Creating Spaces That Connect People With AV and Robotics (Dawn Cagliano, IVCi)

Speaker A: Welcome to the Turn One Studio podcast. I'm, um, Elliot Custodio with Turn One Studio, and here we sit with local business professionals. Today's guest, Dawn Cagliano from ivci. Welcome.

Speaker B: Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here.

Speaker A: So happy to have you here. We've spoken before at live in an event, but I wanted to have you back because we never really took a deep dive in what IBCI does.

Speaker B: Thank you.

Speaker A: What do you do?

Speaker B: Well, at ivci, we create spaces that connect people. So, uh, we do that through integrated audio visual solutions. So that can be an immersive boardroom, a video conferencing room, digital signage, video walls, and we handle that from design to installation to day two support.

Speaker A: That's cool. So if I'm understanding correctly, that's a nice combination of behind the scenes usage as well as public.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: I'm gonna jump right to this. What was one of the coolest projects you guys worked on?

Speaker B: There's so many. So when you think about like higher education. Right. So it's cool to work on those projects because you know that it's like impacting the future. Right. So it's giving that domino effect meaningful. Yeah, exactly. So I always think about the use case behind what we're doing. Not just like, wow, that's cool to look at, but what is it actually being used for? So if a space is being used to like shape the minds of the future, to me that's the coolest thing. But, uh, then there's also some high profile stuff. So if you go to the high line at, uh, Hudson Yards, you could see some of our work there. Large video wall and display. If you get your exercise in and walk the path there, you'll be able to see it, really. And then the Houses of worship is beautiful. You know, when you look at some of that work that we do, um, so I can't pick one.

Speaker A: Uh, so Houses of Worship, is that less promotional and more just broadcasting what's going on on the altar?

Speaker B: Yes. So especially during COVID Right. It became very big to stream services. Uh, so we found ourselves getting into a lot of that work at that time and it's just continued since then.

Speaker A: Very cool. Is that where the company started with that type of technology?

Speaker B: Yeah, so we've always been an audio visual integrator. Uh, so when I start, the company's been in business for 30 years. I started with the company about 20 years ago, uh, in the managed services space.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: And it's really interesting when you look back, uh, what I was doing 20 years ago versus today. So much of it has changed. Like my job doesn't even exist anymore. What I did 20 years ago, because technology has come such a long way, but we've always been in the user experience in an integrated space.

Speaker A: Okay, so back. So that's probably 1995. Ish.

Speaker B: Uh, when we started. Yes, yes. When we were founded.

Speaker A: So what did things look like then?

Speaker B: So back then, interoperability didn't exist. And what I mean by that is if I don't want to bore everybody out there, but I think they'll find it interesting.

Speaker A: I certainly do.

Speaker B: So right now, everybody's just used to. If you have a webcam, you can connect with each other. That was not the case in the 90s, so it depended on what you were connecting on. So were you on an H323 connection versus ISDN line? That's where IVCI came into play.

Speaker A: ISDN. I haven't heard that in ages.

Speaker B: I'm aging myself. I'm sorry.

Speaker A: I was talking to someone the other day about T1 lines. Yes.

Speaker B: Actually, I was a project manager and that was one of my jobs was to install T1 lines at our customer applications that were making the transit. So back then they weren't able to call each other. Right. So if you had one customer who was isdn, another customer who wasn't, they weren't able to just make a video connection. There needed to be a bridge or what's called an mcu, a multi conferencing unit in between. And that's what IVCI would host and make those connections. It was a very manual process. I was a video operator. So literally making the connections, uh, on the back end, uh, and then I would do like on screen video, you know, welcome to your conference. And do all the things today that come so naturally to people, muting and unmuting, framing their microphones for them. Now AI does that with automatic camera tracking. So it's just so amazing to see how far that technology has come. But IBCI has always been rooted in the user experience in an integrated space.

Speaker A: It's gonna sound naive, but I didn't realize that we had video capability like that back in the 90s. When I think of that time, I was excited to have a 14.4baud modem. So it wasn't so much about matching bandwidth. There were other things that prevented that. That direct connection.

Speaker B: Yeah, well, that was also a part of it too, having the right bandwidth. So, um, I will say that back then, all of our clients were Fortune 500 clients. Now we're seeing every business has video conferencing. So it's much more accessible than it was in the past, and it's a lot more affordable than it was in the past as well.

Speaker A: Wow. Okay.

Speaker B: Now you just need an Internet connection. You don't even need a dedicated network.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. So you said you were in the managed services space. Was that specifically to the video stuff, or were you guys also in it,

Speaker B: like, traditional it specific to video? It was, yes. We've always been true to the video environment.

Speaker A: Very cool. Jumping to Covid, as you mentioned, Covid. M. Um, what were those conversations like? Did you. Was there a lot of. I feel like I'm leading the witness with this question. Um, all right, let me frame this this way. In my experience leading up to Covid, there were certain technologies that people were aware that were a thing. It was there, but they didn't feel it applied to them. Then Covid happened, and it applied to them. Especially with things remote. Did you find that experience to be similar? Were people reaching out to you for these solutions, or did you still have to convince them, hey, this is how you get through this time?

Speaker B: No, we didn't have to convince anyone. I think everyone pretty naturally jumped onto all of the different platforms. Um, but it was really about creating standardization. It was kind of coming out of COVID because now you have users who are on Zoom, you have users who are on Skype, you have users who are on Microsoft Teams, webex teams, all these different platforms. What are you going to be choosing as your standard? Are you going to have a standard? What is your video strategy going forward and helping in a consultative nature of kind of guide that. But then also, I think what's really relevant post Covid is all the return to Office mandates. Right? So I said earlier, obviously, I create spaces that connect people. So what does that really mean? Right. So there's the traditional sense of it, Right? So there's two people who are two different locations who get on a video call together. That's creating a space that connects people. That's the obvious one.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: But then when you're asking all of your employees to come back to the office, what are they coming back to? Because I'm sure you've seen, like, the memes and the jokes, like, they made me come back to the office to sit in my cubicle on a Zoom. So what kind of space have you created for the collaboration? Because ultimately, why did you bring them back? You want collaboration, right?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So do you have spaces that enable collaboration? Is it easy to present content when you're in a room with someone? Is it easy if you decide you need to add someone to the conversation who maybe is not in that physical location, to add them in without needing it support? Does the room support. Support collaboration? So have you created a physical space that helps connect people? And then the third sense of it is, you know, think about digital signage, right? And the branding that's on that digital signage. Somebody's walking past it. Are you making a connection with that person? Are you connecting the brand to the person through that digital signage? And now with AI, you know, it can know who you are and so

Speaker A: are you helping them with the content on that signage as well?

Speaker B: We do have partners that we work with for the content, but we focus on the technology with the right technology for the space, uh, and making sure that it's designed in a manner to create that connection.

Speaker A: That's cool.

Speaker B: Creating spaces that connect people. Creating spaces that connect people.

Speaker A: So I would imagine a lot of the companies you work with have remote offices.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: So, um, when it comes to. You mentioned Zoom teams, there are a lot of those standards.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: Do you have a IVCI proprietary solution?

Speaker B: No.

Speaker A: You don't?

Speaker B: No, we don't. We did, um, many, many years ago, but before all of the others came out. Um, it's funny, I was actually just telling Andrea about that. Um, we did, um, but now we go with partners through Microsoft and Zoom, uh, and WebEx as well.

Speaker A: Are you finding one? I know this is a weird question because what does better mean? But are you finding one better to recommend than another one that's more secure, one that's more feature rich, one that's easier to adopt?

Speaker B: Uh, you know, it really depends on the use case.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: Um, and that's something that is kind of what I consider to be one of the differentiators between IVCI and our competitors. We don't lead with the technology, we don't lead with a platform. So it's really about understanding how you're going to be using it, how your end users are going to be using it, what success looks like in your environment, and then choosing the platform and the technology that best matches that.

Speaker A: Smart.

Speaker B: Thank you.

Speaker A: Last time, well, both times I was at your facility, I was greeted by a robot.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: What is the robot about?

Speaker B: So we've been very lucky that our founder and our CEO, Bob Stewart Swing, he's always been a very forward thinking person. So robots were his idea. And it might sound like, wow, how do you make the connection between robots and audiovisual. Right. But when you think about it in both worlds, you have to understand the use case. How are users going to be using this technology? And then ultimately it needs to be programmed and then it needs to be supported. Day 2 so the life cycles are identical from the robot world to the AV world. And to put it even simpler, I like to say just think of it as mobile digital signage. Right. Because our robots have the LED screen on their bellies.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Silly to call it the belly. I know, but you could think of it that way as well. You know, when you think about when you walk into a skyscraper in Manhattan, you could use it for wayfinding. You know, take me to Don Cagliano's office.

Speaker A: Is that how you're using it now, as like a receptionist?

Speaker B: Yeah. So people are using it as receptionists. Uh, we've seen it used a lot in hotels for delivery. Um, we see it used in large corporations for wayfinding. Also food delivery into the conference room. So a complement to the conference room. Um, but also we actually, uh, just partnered with a golf range, uh, that's using it. It's a 80, I think it's called 80 Bays. 80, whatever they call it at a golf range, 80 Bays. I think it is, um, 80. What is it called, like a driving range? Yeah, driving.

Speaker A: So it's not like the golf bar cart going.

Speaker B: No, no, no, no. So it is, it's delivering, um, drinks and meals to the people, but also it has the digital signage. So. So now in a consumer environment, you could actually sell ad space.

Speaker A: Can you Apple pay off that belly?

Speaker B: Say you can do any. Yeah, everything's customizable. Yeah. So you could pay, you could speak to it, uh, you can give it commands. And as you met the one at our office, he likes to show people around the shop off a little bit, do his little dance.

Speaker A: Is it a he?

Speaker B: It is.

Speaker A: He's very helpful. So from a business use case, um, perspective, is the robot a surrogate for additional personnel? Are they working with the same personnel and just giving them, um. What's the word I'm looking for?

Speaker B: Um, it's not replacing people in the use cases that we've seen. What it's allowing for is for people to work on more meaningful work, to take away some of, um, the more manual tasks for that.

Speaker A: To deliver a drink to a conference room is taking you away from something more meaningful.

Speaker B: M. Yeah, exactly. And when you think about the healthcare industry, because we're big in the healthcare industry as well, so nursing There's a huge problem in the nursing field with nurses being burned out. They're not having enough, um, manpower. So think about the things that they're doing. The most important thing for them is to be in front of the patient, not to be delivering samples to the lab. And all the things that happen behind the scenes that you don't even know are happening, you want them with the patient. So anything we can do behind the scenes to take away that manual work for them, it's not replacing them by any means, uh, but it's allowing them to work on more meaningful things.

Speaker A: You know, I see. Specifically with the healthcare point, I see the connection between digital signage, video conferencing, and robotics. Because if you're in, if that's a client of yours and you're already in that, I don't want to say it's an easy upsell, but it's an adjacency to what you're doing already.

Speaker B: Absolutely, absolutely. Especially when you're thinking about digital signage. Right.

Speaker A: The customer wants a lot of that in hospitals.

Speaker B: Right, right. And the customer wants all this digital signage. Well, now, maybe they don't have the budget for it. All right, well, what if you do half of that and then you have the robot walking around with the digital signage to deliver your message to the various different places that you were planning to put that digital signage before? So, like I said earlier, the mobile digital signage aspect of it as well.

Speaker A: Interesting. So with robotics in general, since you guys are pretty plugged in, where do you see this going?

Speaker B: Well, I've been to some events recently, some industry events, and they said the biggest, uh, impact they see it having is in healthcare. Um, and what they were talking about were robots that act as companions for patients with dementia. Which just blew my mind. When you think about the impact that that can have on the quality of life. Even though it is a robot. Just the impact that can make on quality of life is really mind blowing when you think about that.

Speaker A: That's interesting. Does that mean more of a push towards, um, if this is the right word, the humanoid style robot.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. But also, we've seen healthcare systems. They're also using the robot to help with manual labor as well. If a patient falls out of bed and the nurse is alone on shift that night and she can't get a patient back into bed, there's actually a robot that will assist. It doesn't look like a humanoid robot. It's more of a, um, forklifty type. Yeah. Like logistics kind of robot. But to assist her in getting the patient back into the bed. Him or her.

Speaker A: That's incredible.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So robots are pretty cool these days. So, uh, it's advancing very quickly.

Speaker A: So is your team able to, from a, um, management services perspective, remotely manage the robotic team?

Speaker B: Yep, we could remotely manage them, monitor them. We also offer a full proactive monitoring service, and that's for all devices, not just robots as well, because that's been a big part of the customer experience, making sure that the technology is working the way it's supposed to be working. So you don't want to find out that the display is down in a room or touch panel is down in a room when the president of the company is walking in to use it. Right. That's not when you want to find out. You want to find out when it happens at 3:00am, um, because the cleaning person knocked out the cord and you want it fixed before then. So we offer proactive monitoring service 247365 as well.

Speaker A: So you could let them know that the cord came out before they were done?

Speaker B: Yes, we could let, um, them know. Or in some of our client cases, we actually have on site staffing where, uh, we actually staff employees full time. So we would notify our own team and our own team would take care of it before anyone is impacted. That's the proactive side of our service where you never even know that there was a problem. But if there is, we also have our help desk as well. You can call in. And luckily on Long island, we offer same day service, uh, so we can get there in a jiffy. Because as you know, when technology fails, everything comes to a halt.

Speaker A: Everyone gets stressed.

Speaker B: Yes, yes, everyone gets stressed out.

Speaker A: You guys operate nationally, though?

Speaker B: Yep, we operate nationally. We are headquartered here on Long island, but we do operate nationally.

Speaker A: Excellent. How did you get involved in this?

Speaker B: Uh, that's a good question, actually. Before IVCI, like I said, I've been there for 20 years. Um, so prior to that, obviously I was in grade school.

Speaker A: Of course.

Speaker B: I'm just kidding. Prior to that, I was actually managing a national call center.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: Um, and what I found challenging at the call center was so I went from an environment where I was dealing with customers face to face, and then I went to manage the call center. And I found it was difficult to get the agents to really react with the appropriate level of urgency or even hold, like, the empathy that you would expect. Uh, and I realized it was because they're lacking that face to face connection, that meaningful connection. So that led me to look into video I, uh, said, you know, if they could just see the client, they would feel differently. So that I started exploring video conferencing. That led me to ivci and I guess, as they say, the rest is history.

Speaker A: Wow, that's awesome.

Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you. It's been a fun ride, I would imagine.

Speaker A: So where do you want to see this company go? What's next for you guys?

Speaker B: Well, I'm really, really excited with our current results in regards to customer experience. So last year was the first year we achieved a 100 NPS. So. I know, you know. Yeah, I know you know what that is. Um, you know, net promoter score. M. So we are very, very focused on our user experience and we've done little things over the years and we've seen the impact year over year over year. So I'm just so excited to see where we can take it next.

Speaker A: What are such things that people don't typically think about to do well in the eyes of the customer?

Speaker B: Okay, so everybody knows survey your customers, right? That's customer service 101. So we've always surveyed our customers, but we like really survey our customers. So after a service ticket is closed, they get a survey. After a project is closed, they get a survey. And that was working for us for a couple of years.

Speaker A: Um, increasing participation. Wayne?

Speaker B: Yeah, the participation wasn't always what? Especially cause we have so many repeat clients. So like, alright, how many times can I tell you everything's fine?

Speaker A: Yeah, I'm still.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. So it got kind of stale for me after a while. So I'm like, all right, I need to make more of that connection with people. Um, so I actually call every one of our customers, uh, that has, uh, one of our employees on site every week. Um, so if you have IVCI boots on your carpet, I'm calling you. Just checking in.

Speaker A: You yourself.

Speaker B: I myself call every single customer. And I have found that that has made such a difference for me because sometimes it's not what people say, it's how they say it. Right. So. Hi, this is Duane from ibci. I'm just calling to make sure that everything's going okay. I know. I have my team on site for the installation. Sometimes. Yeah, everything's great. Thank you so much for calling. Sometimes it's, yeah, everything's great. It's like, talk to me.

Speaker A: You know, you would miss that nuance in an email.

Speaker B: Yeah, well, everything's going fine. But, you know, we have a really big meeting on Monday and it doesn't look like they're gonna get Ready on time. All right, let me dig into this for you. And I never would have got that in an email. Sure. Not only that, you're not getting that feedback until the end of the project cycle. That's too late. At that point, if something's gone wrong, I need to know right now if something's going wrong. So I'll do that once a week. I also like to get out, uh, at least once a week as well, and visit a client on site, see the team. Um, I think it's very important to still have that one on one.

Speaker A: Yeah, for sure.

Speaker B: And we're at a size where we can still do that. And so I'm excited to see how we can keep pushing the limit in that. But also robust is very exciting as well. Right. So I'm equally excited about that. But the customer service aspect of it, to me, I feel we are setting the bar in our industry. So there's a lot of pressure. Right. Like, once you've set that bar, now you have to be that trendsetter. So I'm like, all right, what am I gonna do next? So I'm just as curious as you are as what I'm gonna do next, but it's gonna be something that's fantastic.

Speaker A: So I'm surprised to hear that you make those calls yourself. Cause I know you're very busy, and I know you recently became a board member at the hiali. So how did that come to be?

Speaker B: I did. So, you know, we've been members of the HIALI for a long time. They're, uh, so such a great advocate for businesses on Long Island. And as a member, we saw so many benefits. So we just started getting more and more involved. We actually applied, uh, for the Business Achievement Award, uh, I think about two years ago, and we did win. So just going. Thank you. Going through that process, I was just so impressed with how seriously they took it. And then looking at the competitors that I were up against, I was just so impressed by them. Some of them we're actually doing business with today. Just because I was so impressed by it. So I got to know Terry more, and when she asked me to be a part of it, it was so such an honor. Uh, everything they're doing is just so impactful to the Long island business community. A lot of people don't realize it, but this is the second largest innovation industrial park in America.

Speaker A: Isn't that crazy? Right in our backyard?

Speaker B: I know. $13 billion a year coming out of here. People better listen to our voice. So that's been really great. I'm also, um, in my own industry. I serve on the board of the nsci, uh, Education foundation and that's dedicated towards attracting new talent to the AV industry. Because a lot of young people coming out of school don't even realize that the AV industry exists.

Speaker A: Is that college level or high school level?

Speaker B: High school level, yeah, high school level and college level. We actually had a high school tour come through, uh, in the summers and they'll stop by and the kids come in and we show them, you know, autocad, rack building, things of that nature and they're like, wow, I can do this without going to college. And not that we're promoting that, but yes, you absolutely can do this without going to college. So that's been really rewarding. Yeah, it's been really rewarding as well. Just to, you, uh, know, shine some light on our industry.

Speaker A: Fantastic. So you've been at this for a while. What is a significant or impactful career moment you can share?

Speaker B: Well, one that sticks out and still stresses me out to this day when I think about it. Um, I was in a competitive environment, um, bidding for a job. Um, so the competitors in the AV space is pretty interesting. Um, most of the time when we find ourselves in a competitive space, it's up against billion dollar worldwide companies. So, uh, there are some AV companies that are our size as well. But for some reason we typically find ourselves up against these big companies which uh, is flattering because that tells us that we're doing the same level of quality.

Speaker A: That's where you want to be.

Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Uh, so there was a very big job at the time. It was the biggest job our company was trying to secure. And the customer invited the top three finalists to their site to come and pitch services. And I, uh, was in Manhattan and I walked into the foyer and they put me in a waiting room. And I was in a waiting room with the number one and number two size wise AV companies in the world. Stressful billion dollar companies. I wanted to die in that moment. If my team wasn't with me, I probably would have walked right out. I was already thinking of what excuses can I make up to leave. This is terrible. So I was panicking. What am I gonna do? What am I gonna say? So of course I get called in first. So I go in front, there's a whole panel about 20 end user clients there and I just told the truth. Uh, I call it kind of like my 8 mile moment. I was like, listen, I'm going to tell you everything that they're going to say about me before they come in here, they're going to tell you they have 500 technicians and that I have 30. That's true. But I've looked at your project plan, and you're never going to need more than five at any given time. So let's get beyond that. We're all large enough to serve on this project. The difference is IVCI is small enough to care, so we can provide you that boutique service. You can call me on a Sunday if you're having a problem, and I'm going to pick up my phone and I'm going to listen and I'm going to help. So it's kind of that large enough to serve, small enough to care mentality. It was literally born in that foyer that day where I really tried to lean in into what IVCI is and the value that we bring our clients that our bigger competitors just simply cannot do.

Speaker A: That's amazing.

Speaker B: It was stressful, but we won.

Speaker A: It was the moment you learned from.

Speaker B: Yes, it was the moment we learned from and we were awarded the job. And since that day, that's kind of become our unofficial motto. Large enough to serve, small enough to care.

Speaker A: Fantastic. Congrats.

Speaker B: Thank you very much.

Speaker A: All right, most importantly, what do you like to do for fun?

Speaker B: I mean, what's not fun about av, you know?

Speaker A: All right. It was nice having you guys here.

Speaker B: I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Well, I'm a hockey mom.

Speaker A: A hockey mom?

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: I'm a hockey mom, so I have a 7 year old who's on a deck team and a nice team, so that keeps me busy. But it's funny because you could never leave AV behind. So whether I'm at his hockey game or at my daughter's basketball game, you know, I'm looking up at the scoreboard like, I wonder what the pixel pitch is on m that display or. There's so many cool things we could do in this room. You know, even here, I'm like, we could put a digital little sign, right? That's right. You know, you're always looking for anything

Speaker A: you never stop thinking about.

Speaker B: Never stop thinking about. Because it's fun.

Speaker A: Yeah. That's okay. So you're a hockey mom, but nothing for you personally? I mean, any hobbies or.

Speaker B: I'm a big Islander fan, so I enjoy cheering on the Islanders. Next season's gonna be our season.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: Yeah. Uh, the sports world has me consumed with my kids.

Speaker A: That's very cool. That's very cool. Well, thanks for coming by. Uh, the show. I really appreciate this.

Speaker B: Thank you. I really appreciate it as well. It was so nice sitting down with you.

Speaker A: Likewise. Thank you.

Speaker B: Thank you.