A long, long time ago in a distant land – I put away my 1210s (actually they were stolen) and put away my vinyl records in the attic where they still remain today. However, one thing has stayed with me since and that was listening to great music at high volume with a pretty decent audio set-up.

That doesn’t compare to this guy though – Michael Fremer. He’s the equivalent of a Master of Wine, instead he’s a master of listening – an audiophile with golden ears. If you like good music his website is worth the visit. While he is an elitist, he plays a crucial role in reviewing and critiquing as he states: “Music is music but recordings of music are products.”

We have a good number of engineers just like Fremer who are passionate about audio and video, who obsess about the differences and are striving for great quality so the user experience is always at the foremost of their mind. It’s one of the reasons I’m glad to be working at GIPS.

So, it was refreshing to read a recent predictions post on the Future of Collaboration from Padmasree Warrior, Chief Technology Officer at Cisco who said: “In the technology industry we tend to focus a lot on the underlying computing model and how best to deliver functionality and value.  That makes sense, because it’s core to what we do.  But as an industry [we] need to move beyond this conversation. Ultimately user experience is what matters.”