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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
The AV Snagging List: What to Check Before You Sign Off a Fit-Out
An AV snagging list is the single most useful document a business can have on the day it signs off a fit-out, and it is the document most people skip because everything looks finished on the surface. A screen mounted straight, a control panel that lights up, cables tidied away, none of that proves the system actually works the way it was specified. A proper snagging list forces a genuine test of every function before the installer packs up and leaves. read the full breakdown
Chris Gore
1 day ago5 min read
Is Your Meeting Room Network a Cybersecurity Risk?
A meeting room network security gap rarely looks like anything at all. It looks like a video bar that has been running the same firmware since installation, a touch panel that anyone in the building can log into, and a room booking screen that has been quietly sitting on the same network as the finance team's laptops for three years. Most businesses spend a great deal of time securing their computers and almost none securing the AV equipment plugged into the same network. rea
Chris Gore
4 days ago4 min read
Meeting Room AV Insurance: Theft and Damage
Meeting room AV insurance is one of the least discussed parts of an AV project, largely because it only becomes a live question after something has already gone wrong. A warranty covers a manufacturing fault. It does not cover a stolen display, a burst pipe over the server rack, or a contractor who puts a ladder through a screen during an unrelated job. That gap sits with your business insurance, and it is worth knowing what is actually in it before you need to make a claim.
Chris Gore
7 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
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
2 days ago4 min read
Why Your AV Project Looks Affordable — Until It Isn't
The AV quote looks reasonable. Hardware, installation, a project management fee. It fits the budget. It gets approved. Then the project completes, the handover happens and the costs that were not in the quote start appearing. A commissioning charge. A training day. A call-out fee when something fails three months later. A replacement device quote for a camera that turned out to be outside the warranty scope. These are not rare surprises. They are the standard experience of or
Chris Gore
3 days ago5 min read
What an Hour of Broken Boardroom AV Actually Costs
An hour of AV downtime costs more than most businesses realise, and almost nobody actually calculates it.
Chris Gore
Aug 273 min read
How Much Does AV Cost?
DTEN vs Neat Board: Which All-in-One Display Is Right for You?
DTEN vs Neat Board is one of the most common comparisons we get asked about, because both are strong all-in-one displays that fold a screen, camera, microphone and speaker into a single unit and remove most of the cabling headache of a traditional room build. The plain answer is that neither one is universally better. The right choice depends on which video platform the business is committed to, how the room will actually be used and what budget is available. read the full br
Chris Gore
2 hours ago5 min read
GoBright vs Condeco: Which Room Booking Platform Is Right for Your Organisation?
Both GoBright and Condeco are well-established room booking platforms deployed across UK organisations. Both integrate with Microsoft 365 and provide room panels, utilisation data and desk booking capability. On paper they look like direct alternatives. In practice they serve different organisation sizes, different IT maturity levels and different analytics requirements.
Chris Gore
Jul 153 min read
Cisco Webex Board vs Microsoft Surface Hub: The Honest Comparison
The Cisco Webex Board and Microsoft Surface Hub are both premium all-in-one touchscreen devices designed for collaboration-heavy rooms. Both start above £8,000. Both include 4K display, integrated compute, camera, microphone, speaker and digital whiteboarding. Both are designed for flagship spaces where the technology is expected to impress as well as perform.
Chris Gore
Jul 133 min read
Comparisons
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