Libsyn Directory

AV SuperFriends: Off the Rails - Somebody has to touch it at some point

Release Date: 08/25/2025

AV SuperFriends: Off the Rails - I don't vacuum my carpet

AV SuperFriends

Recorded April 10, 2026 In this episode, the goon squad takes a swing at the AI gold rush, the made-up drama of “AV-over-IP 2.0,” and the growing industry tradition of rebranding the same old nonsense with shinier buzzwords. If you’ve ever wondered whether cloud creep, interoperability promises, and subscription pricing are solving real problems or just creating newer, dumber ones, this one’s for you. Then the panel gets into one of higher ed AV’s favorite recurring fights: why everyone thinks classroom tech should cost about $600, why “just throw a TV on the wall” is never the...

AV SuperFriends: On Topic - It's functioning but not fully functional

AV SuperFriends

Recorded March 13, 2026 This episode of On Topic tackles “Spring cleaning” by focusing less on tidy closets and more on the grime higher ed AV teams create for themselves. The panel trades stories about delayed refreshes, inherited programming messes, legacy systems that refuse to die, rushed project deadlines, and the temporary fixes that somehow become permanent. Before you get clean, revel in the filth… It’s a funny, brutally honest look at technical debt, bad design choices, and the institutional rot that keeps old problems hanging around far longer than they should. If your campus...

AV SuperFriends: Off the Rails - AV Network Security (There's no such thing as an island)

AV SuperFriends

Recorded March 20, 2026 In this episode, the panel tackles one of the most overdue conversations in higher ed: AV network security. The regular panel is joined by the founding members of AV Trust, Doug Schaefer, Colin Birney, and Frank Padikkala. The news segment focuses on cybersecurity education pipelines, exploring how earlier hands-on exposure and employer partnerships could help build a more prepared workforce for technical fields. The main segment discusses the newly launched AV Trust initiative and the broader challenge of securing AV systems that increasingly live on shared...

AV SuperFriends: Off the Rails - BDubs Active Learning Room

AV SuperFriends

Recorded March 6, 2026 In this episode of Off the Rails, the panel opens with a conversation about AV Trust and what it means for cybersecurity, standards, and the growing expectation that AV systems have to be treated like serious networked technology, not mysterious boxes that somehow get a pass. Join us on March 20 when we’ll have the whole team from AV Trust on the show to talk network security. From there, the crew turns to a much deeper discussion on design drawings and schematics. Where different designers start, how they think through a system, what belongs on a drawing, and how...

AV SuperFriends: Off the Rails - I'm the only Eric

AV SuperFriends

Recorded February 20, 2026 The panel this week is full of guest voices. The news segment examines AI-driven collaboration tools, particularly automatic recordings and transcripts, and the governance risks they introduce. The focus isn’t hype, but ownership, confidentiality, consent, and what happens when institutional policy lags behind platform features. Then the panel explores storytelling as a leadership skill. The discussion centers on intentional framing, timing, and how AV professionals can better communicate impact to stakeholders beyond technical specifications. The final...

AV SuperFriends: On Topic - The Ten Suggestions

AV SuperFriends

Recorded February 13, 2026 It’s March (yes, March– deal with it), the AV SuperFriends gather to lay down the law… higher ed AV law, that is. This month’s On Topic tackles the Top Ten Commandments of AV: the rules you should follow, the ones you sometimes break, and the ones you pretend you’ve always believed in. From protecting audio at all costs and designing for serviceability, to avoiding 4K hype, over-automation, USB abuse, and unlabeled cables, the panel debates what actually matters when building and supporting campus systems. It’s a fast-moving mix of standards, safety...

AV SuperFriends: Off the Rails - Every now and then I stupid my way into smart

AV SuperFriends

Recorded February 6, 2026 ISE season is in full swing, and while much of the AV world is busy chasing booth demos and press releases from Europe, the AV SuperFriends are back doing what they do best: cutting through the hype. In this episode, the panel digs into the latest ISE announcements and trends, separating what’s genuinely useful for higher ed from what looks great under trade-show lighting but falls apart in real classrooms. A major thread of the conversation focuses on rethinking camera deployments in teaching and meeting spaces. The crew challenges the default “one camera at the...

AV SuperFriends: On Topic - If it happened last year, you can ignore it

AV SuperFriends

Recorded January 16, 2026 In this episode of On Topic, the panel leans hard into the “Groundhog Day” reality of higher ed AV, where every semester feels like a rerun of the last one. From the same classrooms and support tickets to the same mysterious $7 HDMI cable failures, the panel reflects on why our work so often feels stuck on repeat, even as we insist “this time it’ll be different.” With their usual mix of sarcasm, experience, and self-awareness, they review the projects, services, and processes that keep coming back year after year… sometimes for good reasons, sometimes...

AV SuperFriends: Off the Rails - I’m a psychologist, but I’m not YOUR psychologist

AV SuperFriends

Recorded January 23, 2026 In this episode, the panel looks into the growing disconnect between AI hype and the realities of higher-ed operations. As campuses spin up task forces and strategy decks, the people closest to the work are still trying to explain that real progress comes from solid processes, clean data, and systems that actually integrate, not shiny tools bolted on top of chaos. The conversation drifts (on purpose) through buzzwords, half-baked pilots, and the familiar frustration of being asked to support technologies that skipped the fundamentals. Along the way, the panel brings a...

AV SuperFriends: Off the Rails - Unauthorized Digital Twin

AV SuperFriends

Recorded January 9, 2026 It’s mid-January, and we kick off the first full show of the year with news from CES nonsense, reviewing what consumer tech trends might actually sneak into higher-ed AV and which ones should stay in Las Vegas forever. That quickly turns into an AI-heavy conversation covering lecture capture anxiety, faculty concerns, digital avatars, and synthetic presenters. Then we dig into what happens when trust in a manufacturer, platform, or product is broken, whether that trust can ever truly be rebuilt, and how past experiences shape long-term decisions around standards,...

More Episodes

Recorded August 22, 2025

We kick things off with the big news of the week: AOL finally pulling the plug on dial-up internet. Yes, it was somehow still a thing. Cue the nostalgia, sound effects, and plenty of snark.

From there, we debate the future of AVoIP. Is it the solution for everything, just another tool in the quiver, or the next technology destined to quietly fade away? Expect strong opinions, clashing perspectives, and a few surprising alliances you didn’t see coming.

We also launch a brand-new segment: Weekly Rivalry. Our first matchup? A non-rivalry between Iowa State and UNLV, brought to life with sports-style commentary, AV smack talk, and behind-the-scenes looks at how each campus tackles classroom tech, standardization, and those weird spaces nobody talks about.

Topics this week include: