Strategy in TECH...
The Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association (CEDIA) announced at the end of last week that Global President and CEO Tabatha O’Connor will “depart” the organization at the end of her contract period in January. The news caught many by surprise and the organization’s announcement gives no clue as to any of the reasons behind this leadership change.
CEDIA Expo Virtual was almost exclusively an online media event…rather than a real, in-person trade show. I know…duh! Yes, I knew this logically, but it hadn’t really hit me viscerally until I actually attended the event. But what that means for Emerald Exposition is that their expertise in fielding large scale, B2B, in-person events really doesn’t apply here. And that fact forced them to rely exclusively on CE Pro for almost the entire event, including content strategy, seminar production, and show performance.
Emerald Expositions announced this week that Sally Shankland, it most recent CEO who had been hired in June 2019 to replace resigning CEO David Loechner, has died following her month’s long battle with cancer. The company says Shankland passed away at home peacefully.
IFA 2020, a huge consumer electronics show scheduled to take place in Berlin on September 4-9, 2020, is now canceled, the organization behind the event announced this week. It is yet another show joining a long line of mass, in-person marketing events to suffer this fate. The promoter is promising “an innovative new concept” to replace it – which some speculate will be a virtual online conference.
In yet another email, participants of CEDIA’s recent Florida Tech Summits were told of a second instance of their potential COVID-19 exposure. The organization said that there are two reports of individuals “who have tested positive for coronavirus (COVID-19).”
The Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association (CEDIA) sent a letter via email on Tuesday to all attendees of the recent Fort Lauderdale & Tampa, Fl Tech Summits notifying them of their exposure to coronavirus or COVID-19, the rapidly expanding viral infection that has become a global pandemic. An employee for an exhibitor at the Tech Summit was said to have tested positive for the virus, and CEDIA asked all attendees to “take precautions.”
MQA, a leading provider of technology that helps deliver music that is authenticated to be master recording quality but with a small enough file structure that can be easily streamed or downloaded, announced today new partners, products and music in time for the 2019 CEDIA Expo show in Denver, CO next week. Visitors to their booth at CEDIA can expect to see the new products and audition the new music.
Fred Ampel, a long time, multi-decade member of CEDIA, a regular trainer at multiple CEDIA Expos, and a “CEDIA Fellow” has renounced his membership in the organization. In a Skype interview with Strata-gee, he shared his view that the organization has changed in ways that are counter to his view of the type of education that they should be providing to the membership. As a result, he feels forced to develop a new alternative program outside of the trade association.
Emerald Expositions Events, Inc. (NYSE:EEX), a leading provider of trade shows and events and the current owner of CEDIA Expo, announced their financial results today for the first fiscal quarter of 2019. And while this tends to be a rather mundane or even robotic process, there were a few things unique about this report from Emerald – most notably their head-scratching comments that dramatically contrasted with the numbers.
CEDIA announced on Wednesday that it has hired Robert Keeler to join the organization as its new Senior Director of Sales, Sponsorships, and Partnerships. Keeler is ex- a lot of well-known companies in this industry and he takes on a primary sales responsibility at the trade association.
