Strategy in TECH...
If this is December, than the 2013 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is just around the corner. Once again, we are asking all strata-GEE.com and ALERT readers to take a few short minutes out of their day to take our survey and share their thoughts on this important event.
Whether you’re planning on traveling to Las Vegas, NV to attend the show at the Las Vegas Convention Center January 8-11 or not…we want to hear YOUR opinion of this event.
[PHOTO: Junko Kimura/Bloomberg via Getty Images]
Launched earlier this week at DEMO, the high-tech conference in Silicon Valley that just wrapped up, start-up company ube won the People’s Choice Award and $1 million worth of media from IDG properties. We profiled ube in our post here…saying that they just may be on to something and the DEMO judges apparently agree.
For several years Utz Baldwin worked to further the cause of the Custom Electronic Design & Installation Association (CEDIA), first as a member and – from 2008-2011 – as CEO. As the head of the CEDIA, Baldwin worked hard to ensure that the organization was aware of, and responsive to, the needs of its members and other associated stakeholders. However, ousted from the organization in 2011 under circumstances that were never fully made public, Baldwin seemed to disappear from view…until now.
At the CEDIA Expo in Indianapolis earlier this month, the event’s keynote presentation was by the well-known physicist, author, and TV personality Michio Kaku who presented his rather dramatic view of the future – complete with a rash of technology predictions. Kaku’s presentation covered a lot of ground including military technology, the home of the future, the office of the future, future medical technology, and even the future of car technology.
At this month’s CEDIA Expo, no sooner had I finished an interview on the show floor when I saw what looked like two huge caskets standing on end and side-by-side. That’s a little dramatic, they didn’t really look like caskets, just two huge rectangular racks standing about eight-feet up in the air. Curiosity drew me to Rosewater Energy Group’s booth where I discovered an old friend: Joe Piccirilli (formerly of AVAD and Sound Advice).
Those monstrous boxes (actually a little over 7-feet tall, the display base they were shown on made them look taller) really contain a lot of technology and take power conditioning to a whole new level.
Sometimes the best ideas are the simplest. When I ask business owners and executives to tell me why they started their business, you’d be surprised at the mushy gobbledy-gook I’m often offered in response. So when strata-GEE.com readers at the CEDIA Expo pointed me in the direction of the Energy Squad booth – I was skeptical. Was this another tech head playing with toys who’ll be here-today and gone-tomorrow?
The recent CEDIA Expo was, as usual, dominated by hundreds of companies engaged in a seemingly endless and often mindless rash of line extensions – effectively burying us in a sea of products of uninspiring incrementalism. This year, however, thanks to the diligent effort of many of strata-GEE.com’s and ALERT’s readers and followers that we saw at the show – we were often pointed us in direction of some hidden gems. Thanks to you, we were successful in uncovering wisps of innovation from a few new or reincarnated companies.
One such interesting start-up, whose launch we recently reported on here, with a follow-up story here, is AudioXperts. At Expo, AudioXperts showed us an interesting new product concept they call Korners.
Prior to CEDIA Expo, I knew very little about LED lighting systems, but I learned a lot after meeting with Frank Sterns, new Chief Operating Officer (COO) and President at NuLEDs. The remarkable NuLEDs PoE IP-addressable LED lighting system brings a new level of control, flexibility, programmability, and energy efficiency to the market. It’s a cool system that offers a new profit opportunity to industry integrators and installers.
The 2012 CEDIA Expo launched with a bang for me as I previously reported when, upon entering the convention center, I was collared by a PR person who quickly walked me (without explanation) to a high-level executive for a Nortek company who felt the need to tell me – in compelling and direct terms – what he thought of strata-GEE.com’s coverage of the Core Brands consolidation. (Hint: he didn’t like it.) After a few minutes of somewhat hot-under-the-collar conversation, things cooled off a bit and he offered to get me together with the Core Brands management to clarify the situation.
