By Scott Walker
President | CEO

With Waveguide celebrating our 20th anniversary on June 17, I marvel at how far we’ve come as an industry, as a profession and as a company founded out of a spare bedroom in my little house.

I’m reminded of the first AV system design we put out for bid for Emory’s Goizueta Business School. The faculty were adamant they only needed two opaque overhead projectors and one slide projector. That’s it. However, we’ve never seen our role as just order takers, and we saw things moving toward data projection, so we compromised and gave them what they wanted but also designed a projection system to handle computer sources and a document camera. That was cutting edge back in 1996.

More than a thousand projects later, we’re still trying to see the next wave on the horizon and guide our clients on it safely to shore. That’s the role of a true consultant and has been our focus for two decades and counting.

In keeping with the rapid changes in technology, Waveguide too has changed through the years. We’ve chosen our 20th anniversary to reimagine our brand for the next 20 years.

The thing that makes Waveguide unique on planet Earth isn’t that we’re a leader in AV consulting or that we understand technology, it is that we embrace the entire life cycle of our clients’ technology experience. Our new look uses a branded “Lifecycle” to illustrate that technology experience as well as the arc of our own story – from our roots as an AV-only consulting firm to our maturity as a full-service communication technology firm embracing AV, IT, acoustics, software programming and technology management – and how these services blend together in a virtuous cycle. The idea is that now any time someone sees our name, they’re going to be reminded of our unique value proposition and our investment in our clients’ success throughout the life of their technology and beyond.

Those of us in the field know AV no longer means just “audio” and “visual.” It really means global communications, anywhere, anytime, from any device. At Waveguide, we don’t do many “one-and-done” projects anymore. More and more of our Fortune 1,000 clients are seeing the value in technology master planning and standardization, so instead, we look at each project as part of a larger network of communications for our clients. Technology master planning that encompasses not just technology, but also people, process, infrastructure and facilities, allows the owner to see the economies of scale associated with enterprise-wide standardization. A well-crafted master plan that includes standardized design and technology management elevates our relationship with the owner to a strategic partnership.

So we’re 20 something now. Older. Wiser. But not stodgy or too set in our ways. It’s onward and upward. Let’s go imagine the future together.