Ep. 1: It’s Great to Know What You Don’t Know with Dan Helfrick

Connectivity is ubiquitous these days. The building design process requires forward thinking as well as introspection as a company. On this episode of the Z-Band Tech Talk podcast, Dan Helfrick, vice president of Z-Band Technologies, discussed Z-Band’s increasing involvement with BICSI and how that drives their innovative process with host Sean Heath.

The enormous amount of planning needed to successfully design a building for maximum efficiency is something that drew Z-Band to become involved with BICSI, according to Helfrick.

“The acronym actually stands for the Building Industry Consulting Service International, which is quite a mouthful,” he said. “Basically, it is the organization that governs how we put buildings together and, really, even external infrastructures.”

The decision to become such an active partner was driven by a recent push by BICSI toward ICT, or Information and Communications technology, Helfrick said.

“We fall very squarely into that push. … We are, as a video distribution company, getting into network infrastructure, and set-top boxes and some of these other things that we have on our roadmap for 2020 fall very squarely within that focus in ICT,” he said.

Another beneficial mindset that is part of the culture at Z-Band is intellectual curiosity.

“It’s great to know what you don’t know, which is the first thing,” Helfrick said. “When we took over the company in 2018, the idea was to become ‘Z-Band Technologies’ to guide ourselves away from just strictly being a video company, but more taking that understanding that we have of RF and broadening out into other places where we feel we have an expertise and a technology skillset that could be applicable to the industry, overall.”