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CEDIA Bars All News Media from CEDIA Symposium on AI

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Photo of CEDIA HQ
CEDIA’s headquarters building in Fishers, Indiana

At the end of July, CEDIA announced that it would be holding a new kind of event called the CEDIA Symposium on the day before the CEDIA Expo 2023 opens. The association is all-in on AI apparently, and this symposium is all about AI in custom integration. The announcement promises it will offer “an engaging afternoon of thought-provoking discussions led by industry visionaries, AI experts, top integrators, and manufacturers.”

From the very beginning, there were, in my eyes, troubling elements to this initiative. Little did I know what was to come – that CEDIA would choose to bar the news media from its CEDIA Symposium

See more on CEDIA’s decision to bar the media from its CEDIA Symposium

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CEDIA Intros New Workforce Initiative – NextGen: Smart Home Career Toolkit

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CEDIA NextGen Smart Home Career Toolkit image

CEDIA has launched a new workforce acquisition initiative called CEDIA NextGen: Smart Home Career Toolkit. Designed to provide integrators the tools they need to improve and expand their outreach to attract new candidates to the smart home industry, the association has created an impressive series of multimedia tools to grease the skids in getting new recruits through integrators’ doors.

Learn more about this new CEDIA workforce initiative

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2022 CEDIA Member Meeting was a Glossy Display of Overt Positivity

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2022 CEDIA Member Meeting title slide

Selling a Vision Rather than Briefing Members w/Data

CEDIA held its annual member meeting just a couple of weeks ago in mid-December. The version offered this year was decidedly different than those in the past. This is likely due to the professional association management style of the organization’s new Global President and CEO Daryl Friedman.

CEDIA and staff offered members a slick marketing package of largely pre-recorded content and carefully controlled live content. But was it too slick? Did it really brief members with a balanced picture of both the successes and the challenges that CEDIA is facing? Or was it just a form of advertisement for the association?

Learn more about CEDIA’s 2022 annual Member Meeting…

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Expo Shocker! Hundreds of Members Show Up for CEDIA Advocacy Town Hall

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CEDIA Advocacy Town Hall
[Click to enlarge]

Spotlight on CEDIA Expo

Perhaps one of the more surprising events at CEDIA Expo 2022 – at least in my mind – was an event that took place early in the morning on the first official day of the show floor opening. This event, the CEDIA Advocacy Town Hall in which the organization intended to discuss the extent of their political advocacy conducted on behalf of the membership, seemed to me like something unlikely to draw much attention…or attendance.

Boy…was I wrong!

Learn more about the CEDIA Advocacy Town Hall

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AVNation Features Ted Green on Special Episode Discussing CEDIA Board Election Issue

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AVNation graphic on panel where AVNation Features Ted Green

This week, AVNation features Ted Green – me – on a special episode discussing the CEDIA Director Elections taking place right now. As you may know, there was some controversy surrounding this election as CEDIA’s board decided to change the normal election process where association members pick from a selection of nominees to vote on those they want on the Board of Directors. Instead, this year members vote with a simple yes/no on a predetermined slate of candidates selected by the Board’s Governance Committee.

See more on this special AVNation episode featuring me

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CEDIA Expo 2022 Keynote Presentation Offers an Intriguing Departure

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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.

See more on this unique keynote presenter

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CEDIA Revitalization Continues as New Administration Rethinks Education

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Entrance to CEDIA Expo

See What Education CEDIA has Planned for Expo 2022

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.

See what Beckner shared about CEDIA education and show plans

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New CEDIA CEO Part 2: Keeping Focused and Making an Impact

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CEDIA CEO Daryl Friedman sharing a laugh

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.

See Part 2 of my interview with the new CEDIA CEO

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New CEDIA CEO; Ignoring Distractions & Getting Down to Business

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CEDIA Global President and CEO Daryl Friedman (L) looks positively terrified, doesn’t he? [Click to enlarge]

PART 1: Identifying Membership ‘Stress Points’

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.

See more on Friedman and his plans for CEDIA

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