Strategy in TECH...
It has never been more difficult to communicate real differentiation or to create real value. Which is why a loyal customer has become more of a concept and less of a reality. But loyalty is something we’ve always had to earn and to earn it now it will require that we get serious about creating innovative programs that build real consumer engagement.
Start-up Ube, the new company founded by former CEDIA CEO Utz Baldwin and partners, offers an all-new mobile device-optimized, cloud-based home control technology bringing new power – and new simplicity – to the masses. This new technology could be a highly disruptive game changer with a re-conceived business model that just might gut the heart of the highly lucrative residential systems installer market. Or not…
Today, Ube [pronounced YOU-bee] announced their first major step forward in the wake of their stunning technology show win at last fall’s DEMO 2012 in which the company received the People’s Choice Award earning them $1 million in media from the show’s promoter. Ube has begun a campaign on the crowdfunding website Indiegogo to raise funds so that the company can manufacturer their first 10,000 Wi-Fi smart dimmers. The company also announced a BETA test program open to residential A/V electronics installers and integrators.
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.
