Latest headlines: Sara Abrons on the trends she noticed on the CEDIA Expo show floor, Lee Distad on low staffing in AV and more
October 19, 2022 | Volume: 19 | Issue: 20
As I’m sure you remember, CEDIA Expo was Sept. 28-Oct. 1, but we’re still going through our 570+ videos to get a handle on the trends. Sara Abrons can help with this — as our head video titler, she watched every video we shot. This gave her a different perspective than I had from the show floor because she actually got to check out every product. Read her column for more information about the most significant trends at CEDIA Expo. Some of them may surprise you!
We’re also talking about a problem in our industry in this issue of the rAVe HomeAV newsletter: low staffing. What can be done about this right now? Unclear, but Lee wrote this latest column so we’d recognize that we are not alone in these issues we’re all running into.
I didn’t go to CEDIA Expo 2022 in Dallas. But like both ISE and InfoComm this year, I acted as the editor in charge of rAVe’s product videos from afar, and therefore watched all 573 videos that the team shot on the show floor over the past few days. I missed seeing industry friends and didn’t hear what the buzz on the show floor was, but “seeing” the show floor in this way allows me to form my own opinions on what’s going on product and technology-wise in the industry without being influenced by talking to colleagues who were there.
I knew someone who had to read “Boom, Bust & Echo,” the book by demographer David Foot and journalist Daniel Stoffman, in college. After doing so, they related a factoid — no matter how tenuous — to the thesis of the book every chance they got. Since I feel like I do that a lot too, I try not to be unkind about it. That said, the book’s core — that demographics allow us to forecast future trends — has at least some bearing on a problem that is becoming apparent in lots of industries and sectors: low staffing.
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