What a week or so of news in the CI space. Emerald gets sold. CEDIA CEO Daryl Friedman announced his retirement. And then AVIXA comes in and says, “Hold my beer.”
All of that made the timing of Friedman’s note to the CEDIA community honestly perfect. With so much swirling around, his words felt like someone hitting the pause button on life for just a minute, allowing us all to collectively catch our breath. The note also offered the first bit of an official reaction to everything that’s happened over the past few days.
On his retirement, Friedman acknowledged that there’s really no official end date as of right now. It’s a unique spot for the association to be in, because they’ve never really had the opportunity to execute a real leadership transition. By acknowledging his desire to step down, Friedman has afforded CEDIA the chance to conduct a thorough search for his successor. And, once chosen, that person will be able to lean on him until the time is right to fully hand over the reins.
Friedman also noted that there’s still a lot he wants to accomplish in the time that he has left. Namely, revamping and improving the association’s educational platform. To that end, in his note he shared that he’s been working closely with the CEDIA Foundation and CEDIA Board of Directors to rethink how the association provides professional development to current and future integrators—something that will help keep members’ employees well-trained while also filling the talent pipeline for the next generation of integrators.
In addition, he highlighted that recent meetings with the U.S. Department of Labor will result in the first-ever official U.S. apprenticeship or the channel.
On his final months, Friedman said he has no plans of slowing down. “I’ve worked in three different industries in my career and never loved any as much as this one,” he wrote. “My promise to you in my final months is to work as hard as I’ve ever worked, and to leave CEDIA healthy and prosperous. It’s the least I can do for this community.”
On Emerald and AVIXA
As for the two giant elephants in the room—the Emerald sale and AVIXA launching a residential show—Friedman addressed them in a very level-headed manner.
On Emerald’s sale to a new private equity firm, he echoed sentiments that I shared on the day of the announcement that a return to being privately held was a great decision.
“My initial thought is that there is only upside for CEDIA Expo,” he wrote. “In other businesses I’ve been involved with, that’s a good move, as the company can focus on building its products and services and be less concerned about meeting quarterly earnings reports.”
Couldn’t agree more, and, again, I only hope that lifting the weight of a sale off their shoulders loosens things back up for the Expo team and allows them to get back to finding ways to reinvigorate that event and breathe fresh life back into it.
Speaking of breathing new life into an event, Friedman made his feelings known on the new RESIDE event calling it a “square peg in a round hole” kind of announcement.
“InfoComm bills itself as ‘The World’s Most Vital Pro AV Show’ and says it’s ‘singularly focused on applied audiovisual integration.’ AVIXA’s own release notes that 90% of InfoComm attendees don’t touch residential at all,” Friedman wrote. “I love attending InfoComm, but I find myself entirely surrounded by enterprise IT folks. CEDIA Expo is and will remain the biggest residential integration show in North America. That’s where my people are. And that’s where I’ll be.”
It’s a fair assessment. The same could also be made of Emerald, who only three years ago opted to arguably take the first shot by merging CEDIA Expo with Commercial Integrator Expo—a decision that doesn’t seem to have panned out the way they’d have hoped. For AVIXA, maybe they think they can do it better? Or, maybe they’re setting themselves up for a similar fate.
Time will tell there. Especially with so many unknowns around the new event as of right now—like how (if at all) exhibitors’ hands will be forced. Will the cost to show at InfoComm go up? Will they need a second presence at RESIDE? How much more of their events budget will this ultimately eat up? And, if it’s enough of a hit, which show will they opt to attend?
