AV SuperFriends: On Topic - It's functioning but not fully functional

About this episode

This episode humorously explores the challenges and messes created by higher ed AV teams, focusing on technical debt and legacy systems.

Recorded March 13, 2026 This episode of On Topic tackles "Spring cleaning" by focusing less on tidy closets and more on the grime higher ed AV teams create for themselves. The panel trades stories about delayed refreshes, inherited programming messes, legacy systems that refuse to die, rushed project deadlines, and the temporary fixes that somehow become permanent. Before you get clean, revel in the filth… It's a funny, brutally honest look at technical debt, bad design choices, and the institutional rot that keeps old problems hanging around far longer than they should. If your campus has mystery cables, aging systems, and one room everyone's afraid to touch, this episode will feel painfully familiar. Let's get filthy! Alternate show titles: Budgets are optional Those are sticky weird situations Normally I'm shady and gross I wasn't a pro, so I used two plusses Good luck, I'm sorry Museum of AV decisions It did what it did Be here when the tree falls on the house I feel like the whole university is guilty of this Just everybody calm down! It's gonna be… not bad If y'all didn't take an entire month off for Christmas… We stream live every Friday at about 315p Eastern/1215p Pacific…

People in this episode

Host: AV SuperFriends

Topics covered

• technical debt
• higher education
• AV teams
• legacy systems
• project deadlines
• bad design choices

Keywords

• technical debt
• higher education
• AV teams
• legacy systems
• project deadlines
• bad design

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Spring cleaning

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