Commercial Integrator July 2022 - 49

Finance reporter Ron Insana
kicked things off on April 6
with a probing analysis of
macroeconomic conditions.
Meantime, economic-stimulus eff orts over
the past two years have normalized demand
even as supply remains profoundly constrained.
That has resulted in the two-headed
monster of infl ation and product
shortages, as manifested by cars selling for
thousands of dollars over their sticker price.
Insana spent a great deal of time talking
about expected Federal Reserve monetary-policy
actions intended to combat
infl ation levels we've not seen since 1982.
He expects aggressive hiking of the federal-funds
rate and a shrinking of the Fed's
balance sheet. This means that borrowing
will be more expensive - perhaps
substantially more expensive - and that
could result in less investment and economic
deceleration. Indeed, Insana said
he expects a modest recession in the latter
part of this year or in early 2023. As he put
it, the Fed will use its tools aggressively
until it " breaks something, " at which point
it will reverse course. Although the U.S. is
positioned better than most countries in a
global landscape of supply shortages and
armed confl ict, Insana forecasts a turbulent
ride over the next 12 to 15 months.
Futurecasting
Next up was Scott Amyx, managing partner
at Astor Perkins, who presented a vision of
a technology-driven future. Relying on a
multimedia-heavy presentation, he shared
glimpses of storefronts entirely composed
of LED screens - for example, a Fendi store
commercialintegrator.com
with an exterior of digital signage. As retail
decision-makers (and others) recognize the
power of integrated displays, he said, there
will be ever greater potential to make those
environments AV-infused attractions. And
the appetite for next-generation technology
doesn't stop there. Amyx brought up the
metaverse and the success of virtual concerts,
featuring A-listers like Ariana Grande,
inside the game " Fortnite. " He discussed
holography that doesn't require glasses or
headgear, thus enabling truly accessible,
immersive applications. And he broached
the subject of autonomous vehicles - in particular,
autonomous semis - as a possible
solution to driver shortages and poor quality
of life among long-haul truckers.
The thrust of the keynote was that we're
currently living in a renaissance of true
technological wizardry that has the potential
to meaningfully change people's lives. The
more comfortable that AV integrators are
with the metaverse, holograms and extended
reality, the more opportunity they'll
have to integrate systems and be a trusted
advisor. And that, more than anything, was
Amyx's point: Integrators must embrace
organization-wide consultation to identify
pain points and devise solutions. He recommended
the approach of a " fi reside chat, "
whereby integrators move beyond conferring
with technology managers and, instead,
embrace the role of being a strategic partner
to executive management and everyone
below them.
Breakthrough Collaboration
The consensus among those at Supersummit
was that author Shane Snow delivered the
most informative keynote. From the outset,
he conceded that, oſt en, large groups of
people tend to collaborate ineff ectively and
fail even to be the sum of their parts. In his
view, this is oſt en because the group's thinking
is homogenous, lacking the diff erent
perspectives that, when blended, can bring
the team to heights never before achieved.
As he put it: Two heads are better than one
- but only if those heads think diff erently.
Snow called out cognitive entrenchment,
a term that refers to a person's inability to
conceive of alternate solutions to a problem
once they've identifi ed a solution that they're
comfortable with. That lack of probing, he
argued, can keep a climber from reaching
the summit of the metaphorical mountain.
Snow identifi ed two discrete components
to consider: a team member's perspectives,
which refers to how they perceive and internalize
information, and a team member's
heuristics, which refers to their rule-ofthumb
tactics when solving a problem.
The best teams, Snow said, are composed
of those with diff erent perspectives and
dissimilar heuristics. And he acknowledged
that not every idea might be good - but
even a bad idea could be a catalyst to create
something great. Thus, he said, strong team
leaders instigate debate and invite dissent,
while discouraging personal attacks. They
also admit their mistakes and own up to
JULY 2022 Commercial Integrator 49
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Commercial Integrator July 2022

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