fit for the job.

I am still in awe about how this all came together.  Having experience in working with both the Government, and NGO’s I am reeling on how fast this happened.  Major Kudo’s to all who made this come together!

Capitalism, or consumerism are the major detractors facilitating an intellectual decline in the audio experience.  Where the statement “keeping up with the Jones’” may seem appropriate, I prefer to state that the drive in audio is more to quantity than quality.  A very small percentage would fit into enhancing the quality of an experience.

Sticking my neck out a little bit, I would suggest that the people in Wilmington get all jiggly when we strike the magical cord of product recommendation.  What is really sweet, is when we can step beyond providing experiential reference points through industry publication reviews to actual customer experience.

Having been in business for over 50 years, clients return to us for a reason.  Those reasons can vary from person to person, but it usually culminates on our shared passion of music.  It is not uncommon to pass by someone in our store sharing a story or experience tied to some event, concert or moving piece.  We love to increase our libraries with client recommendations.

Most recently we have has a couple of our clients improving their systems by implementing Anthem’s statement D2V Processor.   My command of the English language cannot bring justice to the positive feedback shared by these individuals.  One client went to great lengths preparing a verbal canvas to paint his emotional experience embodied to a single orchestral piece.  I for one felt like I had just been personally ushered into the Louvre with a private viewing of the Mona Lisa.  This same gentleman had shared that he had several audiophile visitors to his home where I think 2 hours would not  be sufficient time to encapsulate the energy of all of the enthusiasts.

Indeed, we all have opinions and predispositions which influence a particular discussion.  But what is a real pleasure is the commonality tied to participating in the experience or the description of the experience.

So to our clients, we are happy to have been considered a valuable contributor to facilitating a memorable experience.  I wrap this in a pretty thank you for taking the time to share with us so we can share with others.

1.85 content displayed on 2.35 screen

16:9 image on 16:9 (HD) screen

2.35 image on 2.35 screen

4.35 movie on 2.35 screen

Having taken the elementary steps to communicate about the complexities of image format I decided to take my research and create some quick links for those interested in more information.

Enjoy.

Resource 1

Resource 2

Resource 3

THE RECTANGLE

Did you ever notice how when you go to a Movie, the Theatre Screen is really wide? Kinda like it’s in the shape of a rectangle? But the screen on your Television Set is not that wide. It’s more closer to the shape of a Square. The “Widescreen”, or, rectangular screen in Movie Theatres was originally chosen that size a long time ago in the 1950′s by Hollywood film-makers to get a bigger image in the Theatres, to give it a much grander scope on a large magnitude, “engulfing” the viewers in an attempt to lure in more Ticket-Buyers to the Movies to fight the recent advent of TV.

THE SQUARE

But a problem arose when those Theatrically produced movies later went to air on TV. The image was wider than could fit on screen. How do you fit a rectangle image in the shape of a square to view it? The answer? You don’t. Hollywood basically cuts off the left and right side of the Theatrical version of the movies, and puts the middle “square” onto your TV screen. More recently, when Movies begun using the explanation “This Movie has been modified from its original version. It has been formatted to fit your screen”, this is what they mean by it. They cut off the ends to get it to fit.

COMPRESSION

The only other alternative would be to “squish” (compress) the image, which is often done to the opening and closing Credits of movies where cutting part of the image off is not possible without cutting off names. You know those movies where the Opening Credits are scrolling over the live action? You notice how the Live Action suddenly got stretched tall-like, and you suddenly have really tall thin people walking around in the background? That’s because they compressed or squished the rectangle to fit your square.

LETTERBOX

Because many people want to see the “complete” Movie, the “Letterbox Format” came about. I do NOT know what the word “Letterbox” actually means, or how that term was chosen. To get the complete Rectangle into that Square, they discovered that they could shrink the entire rectangle to fit that square. Meaning, what used to take 2 inches on your screen, now may only take 1.75 inches. Now a problem arrose. When you shrink the WIDTH to fit your dinky Square of a TV, the HEIGHT also has to be shrunk along with it, or else you’re stretching the image as if it was on silly-putty (“Compression”). When the image was shrunk to fit the TV Screen, they were left with a gap at the top and bottom of the screen. So they simply fill it in with “Black”. I guess the only alternative was to leave it snowy.

THE BLACK BARS

There is a common misunderstanding that when you see the Black Bars at the top and bottom of the Screen, you’re not getting the whole picture. People believe that for some unknown reason they can’t figure out, the top and bottom was blacked out to hide stuff from you. This is not true. Not only are you seeing everything, but you get the added bonus now of viewing the Side material that was otherwise cut off when the Theatrical Movie was transferred to Television Ratios. It’s just that in order to see the extra stuff, the entire image has to be shrunk sometimes as much as 30 to 50 percent smaller. If you’re thinking about complaining about that, then maybe you don’t realize that this means as much as 30 to 50 percent of the footage is taken out when you air it the regular way. It’s not that the Black Bars are covering stuff. The Black Bars are merely a Side Effect to uncovering the sides.

PAN & SCAN

So what part of that rectangle do they get to fit in that square? There’s two ways they decide. The first is editing. For example, if in the original scene it showed two people talking, one on each side, and just placing the camera in the middle wouldn’t get either of them, then they may add some “edits” in the scene, by first showing the man on the left, then cutting to the man on the right, even though the original shot was one continous shot. The second way they decide is called “Pan&Scan”. Basically, imagine if they pointed a square lensed camera at that rectangle shaped screen, and panned, or “slid” it back and forth to film from one side of the rectangle to another. This is what is usually done.

TELEVISION SHOT ON FILM

Remember how the old sitcoms like “Facts of Life” and “Three’s Company” used to look in the 1980′s? Compared to the image quality of today, old episodes of “Facts fo Life” look like they were shot on a Camcorder. Later, Television Series begun using “Film” to record their programs instead of “tape”. It looked better, but because the original Master Copy was in the Widescreen Format, they had to come up with a Pan & Scan version for the Television broadcast (blocking out the sides). This is why the Opening Credits of “Babylon 5″ had all of their scenes in the Letterbox Format, because that’s how they were originally filmed.

I for one would be really interested in buying and viewing a copy of certain episodes of Space: Above & Beyond and Star Trek: Next Generation in the Widescreen Format. Unfortunately, this is probably impossible, as when these programs were filmed, the Directors and those involved knew only the center square of that rectangle would actually be broadcast, so even though they see both the square and the rectangle on the monitor showing what they are filming, they didn’t bother to prevent the extra stuff on the sides to match up. I may be wrong about this, as evident by the fact that Babylon 5 is airing on the Sci-Fi Channel in Letterbox, however its Pilot episode was not produced in Letterbox and was aired with Black Bars artificially overlayed over the pre-existing image to give the false illusion of a Letterbox Format. Also, there have been instances of Stage Hands popping up in the corners of the Babylon 5 Letterbox episodes that were not there before, as seen in the first season episode “Babylon Squared” (Babylon 4) when Sinclair was thrown across the room after touching the blue spacesuited man in the corridor (himself from the future). Thus, it’s quite possible that if you were to actually see the “Side Material”, you might end up seeing part of the Set, the Boom Operator, or wires hanging from the lights, making many Widescreen versions of many series not broadcastable.

DIGITAL CAMERAS

Many of the Digital (High-Definition) Camera companies have decided that because the Widescreen Format is so much better, they put this capability in their new Cameras, even in the Television Cameras. This is why many of the “High-Def” programs that air on PBS air in Letterbox (Black Bars). They were intended to be best viewed on the High-Definition Television Sets that are steadily replacing the old tube 4:3 sets.

WIDESCREEN TV’S

While consumers have been jumping on the 16:9 widescreen format in their purchase of television sets, the movie industry continues to push out 2.34:1 productions.  Certainly, a flat panel display looks nice sitting on the wall.  But if you want to replicate the “movie” experience come in and chat with us about how a projection based solution delivers the ultimate in home viewing experience.  We deliver the full 2.34:1 cinematic experience.

And oh, by the way, nothing beats the way we deliver the goosebumps in audio through pure sensation peaking, chest thumping, hair fluffing, eye moistening, you get the idea.  If you don’t let me show you the way.

Dubbed Web 2.0, this revolution in computing has shifted the face of software from a logical, linear, and introverted science to an expressive, graphical and social art. New designers of web sites, unschooled in traditional software techniques, are nonetheless able to create software that scales to millions of users and billions of objects of information and still meld those users into an artistically aware community. The next generation of enterprise employees who started using the internet in their early teens have only known this evolving culture of free and creative development of the internet and now demand better of the enterprise software that they meet. Older employees also know that that the software that they use on a day to day basis can be better. Enterprise 2.0 seeks to emulate the success of Web 2.0 in the creation of new software for the enterprise.

Social Computing

The shift of computing power from business logic and calculation to socialization and people-orientation has been dubbed by some as Social Computing. The term Social Computing has been used interchangeably with Enterprise 2.0 or Enterprise Social Applications, however, IBM and Microsoft have created Social Computing research centers and Forrester has started to use the term in describing next generation enterprise collaboration. Social Computing is the use of technology to support sharing of information and enabling collaboration through social networks and to tap into the value of the “Wisdom of Crowds”.

SMBE’s success may be predicated upon the evaluation of Social Computing as part of a tactical internal software initiative. If this is not part of the strategic plan, competition may be right around the corner ready to displace, or implant a significant growth barrier outside SMBE visibility. Not having a tremendous amount of experience in consumer based retail transaction, it appears that the clients are pulling for more value. Regardless of the sales transactional discussions migrating towards commoditization, the clients actual needs exceed their expression. Skilled illumination, and careful discovery reveal client needs which to them are mission critical when cast in the context of a broader vision. Retail visioning of moving boxes places a myopic vision or revenue opportunities particularly in light of client expressed wants needs and desires. The statement often uttered “get out of the box” has a new twist. Our box should not be pulp, but carbon based life form.