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Podcasts
Leadership Lessons From the Military to Business: A Conversation with Chris Gore
Chris Gore grew up on a council estate in Liverpool. Oldest of four boys. Father was an alcoholic who left when Chris was twelve. No GCSEs. No job prospects. At sixteen he looked at the path he was on and decided to join the army. They put him through some tests and discovered he had more brain than he had been given the opportunity to use. He spent thirteen years in the military. Then he left, moved to London, and founded SPOR Group.
SPOR Group
Aug 267 min read
From Council Estate to £10M AV Company: The SPOR Group Story
The version of this story that gets told at industry events is the one that starts at the first £800,000 deal. This is the version that starts earlier, in Liverpool, where there was no father figure, no mentor, no business background and no idea how to spell the word entrepreneurship.
Chris Gore
Jul 26 min read
This Is How You Deploy Useful AI in Your Workplace
The four-day week trials have run. The data is largely positive. Productivity holds or improves. Staff wellbeing improves. Retention improves. The case for it as a concept is reasonably well established at this point. The question that gets far less attention is a practical one: is the office actually capable of supporting it?
Chris Gore
May 185 min read
Projector vs Display for Meeting Rooms: Which Should You Choose?
Projector vs display is one of the oldest debates in meeting room design, and the honest answer has changed over the last few years. For most standard rooms, a commercial display is now the better choice, but projectors still win in some spaces. If you are specifying a small room, our guide to the best projector for a small meeting room covers that side in detail, and this article helps you decide which route to take in the first place.
Chris Gore
2 days ago4 min read
Reception and Lobby AV: The First Meeting Room Nobody Thinks About
Reception and lobby AV is the first thing every client, candidate and visitor experiences, and it is almost always an afterthought. Companies spend heavily on boardrooms and then greet visitors with a blank screen, a faded poster or a sign in sheet. We covered the wider fit out thinking in our guide to planning a full office AV fit out without getting it wrong, and the reception area deserves the same attention as any meeting room.
Chris Gore
3 days ago4 min read
Training Room AV: What Makes It Different From a Standard Meeting Room
Training room AV is not just meeting room AV with a bigger screen. A training room has one person talking to many, a lot of movement and an audience that needs to see and hear clearly from every seat, and a setup designed for a meeting round a table will struggle. Many offices find this out the hard way after fitting a training room with standard video bar kit. If you are comparing the two, our guide on setting up a hybrid meeting room that actually works shows what a standar
Chris Gore
4 days ago4 min read
The Problem With AV
How a Major Insurance Company Transformed 8 Meeting Rooms With a Full AV Fit-Out
They had eight meeting rooms on a single floor that needed a complete rethink. Not a patch job. A proper, standardised, future-ready AV fit-out. That's where SPOR came in.
Chris Gore
Apr 216 min read
When One Room Needs to Do Two Jobs: Microsoft Teams Room Meets Dolby Atmos
Most meeting rooms are built for one thing. A screen, a camera, a speakerphone, done. But what happens when your business needs that same space to pull double duty? One moment it needs to run a flawless Microsoft Teams call with a client in New York. The next, it needs to drop jaws with a cinema-quality product demonstration.
Chris Gore
Apr 175 min read
How SPOR Group Transformed Masdar's London HQ Into a Seamless Microsoft Teams Rooms Environment
When a global clean energy company relocates its London headquarters, the pressure is on to get everything right and that includes the technology that keeps their people connected. Masdar, one of the world's leading renewable energy developers, needed a complete Audio-Visual overhaul at their new Paddington office. They turned to SPOR Group to deliver it. Here's how we did it and what the end result looks like.
Chris Gore
Mar 114 min read
Reviews
Office Move Costs: What AV and Tech Really Add to the Bill
Office move costs are almost always higher than the first budget suggests, and technology is one of the biggest reasons. Rent, removals and furniture get planned early, while AV and IT tend to appear late, once the design is already fixed. If you are at the start of a relocation, our guide on planning an office relocation without losing your AV investment is the best companion to this article.
Chris Gore
Oct 104 min read
Cisco Room Kit EQ vs Room Kit Pro: Which One Does Your Room Need?
Cisco Room Kit EQ vs Room Kit Pro is the comparison most buyers end up making once a room is too big for a video bar. Both are serious, codec based systems built for large spaces, and on paper they look similar, but they suit very different rooms. Before you specify either one, check that you actually need a codec at all by reading our comparison of the Cisco Room Bar and the Logitech Rally Bar, because plenty of boardrooms get by perfectly well with a video bar.
Chris Gore
Oct 85 min read
How Corporate Real Estate Teams Can Get an AV Budget Without Booking a Sales Call
A corporate real estate AV budget should not require booking a call just to see a number. Most AV and HVAC supplier websites hide pricing behind a schedule a call button, and if you are trying to put together an early stage budget for an office move or a refurbishment programme, that button is exactly what gets in the way. You do not want a sales conversation yet. You want a figure you can put in a spreadsheet. read the full breakdown here.
Chris Gore
Sep 94 min read
How Much Does AV Cost?
Appspace vs GoBright: Which Workplace Platform Is Right for You?
Appspace vs GoBright is a choice more buyers are facing as room booking, desk booking and workplace communication start to merge into a single platform. Both products cover a lot of the same ground, but they come from different starting points, and that shapes how each one feels in daily use. If you are earlier in the process, our guide on what a meeting room booking system is and which one is right for you is a better place to start.
Chris Gore
Oct 74 min read
In-House AV Support vs Outsourced Managed Services: Which Is Cheaper Long Term?
In-house AV support vs outsourced managed services is a decision most businesses only properly think through once their meeting room estate has grown large enough that ad hoc fixes are no longer good enough. An in-house team gives a business direct control and someone who knows every room intimately. An outsourced managed service gives access to a wider pool of expertise and cover that does not disappear the moment one person is on holiday or leaves the business. read the ful
Chris Gore
Sep 214 min read
Owl Labs Meeting Owl vs Logitech Rally Bar: Which Wins for Small Rooms?
Meeting Owl vs Logitech Rally Bar is a comparison worth taking seriously if you are fitting out a small meeting room, because the two devices solve the same problem in noticeably different ways. The Meeting Owl uses a camera that sits in the middle of the table and shows the whole room at once, switching focus to whoever is speaking. The Rally Bar takes the more familiar approach of a fixed video bar mounted below the display, using AI framing to follow the room rather than s
Chris Gore
Sep 184 min read
Comparisons
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