Strategy in TECH...
Cool Things I Saw at CEDIA Expo 2018San Diego, we hardly knew ye’! CEDIA Expo 2018 wrapped up this past Saturday and after three days of running between meetings and walking the show floor, I emerge relatively unscathed. The bottom line – this first Emerald Exposition-produced show was a bit of a mixed bag with some positive elements and some dropped balls. But overall, most came away satisfied that it was a good show.
Welcome to San Diego for the first for-profit CEDIA Expo, the first Expo to take place under the full control of professional show producer Emerald Expositions. It is also the last CEDIA to be held in San Diego, at least for the forseeable future. Next Year, the show moves back to Denver, one of the locations that is considered most popular with CEDIA members.
Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) held a formal press conference today at 7:00AM Eastern to present more details on their plans to move ISE – the show, that is – to a new facility in Barcelona, Spain starting in 2021. Speaking at the press conference were local government officials, representatives of the owners of the ISE show (CEDIA and AVIXA), and most importantly Mike Blackman, the father of the show.
CEDIA announced this week that they are now open for participation in their annual 2018 CEDIA Size and Scope of the Residential Electronic Systems market survey. CEDIA needs all integrators to help them collect helpful industry data for the benefit of us.
CEDIA announced on Wednesday that it has launched mobile access to their CEDIA Online Community via a new app. This move allows members on the go to easily access community postings with a quick and easy-to-use app.
The Custom Electronics Design and Installation Association (CEDIA) announced today that it has acquired the Technology and Business Summit, a regional sales rep-driven dealer show. The move raises some interesting questions, as these regional shows are believed to impact centralized national shows, such as the CEDIA Expo, which they sold to Emerald Exposition a little over a year ago.
Last week, I reached out to Emerald Expositions executive Brianna Morris who is one of the folks assigned to produce the new CEDIA Expo show, looking to discuss a couple of topics. The first, was to explore a couple of potential story ideas. The second was an easy and simple housekeeping question, or so I thought. But it was Morris’ response to that second simple question, that has caused me to recognize a red flag – and potentially an example of the possible downside to having an industry tradeshow owned and operated by an outside-the-industry, for-profit business.
Integrated Systems Europe (ISE), the joint venture between CEDIA and AVIXA (formerly InfoComm) announced this week that the show held earlier this month set several records, including the number of exhibitors, number of new exhibitors, the number of attendees and the number of first time attendees. While CEDIA struggles to pull in 20,000 attendees, ISE tops 80,000 visitors.
After an interminably long wait of around a year, CEDIA finally announced this week their new three-year strategy. This “new” strategy takes us through 2020 and is based on three areas of focus, in summary: 1) education; 2) standards, guidelines & best practices; and 3) engagement with design and build community.
Why did I put the word “new” in quotations? Read on…
CEDIA announced this week that it was promoting Tabatha O’Connor to permanent CEDIA Global President and CEO. O’Connor, a sixteen-year CEDIA association employee, had recently been serving as the “acting” President and CEO in the wake of the sudden dismissal of former CEO Vin Bruno in 2017.
Unfortunately, what this means is the organization has decided to go back to day-to-day association management of operations, rather than drive growth through a strong, visionary CEO with industry experience and great force-of-will to stem the erosion of the organization’s influence.
