Archive for September, 2008

By Ron Simonson, President and CEO, CCI Solutions

If you’ve ever had the privilege to see a professional sporting event, or to watch a major celebrity perform in concert, you know that there’s nothing more aggravating than spending big-bucks on a ticket to attend an event that you never actually get to hear. Guess what? During my career I’ve attended events at colleges and minor league stadiums that have had marvelous sound systems, and I have also had the regrettable pleasure of attending events at so called “first-class” venues where the sound systems seemed like something from generations past. The good news is that the sponsors of most of these events and concerts are finally starting to catch on! That’s why so many stadiums have invested in the latest sound system technology-to ensure that people just like you are able to enjoy the show they came to see!

Football fans, basketball fans, and anyone that has ever tried to watch the halftime show at the Super Bowl understand how important world-class sound systems are to the quality of the contemporary sporting event experience.

 Good arena and stadium audio technology has to:

• Bring thunderous sound to the ears of the listeners sitting up in the nosebleed section-they deserve to enjoy the show too!
• Have musical impact that rivals the best home theater systems, only to tens of thousands of fans all at the same time.
• Provide clear, impactful and intelligible speech to every seat in the arena, ballpark or stadium.  If you need to ask your seatmate what the announer said 20 times a game, then you really are not enjoying yourself.  Let team management know it is time for them to maintain or upgrade their sound system!

How do you pick great stadium technology? If you’re the person in charge of making the decisions when the time comes to replace and/or upgrade the stadium sound system technology in your stadium, there are a couple of things you can look for to make sure you’re getting high quality technology at a reasonable price. First and foremost, make sure the company you are buying from has a good reputation. The selected vendor should have acoustical engineers and consultants capable of helping you and your architects envision the right solution from the get go. Moreover, they should be licensed contractors who can handle the design-build process and see it through to the finish line. Lastly, the selected vendor shouldn’t be cutting their teeth on your project. Make sure they have plenty of referencable projects under their belt.

Finally, be sure their prices measure up. You get what you pay for, but there’s no reason to break the bank on your stadium sound system. A world-class design-build contractor will provide you with cost-plus contracts and GMP (guaranteed maximum price) contracts to help you manage your costs.  With a little bit of time, effort, and research you should be able to find a high quality stadium sound system that is well within your budget and that will allow you to enjoy  the best in audio and video technology available on the market for your stadium sound.

By Ron Simonson, President and CEO, CCI Solutions

Put simply, we believe other than the presence of the Lord, and the soundness of the doctrine and theology being communicated, nothing can impact worship like improving the audio and visual experiences for your congregation.  CCI Solutions has been involved in the design and installation of professional audio and video solutions for worship facilities for more than 35 years. We have helped small local churches with their first installation, assisted large churches like Saddleback church move into new facilities with state of the art presentation capabilites, and have gone on the road touring with Christian artists like Lincoln Brewster insuring the best worship experience possible.  This all goes to say that, from my perspective, there’s nothing that touches the heart like the sound of worship. The wide variety of new technology available for church sound systems makes it easy than ever for your congregation to express praise and worship. Lift your ministry up with a new church sound system.

What makes a good church sound system? I grew up in a small church where the church sound system was tucked away in a closet off to the side of the sanctuary.  Technology has come a long way since those days, as most of you know.  There are so many choices, and so much good gear, that there are literally hundreds of options available for your church. The challenge now is, it may be good gear, but is the right gear?  When you’re sitting down trying to decide what to look for in your new church sound system, keep the following in mind:

• The Goals of Your Ministry: Your ministry goals are the first and most important piece of information in designing media systems that will support your ministry goals.  Every church body has a mission and giftings to fulfill that mission.  Your technical staff and technology guide (consultant or design-build contractor) must clearly understand that mission and those giftings or you will end up with a compromised system.
• The Size of Your Congregation: If you have a large building, and a large congregation, you’re going to have a great deal to keep in mind when making decisions regarding your church’s sound system. You’re going to want to ensure that you have a speaker system that provides clear, intelligible sound to every difficult corner of the room.  At the same time, the speaker system must handle concerts and contemporary praise and worship music.  Not easy in a large room.  Many sound systems are designed for loud concerts and music.  They sound pretty good for that use, too.  But they don’t give you the clarity you must have to provide clear, intelligible sound to every seat.  There are only a very few choices and designs that do both.
• The capability of your building to support your new church sound system: Many of the churches in the country date back decades or even centuries, and if that is the case you may very well find yourself in a building that can’t support the electrical requirements of a contemporary church sound system. It’s important before you sign on the dotted line that you ensure your building can support the sound system that you need!  A professional technology guide will know how to make this determination before you commit.
• What your sound system is going to be used for: Do you only use your church sound system for Sunday morning services? Will there be singing? Drums and guitars place higher demands on a church sound system than simple singing. What about theater?

Not all church sound systems are created alike.  My advice?  Partner with a technology guide such as a consultant or design-build AV contractor to you to determine which design is going to be best suited for your church. Acoustics, lighting, audio, and video all need to be optimized to provide the best worship experience while minimizing investment costs. Lift your ministry up with the right sound system and watch your ministry grow and multiply.

By Ron Simonson, President and CEO, CCI Solutions

Welcome to the CCI Solutions Blog…We have always highly valued the input of our stakeholders, and therefore felt it appropriate to both highlight some of the recent corporate changes (i.e. this Blog), as well as some of the upcoming changes you’ll be seeing in the weeks and months ahead. We couldn’t think of a better forum to communicate this message than via this inaugural blog post…

Why the changes you ask? It is important for you to understand that all the current and pending corporate changes are in direct response to your feedback and input. The simple truth of the matter is that you have spoken, and unlike many service providers in the market place, we have listened. In the text that follows, we’ll not only provide a summary of some of the more noticeable changes, but also an analysis of what those changes mean to you:

• Brand Engineering: The bottom line is that while we haven’t rebranded in the technical sense, we have in fact updated our brand to more closely reflect our attitude, culture, and brand promise. The same level of creativity, expertise, service, and certainty of execution you’ve come to expect from CCI Solutions in the past will not only be carried forward, but it will be enhanced. While we know that you’ve set the chinning bar high in terms of your expectations, it is important for you to know that we’ve set it even higher for ourselves.
• An Explanation of Our Tag Line: “Be Seen. Be Heard.” Our products and services produce the sights and sounds experienced by your audience. We enjoy the collaborative nature of our client relationships, and the correlation between our collective efforts to the quality of the sights and sounds experienced by your audience through the products and solutions we deliver. Put simply, we allow you to be seen and be heard in a fashion that reflects well upon your organization and its brand.
• Complete Turnkey Solutions: While our value propositions are many in number, perhaps our greatest value proposition continues to be CCI’s unique ability to meet the entire universe of professional audio and video needs of our clients. Our Systems Group works with corporate, educational, and worship facilities, Our Retail Group sells the best Gear and Media products in the market.
• The CCI Solutions Website: In the coming weeks you’ll notice the launch of a redesigned  CCIwebsite. It will contain new features and upgrades which are meant to add value to your interactions with our company. Among other items, you’ll find the ability to receive enhanced support, see the benefits of improved usability, and have more interactive communication via our blog. In the weeks and months that follow we will be rolling out more tool-sets to continue our focus on improving your customer experience with CCI Solutons.
• Our Updated Catalogues: You have no doubt noticed that we’ve updated the CCI Catalog with a new design, and the best selection of audio, lighting, media, and video products in the marketplace. Great pricing + Great Selection + Great Service = a great catalogue!

We hope the information contained in this post has been useful and we welcome your comments and feedback as always…