We were grateful for the hat tip by one judge towards our focus on our client’s requirements, deep hardware and software customisation abilities as well as a determination to get the job done to our own exacting standard.

Congratulations to the whole team that delivered Marsh Academy’s Maths Learning Stage. We’ll be turning our attention to setting the standard for 2013 shortly.

THE HIGHLIGHTS
We’re looking for someone who is up for a varied work life where no two days are likely to be the same. Our perfect candidate will be able to rapidly skill themselves up on new technologies, won’t have a problem managing fundamental problems and certainly won’t mind the occasional big hairy issue that takes patience to work through.

Unlike some technical roles, we won’t keep you locked up in the office with a headset on. In fact, we’ll give you the tools you need to work effectively, wherever the role takes you. You’ll meet a variety of people whilst you’re out and about – from the chap that cleans the office through to the CEO. That means you definitely need to have had experience in communicating, co-operating, and successfully supporting lots of different people each with their own wants and needs.

We’re looking for someone with extensive experience in the field of creating, implementing and maintaining technology that has enabled users to improve the way they operate in their day-to-day work. We need someone who knows the importance of good communication and creating lasting relationships. We’re offering the right candidate the opportunity to develop their knowledge and experience as well as playing a healthy part in contributing to the success of a growing team.

In everything we do, we recognise that technology is a tool to assist organisational growth – our clients’ and our own. It’s essential that every member of our team understands this so we are always putting our clients’ and therefore our own success first.

Are you the next IT superhero to join our team?

KEY AREAS OF RESPONSIBILITY

• Daily management of internal systems and records relating to our clients’ technology estates. Experience with PSA and/or helpdesk software would be a bonus.
• Frequent liaison with clients at various levels of responsibility to address and resolve problems as well as ensuring satisfaction levels are always as high as they can be.
• On-site visits to clients to resolve emergency or fix technical issues.
• Inform and educate users and key decision makers on ways to better utilise the technology and support on offer to them.
• Work as a team with fellow colleagues on a variety of technology projects through the full lifecycle from planning through to roll-out and post-implementation phases.
• Work as an individual on problems that may require a high degree of time, focus and patience to crack. However, for situations like this, we’d be looking for an individual who is also not afraid to ask for help while remembering that we need to manage our client’s expectations at every step of the way.

CONSULTS WITH: Clients and Colleagues, Third-Party Organisations such as Suppliers and Vendors
TERM OF EMPLOYMENT: Full-Time

QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE:
Essential:

• Business focused technical consultant
• Business outcome primary driver rather than technology, although role should be considered very much hands-on technical (training available for right candidate)
• Interest in Audio-visual technology
• Able to listen
• Able to talk and relate to people at all organisational levels up to Chief Executive level
• Able to rapidly skill-up on new technologies (in minutes and hours, not days and weeks)
• Logical yet creative problem solving approach
• Ability to summarise in non-geek-speak
• Awareness of convergence taking place between the Audio-Visual, IT and telecoms industries
• A longing to be based in Birmingham and travel the country
• Own car required (and we assume you have the license to go with it), as is a love of public transport

Nice to have:

• Solution design and technology architecture experience (NB: this could have been running projects and engineering outcomes within a specific role rather than necessarily having the title)
• An opinion on and definition of cloud computing
• Virtualisation experience (pref. Microsoft Hyper-V / VMware)
• Datacentre / hosted services experience
• Experience of Unified Communications (pref. Microsoft Lync) as well as an understanding of its meaning and impact to business
• Linux / embedded systems experience
• Experience with enterprise grade wireless technologies
• Sales experience
• Account management
• Project management and costing

Interested? We’d love to hear from you… drop us a line: careers ‘at’ rts-tech dot co dot uk. Agencies- we know you’d love to help but we’re good for now.

After working together to define the requirements for the replacement of their legacy telephone system we entered product selection. MIcrosoft^® Lync™ not only met Energy & Utility Skills’ existing telephony requirements but offered some exciting new collaboration possibilities, especially for their remote workers.

Following a successful proof of concept deployment we worked to align the full rollout of Lync, including legacy telephony integration via both ISDN and analogue lines with a hardware refresh that included training staff on the new wave of Microsoft products.

Tim Balcon, Chief Executive said:
“I was really pleased with the professional way that RTS has approached this project and their ability to deliver both phases of the project on-time and to budget.

The benefits to EU Skills have been immense, in terms of our productivity and connectivity to our workers. I would recommend Lync to any organisation and also RTS as a go-to Partner, in order to implement it.”

You can read the full case study that was presented to the International Association of Microsoft Partners this November in our Unified Communications service section.

Microsoft and Lync are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.

The Maths Learning Stage is a fully immersive learning space which features a 55” master touch panel with customised interface, additional 7” panel and push-button control in each classroom as well as multiple learning zones, high fidelity sound system, projectors, wall mounted panels and input plates for students and teachers to connect their mobile devices to displays.

We invite you to take a look around:

Click here to view the embedded video.

We work with different organisations from school academies to multi-office private businesses to create, manage, maintain and develop IT and Audio Visual (AV) solutions that fit their requirements.

With over a decade of experience in both IT and AV disciplines, we offer a focused approach for each of our clients, which allows us to reach below the surface of any immediate problems and resolve any root causes.

Benefits of our program:

• Reduces costs: A maintenance program ensures that if a problem arises, it is fixed quickly. This prevents an entire system from crashing, and reduces the overall cost to fix the problem.
• Increases the predictability of technology costs: Devices are continually monitored; with the result that you will always know about any changes that should be made and you can predict the costs of those changes.
• Focuses your business on its core skills: This allows internal staff to work on projects and strategy, which is in their area of expertise and not a technology related concerns.
• Reduces downtime: The system is always monitored; as a result it is fixed quickly which allows staff to get back to work.
• Reduces staff frustration: Staff know that if there is a problem, we have been alerted and are on our way to fix it.
• Reduces security threats: By continually monitoring, we will know of any security threats, which could affect your business and eliminate them before they become an issue.
• Increases network performance: Monitoring allows us to run all systems at peak efficiency which greatly enhances your work place productivity and your network.

To use a racing analogy it’s like having a pit crew always on stand-by ready to jump into action. By using RTS, the extra wasted hours spent trying to solve technology problems are gone and you are able to spend time on the things that matter most to your business.

On the 28th April a fire broke out during school hours in the loft area of the Junior School. More than 60 fire fighters tackled the blaze which threatened to destroy the school building which has stood on the site for over 100 years. Thanks to the quick actions of the emergency services the fire was contained to the Junior half of the building. However, once the fire had been put out the difficult task of reorganising and reimplementing school life began.

After losing access to half of the school building a place had to be found to teach years 3-6. As well as a new home for the school office and a new staff room. After much consideration Harborne Hall, a local hotel and conferencing centre was approached to act as a temporary home for the Junior School and some of the associated administrative staff. They accepted.

We are currently working on connecting Harborne Hall to the main school through a high speed point-to-point wireless link over 800m to provide a seamless IT experience between the two sites. Temporary cabling has been donated to provide connectivity throughout the damaged building and we have also installed a new access control solution to secure the main site, as the main entrance and school office have had to be moved whilst rebuilding works take place.

Our time has been donated to help Caroline White the Network Manager get the school back to a running state as quickly as possible. To say thank you RTS were treated to a special assembly in the Infant School Hall along with representatives from the emergency services and other local businesses and groups (all beautifully presented using the audio visual solution we installed last Easter!)

We’re flattered to have been presented with our award:

BSP-A’s strategy is focused on a service offering for founders of new technology ventures as well as more established businesses. The main focus is on providing an interactive supportive environment where innovators can interface with like-minded people. Their Digital Agenda is seen as a catalyst for the future development of Birmingham – something we’re keen to get involved with.

There’s more about Birmingham Science Park here: http://www.bsp-a.com/

With Café Resource just across the corridor feel free to swing by and catch up with us over a coffee!

Our new address:

RTS Technology Solutions
Birmingham Science Park Aston
Faraday Wharf
Holt Street
Birmingham
B7 4BB

There are no excuses – with excellent access to major motorways, Birmingham’s mainline railway services at New Street station a 15 minute walk away and if you’re an international jet-setter, we’re only 30 minutes from Birmingham International Airport.

Look forward to seeing you soon.

A huge custom curved LED wall greeted us as we arrived.

Narrow bezels coupled with developments in panel technology and manufacturing processes are making video walls ever more attractive from both aesthetic and price perspectives.

Minority Report is finally a reality with multiple vendors demonstrating video wall overlays and gesture tracking devices. Many allow multiple users to simultaneously interact with them offering applications from retail window displays to interactive campus maps (shame about the bezels on this one!).

Samsung’s video wall offered a stunning entrance to one hall.

The show offered a great opportunity to catch up with vendors and quiz them on their latest developments. Samsung are making good progress with their MagicInfo Digital Signage, moving it away from the half-baked solution of old to something that can actually compete with dedicated commercial offerings via MagicInfo-i Premium.

They also demonstrated the new version of their MagicInfo Video Wall (VW) software showing an example of the software running synchronously across a 16 x 12 wall (for those without a calculator to hand – that’s 192 screens!).

Fraunhofer Institute’s Virtual Mirror was an impressive proof of concept. Users of the mirror were able to hold the green t-shirt up to the mirror and choose the colour and design they wanted to see on it. The mirror coped well with cloth movement, creases and being obscured by objects – expect to see this in catalogue stores (maybe others?) and via online retailers using webcams soon.

LANG takes the definition of large format displays to the extreme. This setup was tiny compared to their main stand but demonstrated four synchronous video streams running flawlessly with a great soundtrack.

Believe it or not, these are all iPads. We’ve been talking about this as an application for a while based on their price point against traditional touch panels (at approximately six times the price). Mount manufacturers have now produced secure housing that can block or provide access to the all-important action button.

Android versions of control applications were also demonstrated at the show and due to the additional functionality available in Android, can be locked down completely to only run control applications.

Thanks to everyone we met at ISE – see you in 2012!

As many of you are aware the UK saw its coldest December in over 120 years in 2010. It was also the chilliest individual calendar month since February 1986, with temperatures dropping as low as -21.1C in the Scottish Highlands. The heavy snowfalls across the UK caused massive disruption to road, rail and air travel as the nation shivered in freezing conditions.

While most of us were able to cope in our centrally heated homes, with family and friends during the Christmas break, do many of us think about those less fortunate – especially those sleeping rough? Official figures from the Department for Communities and Local Government for England alone are that on average 498 people sleep rough each night, with 248 of those in London.

This month the RTS team will take part in the YMCA Sleep Easy event. The aim is simple: spend a night challenging oneself to sleep rough, raising money to help change lives of vulnerable young people. A Sleep Easy event is a sponsored sleep out in the open on one of the coldest nights of the year where participants have only a cardboard box for protection (and a sleeping bag for warmth if they’ve brought their own!) It’s meant to be challenging but fun, as participants take the chance to support their local YMCA. All the money raised goes directly to local YMCA projects, impacting the local community and helping disadvantaged young people build a future.

The whole RTS team will be heading down to the YMCA Clifton Road Youth Centre in Sutton Coldfield on Saturday 29th January 2011 from 7pm to 7am the next morning. There will be a BBQ in the evening, hot drinks available during the night, and breakfast in the morning, as well as plenty of activities and games to keep us warm.

In standard RTS style, the RTS sound system will be out in force with resident DJ’s Aidwon and Ga-Raj bringing the tunes to the party. Feel free to head down and support this great cause. We realise January is a hard month for us all but if you are able to dig deep:

Sponsor us here: : http://bit.ly/RTS_Sleep_Easy

You can also find more information and even register online if you’d like to get involved at http://www.events.ymca.org.uk/sleepeasy

One of the key themes emerging from this year’s Hype Cycle is how people experience and interact with technology. New styles of user interaction will drive new usage patterns, giving organizations opportunities to innovate how information and transactions are delivered to customers and employees. This includes devices such as media tablets and 3D flat-panel TVs and displays, and interaction styles such as gesture recognition and tangible user interfaces.

A number of technologies have moved along the Hype Cycle significantly since 2009 and RTS are pleased to highlight that:

• 3D flat-panel TVs and displays have moved rapidly since 2009 (when they appeared as “3D flat-panel displays”), from shortly after the Technology Trigger to a position near the peak, due to intense vendor activity and product announcements.
• Video tele-presence is falling toward the trough due to still-high pricing, which limits adoption. However, those who have adopted are inevitably impressed with the sense of “being there” that the technology delivers.

If that’s whetted your interest in Audio-Visual (AV), InfoComm International also recently published some very promising facts and figures for our industry:

• The fastest growing products are displays, AV conferencing equipment, streaming media & webcasting and wireless connections & software,
• Education is the fastest growing customer segment. Other fast-growing segments are government, corporate, and hospitality,
• More than ever, services such as programming, maintenance & training  are critical to the success of the ICT systems integrator,
• The convergence of AV with IT, security, voice, and data are also driving the need for integration services,

InfoComm also highlights the concerns expressed by pro-AV vendors when it comes to their staff’s ability to keep up with the pace of our technology. Interestingly, RTS has always been of the firm belief that, like in the ICT industry, the level of competency and qualification in the AV industry is critical to our ability to grow. Not only do we believe it sets a benchmark for our team to reach but assures a consistent level of quality, quantity, and professionalism our clients and strategic partners expect of us.

In addition, RTS are now AMX Certified Engineers (ACE) as well as Microsoft and VMware specialists, as well as accredited by the British Education Suppliers Association. None of these are legally required, but given that we’re making solid in-roads within our growing industry, we believe it’s only right to help set the professional standard.

It’s clear, it’s time to start thinking of how AV can help your business develop – a quick and simple assessment may be all that’s needed to help turn your organisation into a dynamic operation for 2011 and we’re on-hand to help you achieve that.