PSA for fellow photographers: Embrace change or be swallowed in the wake of computational photography.
By: Garrett Millaway
Tags: Computational Photography, Photography Business, Cameras, Photography, Photography Marketing

Learning from the AV world, IoT, and the humble techies who install it day in and day out.

I started working with Best Buy in 2013 as a home theater sales employee. At this time, plasma TVs were still a thing, 4K TVs were a budding frontier, sound bars were gaining serious steam in replacing the traditional receiver + speaker/ TV speaker sound solution, and the thought of a smart home was still considered to be widely unobtainable to the masses.

At this time the majority of the clients I interacted were predominantly either Boomers or Xers, and to generalize, had some serious reservations towards progressing technology — many of my interactions would begin with the client stating “I don’t need anything fancy”. The largest obstacle to overcome when it came to selling in home services was almost exclusively price; many clients would openly admit to being completely clueless when it came to the setup of their new products, and most others would fall inline once they were asked “How comfortable are you mounting your TV, programming your remote, running system updates, and connecting your audio devices?” Although I can’t properly cite this statistic as it was from an internal training, I specifically remember being taught that the majority of our clients were using a small fraction of their products capabilities.

Fast forward to today, I’ve been with Best Buy for six and a half years; the majority of which has been spent in a leadership position overseeing our in home installers. Today’s clients are throwing around yesteryear's jargon as casual as Sunday morning’s sweat pants. Just a week ago I had a client ask if they should use an all in one router modem combo they got from their ISP (Internet Service Provider — Yes the client abbreviated this in the conversation), or if they should invest in a smart whole home router system such as Eero. The client then elaborated that they were planning on adding a Sonos wireless speaker system and began to rattle off the growing list of cameras, sensors, locks and various other IoT devices that were already in the home. Lastly, the client asked what type of control options were out there to simplify the operation of their smart ecosystem. Oh, and in case you were wondering this client belonged to the same Boomer generation that previously said “I don’t need anything fancy.”

Although this may be an extreme example of technological proliferation and adaptation, it is not uncommon. If you combine the growing comfort our clients have with technology, and IoT manufacturers making the install, setup, and operation of their devices easier; the need for our technological expertise is rapidly declining. Why would I pay $100 to have someone come setup my router when I could follow simple instructions on an app in my phone? The long answer: Optimal setup vs operational setup, confidence that everything is setup correctly including previously unaccounted for variables, knowledge that if something isn’t setup correctly I’m not responsible for it, one on one time with a Geek, and lastly to save time. The short answer: The Experience.