Earlier this week, we delivered our first-pass results of the AV-1 Salary and Education survey. It proved to be the most-read article on the AV-1.insider, to-date. At that time, we promised you a bit more granularity in a subsequent report and here it is!
From the Editor: As always, AV-1 invites you to share your thoughtful insights on the AV-1.forum and in comments at the bottom of this article. Your participation adds value to this timely, thought-provoking topic. Thanks in advance!
The IT Connection
To the question that has stirred much debate over the years, "should AV and IT converge?" we found that more than half the community provides services within an Information Technology organizational structure. After ITS, no single department scored higher than 10%.
While this may put to rest any uncertainty surrounding IT/AV convergence, far more interesting are assets that each party brings to this shotgun wedding...
- What can AV learn from IT in key areas such as processes, ROI, best practices, funding models, and future technologies?
- Can IT learn anything from AV in terms of customer service and production values or, like so many HTML tags from the 1990s, have these concepts been deprecated from our revised understanding of quality of service?
No Tech Management in K-12 or Corporate?
Only one out of every ten respondents worked outside higher education. What is the take-away? Do we hear enough from our K-12 and corporate counterparts? Is the dearth of input from these demographics an indication that, with the exception of higher education, all learning-space related issues have been resolved? Is there no interest in learning how business and K-12 resolve important issues like lifecycle funding, standardization and long-range planning? Does the AV-1 community have tools and information that could benefit the business and K-12 sectors? Do technology management roles simply not exist in K-12 and business? Is there something AV-1 can do to attract these critical service providers to the discussion?
Data Reported by Region
Within each region (except "Outside U.S." for which a 6% response yielded insufficient data) average salaries are indicated for directors/managers. More interesting than the salary values are the span between bands...
- On average, directors in the Midwest earn 25% more than the managers who work for them.
- That bump increases to 28% for Middle-Atlantic states, and 37% in the Northeast.
- The gap between directors and managers increases to 40% in the Southeast and West, which may contribute to some feelings of inequity from down the org-chart.
About the AV-1 Surveys
In any survey, there are many ways to slice and dice the data. When the AV-1 advisory board broached the idea of fostering dialog through inquiry, everyone agreed that a long, tedious survey would be a buzz-kill (for us, as well as you readers).
Rather than being the definitive end-word (let's face it, even detailed ones rarely are), the AV-1 surveys are designed to be conversation starters.
We agreed on a methodology that struck a balance between short-and-sweet and git-her-done. If it stopped being fun and interesting to us, well, we couldn't expect AV-1 readers to follow along. (At AV-1, we're all about eating our own dog food.)
In truth, this survey pushed the envelop because it contained more than six questions (our arbitrary survey-pain threshold) and required two newsletter entries to deconstruct. (We decided that surveys are like Polaroid snapshots: the fun keeps going as long as you can see the results right away.)
With all mea culpa accounted for, we hope you will continue to participate in our periodic surveys. If you have an idea for an article or suggestion for surveys (or anything else), email us or add it to our nifty, new suggestion box at the right ==>>
Thanks for joining us, and welcome to YOUR COMMUNITY!
| by Scott Tiner | |||
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Good question about tech mgmt and corporate - perhaps partnering with business groups (ASTD, ISPI as examples) would garner more input.
Posted by: William J. Ryan | February 18, 2010 at 11:38 AM