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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
Pink October: How We're Supporting Breast Cancer
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and this year we are getting behind Pink October in support of Breast Cancer Now.
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and this year we are getting behind Pink October in support of Breast Cancer Now.
SPOR Group
1 day ago2 min read
AV for Listed Buildings and Heritage Offices
AV for listed buildings has to work within a different set of rules than a standard office fit-out. Whether you are converting a Georgian townhouse into flexible workspace or adding video conferencing to a Victorian boardroom, the technology has to sit inside a space that legally cannot be altered without permission. We have covered the general checks worth running before signing off any fit-out in our AV snagging list, but a listed building changes almost every assumption in
Chris Gore
4 days ago4 min read
What Good AV Looks Like When No One Notices It
Good AV is almost impossible to spot, because the whole point of it is that nobody thinks about it at all. A meeting starts on time, the screen shares without a hunt for the right cable, and the person dialling in remotely can hear everyone clearly. None of that gets remarked on, which is exactly the sign that a system was specified properly in the first place. We have written before about what an hour of broken boardroom AV actually costs, and good AV is really just the flip
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
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
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
Sep 85 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?
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
Robin vs Condeco: Which Workplace Booking Platform Wins?
Robin vs Condeco is a common question for any business trying to bring order to meeting room and desk booking across an office, because both platforms cover similar ground but come from noticeably different starting points. Robin grew out of desk booking and hybrid working tools, with room booking built alongside it. Condeco has been a dedicated room and desk booking platform for considerably longer, and it shows in how deeply it integrates with traditional calendar systems a
Chris Gore
Sep 174 min read
Comparisons
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