Strategy in TECH...
Frederick Jared Ampel, a long-time AV industry vet participating in the pro, commercial, and residential segments, died August 28, 2022 from diabetes and kidney complications. He was 75 years old and enjoyed a 50-year career in AV – a career in which he was still active until his death. While well-known in certain industry circles, Ampel was not a household name and he’d likely not have wanted it any other way.
Emerald Exposition, one of the largest exposition companies in the U.S. and the owner of the CEDIA Expo (and CE Pro), announced this week that they will be offering “reinvigorated educational programming” at this year’s CEDIA Expo 2022. This initiative will include a range of more than 150 sessions, including seminars, panels, workshops, and manufacturer product training.
CEDIA announced yesterday its keynote speaker for the upcoming CEDIA Expo 2022 show who appears to offer an interesting departure from past more directly technical keynote presentations. This year’s presenter is Greg Durkin, a marketing and data guy who comes from an entertainment industry marketing background and appears to have expertise in content curation and data analysis.
In a special briefing for the media, new CEDIA Vice President of Education and Training Amanda Beckner revealed the organization’s upcoming program for this year’s CEDIA Expo coming this Fall. It was instantly clear that Beckner, formerly involved with AVIXA education, completely understands both the importance of and the unique demands of education in a technical association.
It was also clear that the Association is taking a fresh look at ways to elevate CEDIA’s education to the next level. And that is a good thing.
For the first time in quite a while, CEDIA released the results of a new market study that helped to illuminate where the market is at today. There were, as usual, some significant surprises presented – perhaps the first was an interesting change in methodology that may perhaps serve to deliver a clearer view of key market data.
When Daryl Friedman was hired to become Global President and CEO of CEDIA, he was already aware of the fact that the organization was facing some heavy challenges and really needed someone ready to roll up their sleeves and get to work. It was a challenge he says he was both ready for and was uniquely qualified to address, based on his previous association experience. Then he went to work digging up more evidence of the challenges ahead.
In order to get a sense of Friedman’s thinking and process, I spoke with him via Zoom for nearly an hour. It was a wide-ranging discussion on many key issues for an association that I’ve had some issues with over the years. This article is Part 2 of that interview.
In a Zoom interview last week, I sought to take more of a measure of the man who now runs CEDIA, its new Global President and Chief Executive Officer Daryl Friedman. We first met, and I first told you about Friedman, back when his selection was first announced to the world just a little over 100 days ago. Friedman was in a series of round-robin press interviews and we only had a few minutes to interact. Now, 106 days later (at the time of this interview) he’s traveled the country, gotten his feet wet, and had much more depth of thoughts to share with Strata-gee readers.
The Custom Electronic Design & Installation Association (CEDIA) announced today that its Cabling & Infrastructure Technician (CIT) Certification has received third-party accreditation which means that it conforms with the global ISO/IEC 17024:2012, General Requirements for Bodies Operating Certification of Persons standards. This is according to the ANSI National Accreditation Board (ANAB), a subsidiary of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), which oversaw the process that determined the CIT Certification program fully conforms with ISO/IEC 17024 global standards.
Integrated Systems Europe (ISE), a popular custom integration trade show that takes place in Barcelona, Spain, announced this week that the show managers have decided to postpone the event from its originally scheduled run of February 1-4, 2022 to now May 10-13, 2022. The reason for the postponement is due to the rapid rise of Omicron-variant COVID-19 infections in Spain as well as its impact on international travel overall.
Custom Electronic Design & Installation Association (CEDIA) announced today that it has appointed Amanda Beckner as its new Vice President of Education and Training. Beckner replaces the recently departed Samantha Ventura and is said to bring two decades of experience to the role. Most notably, Beckner was VP of Learning for AVIXA, the commercial integrator trade group.
