CEDIA Communicates magazine - Quarter 4 2020 - Americas/Asia Pacific

Q4 2020

BOUTIQUE AV: A GLOBAL WIN FOR AN AUSTRALIAN FIRM I AM CEDIA: MICHAEL HEISS, LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD RECIPIENT THE BEST OF THE EXPO EXPERIENCE

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CONTENTS

CEDIA: 8 IMeetAM the recipient of this year’s Lifetime

Art Deco Delights 12 Boutique AV took a global win with this

of Power 16 Tower Graytek took home a CEDIA Award for this

Recaps 34 Expo Details on what you may have missed from

2020 CEDIA Awards 20 The No in-person celebrations? No problem

Q&A 32 PDAC Meet Mal Fisher, Chair of CEDIA’s

Achievement Award, Michael Heiss

condo in the sky

incredible media room

the Virtual CEDIA Expo Experience

Professional Development Advisory Council

Psychology of Success 27 The Two business strategists on the mindset you need to succeed

Information 28 Certification A dive into the development of the new CEDIA Certifications

Any Upturn 44 Leveraging A recap of the Business Recovery Planning 2.0 webinar

Versus Should 46 Shall The fundamental difference between “standards” and “best practices” CEDIA COMMUNICATES

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A NOTE FROM THE EDITORS Thanks for opening up this issue of Communicates. Ed Wenck here, CEDIA’s content director. I’m “co-managing editor” along with CEDIA’s James Bliss, EMEA brand and communications manager.

The publication you’re reading means a lot to us. We’re constantly refining the content and the manner in which it’s presented so that Communicates makes for an entertaining and informative read.

And we’re lucky in this regard: When it comes to finding content, you all make it easy for us.

CONTACT 8475 Nightfall Lane, Fishers, Indiana 46037 USA Email: info@cedia.org Telephone: +1 800.669.5329 Unit 2, Phoenix Park, St Neots Cambridgeshire, PE19 8EP, UK Email: info@cedia.co.uk Telephone: +44 (0)1480 213744 www.cedia.net

SOCIAL

FRONT COVER Boutique AV Unit 18 / 137-145 Rooks Rd Nunawading Victoria 3131 Australia +61 1300 933 933 boutiqueav.com.au

COPYRIGHT All material in Communicates is the copyright of CEDIA and any reproduction of said material would require written permission from the association. Although every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of content published, CEDIA cannot accept responsibility for any factual errors that may occur. CEDIA cannot accept responsibility for the veracity of claims made by contributors.

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Let’s start with the project profiles we feature in these pages. One look at the Bespoke Art Deco Media Room — a multiple CEDIAAward-winning project that even picked up global accolades for the Australian firm Boutique AV — and you know there’s a great story behind that space.

How about our Lifetime Achievement Award recipient for 2020, Michael Heiss? If you’ve met Mike — heck, even if you’ve just seen him in that impossible-to-miss blazer — you know that the tales he’ll tell will be priceless.

There’s info inside that we think you’ll find useful when it comes to managing your business — as always, we want this quarterly to be more than just a fun read. We want it to be another resource for you as a member. We’ve included stories on leadership techniques, advice on navigating the current economic rollercoaster, and a piece on the “Psychology of Success” — changing your mindset to grow your business despite a downturn.

You’ll also find recaps of the Expo Online Experience and the virtual CEDIA Awards shows, and we’ll tell you about some pretty exciting developments when it comes to CEDIA’s efforts to update our all-important Certifications.

By the way, if you’ve got a story idea, please don’t hesitate to drop us a line. You can reach me at ewenck@cedia.org.

Thanks again for reading. And thanks for being part of CEDIA. All the best,

Ed Wenck Content Director, CEDIA

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NEWS IN BRIEF Results are in for 2021-2022 Elected Director Positions on CEDIA Board

The two-year terms of the newly elected directors will begin January 1, 2021. Board members continuing their service in 2021 include:

CEDIA has announced four new elected directors who will serve on the CEDIA Board of Directors for the 2021-2022 term. Michael Sherman was elected to fill the open EMEA position and Shannon Bush, Albert Mizrahi, and Eddie Shapiro were elected to fill the open positions for the rest of the world.

“The four elected directors bring to the table a wealth of knowledge, an infusion of new ideas, and a track record of dedication to the industry,” says CEDIA Board of Directors Chairman Rob Sutherland.

Shannon Bush is regional sales manager for AVDG, which has locations throughout the United States. She has over a decade of experience in the audio/visual industry and carries more than 15 professional certifications and licenses. She volunteers for CEDIA and serves on CEDIA’s Integrator Business Owner Working Group.

Albert Mizrahi will complete his current appointed term on the board, which runs through the end of the year, and take on his elected term at the beginning of 2021. He serves as head of multiple businesses in Mexico, including Control4 Mexico, SmartLab, and DealerShop. He holds a degree in marketing and started his career in custom integrations as a director of distribution before becoming director of Control4 Mexico where he opened the first Control4 experience center in 2012, which has been replicated worldwide.

Eddie Shapiro is chief design officer for SmartTouchUSA, which has operations in Washington D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. He has worked in audio/visual and low voltage for more than 30 years in areas such as installation, system design, programming, marketing, sales, and executive leadership. Shapiro began his career on the security side where he installed systems for customers including PriceWaterHouse Coopers, IBM, Nordstrom, Nestle, and Verizon. He frequents CEDIA Expo and ISE for education and updates on tech.

Michael Sherman is chief executive officer of Henri, a third-generation family business in France. The 2019 CEDIA Young Professional of the Year, Sherman has volunteered for CEDIA for 10 years and was on the CEDIA EMEA board of directors from 2011-2013. He currently serves on Design and Build Resources Working Group, was part of the CEDIA Membership Advisory Council and received the French Chamber of Artisans’ Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2018.

Jamie Briesemeister Integration Controls St. Louis, Missouri, USA

Eddie Shapiro

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Michael Sherman

Shannon Bush

John Buchanan Meridian Audio Huntingdon, UK Alex Capecelatro Josh.ai Denver, Colorado, USA Dave Humphries (Immediate Past Chairman, non-voting member) Atlantic Integrated Rockleigh, NJ, USA Melanie Malcolm Bespoke Home Cinemas Leeds, Yorkshire, UK Bill Skaer Bill Skaer and Associates, LLC Mesquite, Texas, USA Rob Sutherland Inspired Dwellings, Ltd. London, UK David Weinstein Lutron Electronics Co. Inc. Coopersburg, Pennsylvania, USA Amanda Wildman TruMedia Ada, Michigan, USA

Albert Mizrahi

CEDIA Announces Establishment of CEDIASTRONG Scholarship Fund CEDIA has announced the establishment of the CEDIASTRONG Scholarship Fund. CEDIA will begin accepting donations with the intent to award education grants in 2021 to up-and-coming home technology talent: high school graduates, community college and vocational school students, as well as displaced techs who are ready to build their skills and careers in the smart and connected home space. With more consumers working from home, demand for home technology is escalating. Integration companies across the globe are going to need technical professionals at all levels to meet this rising demand.

CEDIASTRONG Scholarship grants will cover CEDIA Academy and Bootcamp tuition fees as well as supplemental expenses for certification testing and travel. CEDIA will begin awarding scholarships in 2021.

The CEDIA Academy has been built in tandem with improvements to the CEDIA certification program and with industry standards in mind. By combining these important areas, CEDIA is able to ensure that learners are equipped with effective exam preparation and ultimately professional accreditation.

The CEDIA Strong Scholarship Fund is an important capstone to the overall CEDIASTRONG campaign that the association implemented on a global scale earlier this year in response to the COVID pandemic. Throughout the last several months, CEDIASTRONG has been a rallying cry for the industry, bolstered by virtual events, roundtable discussions, and webinars to empower integrators with new tools to help them build skills and their businesses. To date, thousands of members have participated in CEDIASTRONG events and accessed CEDIASTRONG resources.

Companies and individuals can made donations at www.cedia.net/cediastrong.

CEDIA Appoints Interim Co-CEOs CEDIA has announced that Giles Sutton, Senior Vice President of Member Success and Sales, and Kory Dickerson, Senior Vice President of Operations, will step up to take over as Interim Co-CEOs, replacing Tabatha O’Connor who departs the Association in January.

“The appointment of Interim CoCEOs, elevated from within CEDIA's Senior Management Team, sends a strong message of continuity, experience, and leadership to the CEDIA community,” says CEDIA Board Chair Rob Sutherland. “Giles and Kory have been part of a staff team that has worked tirelessly in response to the COVID-19 crisis to help members stay informed and connected.

Together, they have a Giles Sutton depth of operational and financial expertise, industry awareness, and valuable experience in member engagement that can continue to take CEDIA forward until the time a new CEO is appointed.”

Sutton has led the drive for increasing member engagement around the world, facilitating strong partnerships across the industry, and delivering value-added initiatives and programs for CEDIA members. Before joining CEDIA, he spent 13 years as

an integrator and served as chair on the CEDIA EMEA Board prior to global alignment, and later treasurer and vice chair of the CEDIA Global Board. During this time, he has also represented CEDIA members on the Membership Advisory Council and the Governance and Finance Committees.

As senior vice president of operations, Dickerson has been responsible for the worldwide finance

Kory Dickerson

and accounting, human resources, and administrative operations at CEDIA, having previously been senior director of finance at the organization. Before CEDIA, Dickerson worked for more than seven years at the healthcare insurance company, Anthem, Inc. There, he first held the position of portfolio director within the IT organization before promotion to director of corporate accounting and

Analysis, where he led the Telecom Sourcing and Accounting and Analysis teams for six years. Additionally, Dickerson served as controller and chief accounting officer of a financial services organization and as a manager with the global professional services firm, Deloitte.

Sutton and Dickerson will collaborate closely with the CEDIA Board Executive Committee, the CEDIA Board and global CEDIA Staff, operating with clearly defined responsibilities in their new roles. Their focus will remain the implementation of the CEDIA strategic plan with its pillars around education, workforce development, and cross-industry collaboration. CEDIA is committed to developing and delivering educational pathways alongside standards, guidelines, and best practices to support the goal of building a professional and well-trained workforce; creating new talent that will enable the industry to grow; and reaching out beyond the industry to help build awareness of CEDIA members.

Tabatha O’Connor is working with Sutton and Dickerson in the shortterm to ensure a seamless transition.

The interim co-CEOs will remain in place until the global search for a new President and CEO is completed.

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CEDIA Launches Propel, a New Affinity Program

C

EDIA has announced the launch of CEDIA Propel, an affinity program designed to connect members to new brands and products in emerging categories. CEDIA’s integrator members will receive preferential pricing and product training across all brands enrolled in Propel. The Propel program will enable current CEDIA manufacturer members to drive adoption of their most innovative products and services, while also attracting new brands to the custom integration channel. Propel is open to all manufacturer members, existing and new, providing a whole new platform to connect and engage with CEDIA integrators.

CEDIA launches Propel with both leading and emerging brands in the world of IoT and the explosive growth category of health and wellness: Amazon, Ring, Bryte, and Immersive Gym. CEDIA Interin Co-CEO Giles Sutton notes, “A recent survey found that 47% of our members

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are seeking new products and services to add to their portfolios to bolster revenue potential, but more than 50% were struggling to make those connections and negotiate new deals. We prioritized creating a business affinity program that will connect manufacturer members, as well as new brands, with our CEDIA integrator members, aiming to raise the tide across the industry as a whole.”

“Propel is the right program at the right time for our industry,” says cyberManor, Inc. Founder and President Gordon van Zuiden. “At cyberManor, we know we need to think beyond core applications like AV, lighting, and security to remain competitive. Propel will provide new vendor relationships and expertise in emerging categories. These are the kind of relationships that allow us to be whole home integrators, anticipating and fulfilling all of our clients' technology needs.”

Amazon is offering CEDIA integrator members in the U.S. access to preferred pricing on select Echo and Ring devices, with deep discounts of

“Propel will provide new vendor relationships and expertise in emerging categories.”

GORDON VAN ZUIDEN, CYBERMANOR, INC.

up to 25% off when ordered through Amazon Business. Through the Propel program, CEDIA members will benefit from additional savings on select Echo or Ring products in their customer projects. Amazon also recently launched Amazon ProPortal to provide a one-stop shop for information on their devices.

Bryte has designed an AI smart bed to optimize restorative sleep. Through Propel, CEDIA integrators can add a smart sleep solution to their offering, a perfect addition to their smart home line-up. As part of the program, CEDIA integrators in the US will receive 20% commission of the retail price of the Bryte Restorative Bed purchased.

Additionally, member customers will receive free shipping and white glove delivery by Bryte, which is not included in general online orders.

Immersive Gym has developed a way to deliver ultra-wide content dynamically to users as they train on rowing machines, treadmills, and stationary bikes — offering integrators a

way to create immersive training experiences for their customers. CEDIA global members are the only group of integrators that have access to the Immersive Gym product in the residential channel, and, additionally, Immersive Gym is offering a free WaterRower to CEDIA members as an offer to their clients to promote the concept of connected content and exercise equipment.

Participation in the Propel program is open to all CEDIA members. Companies interested in learning how to participate in the program should reach out to the CEDIA membership team at 800.669.5329. Visit the CEDIA website to register at cedia.net/propel.

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I AM 8

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Michael Heiss A conversation with the 2020 CEDIA Lifetime Achievement Award recipient — longtime CEDIA volunteer, board member, and proud owner of that Outrageously Wild Jacket What got you interested in this business in the first place? How did you fall into this thing, Mike?

It started in high school — I was on the AV Squad. Today it would be the Nerd Herd.

When I got out of grad school, one of the fellows in our program was getting married.

He went down to Brazil for the wedding, to his then-new bride. He said, “Hey, Mike, you want to take over for me at my gig?”

That was for a company called Computer Television, which was the inventor of in-room hotel movies. At that point, pay TV was in its infancy. We hardwired 15 Hilton hotels, including the Conrad Hilton, now the Chicago Hilton, which was then the largest hotel in the world. We ran RG 59 coax to every one of the 3,281 rooms in that hotel. Thankfully, I didn't do the installation, but the planning helped me learn to make sure that the union installers didn't drill through the marble floors or the woodwork. That’s served me well.

In order to do the other part of that job, I did film-to-tape transfers. I worked in conjunction with one of the local production houses in New York and supervised the film transfers.

Then they offered me a job and said, “Hey, you know this, you want to help us start a home

video company?”

After my time there, a friend of mine from college offered me a job in the advertising and promotion department of NBC. Hopefully there'll be an Expo next year, and we'll have a couple of drinks and I'll tell you the stories I can’t tell you here.

You joined Harman in 1988. CEDIA essentially begins with the first show in Florida in 1989. You were there at the beginning, right?

Well, actually, before that, the first formative meeting was at the old Summer CES (Consumer Electronics Show). We met in a steamy humid Chicago June afternoon, after the show.

The next meeting was at the Sahara in Las Vegas. We had many more people. The biggest thing about that meeting was to decide what the heck to call the damn thing.

So we spent half a day until the late John Sternberg, who was a great mediator for this said, “Stop it. Here's what we're going to call it: Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association, CEDIA.” Amelia Island was the first CEDIA Expo.

It was mostly table-tops.

CEDIA CEDIA COMMUNICATES

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Images top and bottom courtesy of PWP Studio Staff

These two things dovetail into each other, right? Your experience at Harman and your experience with CEDIA?

What I did for CEDIA, even though I was one of the educators, I learned stuff that I was able to take back into my roles when I ran Harman Video or a later as the vice president of marketing for Harman Kardon.

It was definitely something where CEDIA was a benefit to me, both where I helped CEDIA and the things I learned at CEDIA were able to help me make better business decisions. Not as a designer/ installer, but as a product manager — I was able to learn from the CEDIA members that I dealt with to give them the merchandise and products that did what they wanted so that we could all make money.

“I think the Tech Council and the way that it helps keep the membership informed is maybe one of the most important things I’ve helped achieve.”

MICHAEL HEISS

You've spent a lot of time as a volunteer with CEDIA and you spent time in the board. What accomplishments throughout that experience are you really proud of?

During the time that I was on the board, as well as my continued involvement in CEDIA, we went back and forth across the way the organization was organized, where we had separate, regional associations: CEDIA this, CEDIA that, and CEDIA somewhere else. That was cool because I got to go to a lot of places.

But the international expansion with CEDIA — which I was part of in a very small degree — was important. There were things that we did that people laugh at now. Fortunately, not too many people remember the CEDIA Dome. The idea for that was, “Let's have an outreach to designers and architects.” So we spent a significant amount of money to build a really cool exhibit. It didn't work out in terms of its impact the way we wanted it to.

But it proved that we had to reach out to the home builders, the architects, the designers. It laid the foundations for the outreach that CEDIA does do now to those communities, which has been very successful.

The other thing is the Tech Council. I'm a big fan of letting people know what they need to know as soon as they can possibly know it, from root sources. I think the Tech Council and the way that it helps keep the membership informed is maybe one of the most important things I’ve helped achieve.

How has your family shaped your trajectory through this career?

@captnvid

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michaelheiss.com

I have a very understanding wife. In fact, my wife Leslie is an architect. As an architect, a member of the AIA, she was very familiar with the awards process and she helped CEDIA get their judging system to where it is today. I benefit by having her at my side and so does CEDIA.

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PROJECT PROFILE

AN ART DECO MASTERPIECE

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Ed Wenck Content Director, CEDIA

Boutique AV's "Bespoke Art Deco" Media Room won multiple 2020 CEDIA Awards, including a Global win for Best Media Room

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outique AV managed a spectacular feat at the 2020 CEDIA Awards — the firm won five awards, four of which for a single project, their “Bespoke Art Deco Media Room.” This beautiful solution won Best Media Room, Level II, Best Lighting, and Best Documentation in the Asia Pacific region, as well as picking up the Global Media Room trophy. It’s the best in the world, and it’s easy to see why.

The Boutique AV team sent along a document that outlined the scope of work, and the process.

Some highlights: “The initial performance objective stemmed from ‘Mr Client.’ He was looking to work from home more frequently and expressed an interest in replicating his three-screen computer station at the office (on a larger scale). He further thought this design could seamlessly cater to the media requirements of the two other family members in the home, his wife and son, to be able to creatively watch TV together as a family, each member with the ability to view their own content.

“Our team designed an 84-inch tri-display AV solution after consulting with each family member to identify their AV use cases and then crossreferenced and complied an initial functionality brief.

“The family can now watch and listen to a matrix of options through the surround-sound system or on one of three dedicated headphones, which can be individually switched to the AV source they are interested in watching or listening. A dedicated custom-built PC has been installed as a secondary input to the displays, to meet the professional use cases that Mr Client specified.

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“The next performance objective was the overall room design with ‘Mrs. Client,’ who has a beautiful design eye for her Victorian-style home.

“After many architects attempted to work with Mrs. Client to design the Art Deco theme, Mrs. Client was left with no solutions that satisfied her.

Our in-house design team was ordered to assist. Our knowledge of Art Deco was not vast, but Mrs. Client’s passion helped push us to come up with a design that works.

“We also had to consider the client's age and familiarity with technology solutions. The client's request was that an interface must be very simple and visually easy to navigate. The iPad user interface solution that we arrived at was built entirely in-house through our graphics and software team. This interface was built from the ground up, which involved timely Art Deco style boarding and software engineering.

“Through our teams’ close workings with Mrs. Client on designing the room, we had a unique opportunity to bring the room to life through creative lighting concepts. Mrs. Client was very keen on having an

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Media Room Level II

Best Lighting

Best Documentation

Technology Meets Design

immersive, colorful lighting feature to be used as in some areas of the room.

Since she didn’t want to be left with the same colors every day, she asked if we could make it a bit animated and interesting. We chose MA Lighting for this application, as it is second to none in terms of its programming capabilities. This is a system that is generally reserved for running Olympic Opening ceremonies, or the Superbowl halftime show, but has the ability to scale down to a smaller application like ours.

“The system has a variety of lighting shows stored for the media room that run each night automatically, also allowing favorites to be selected from the iPad interface. The building façade lights also run every night, and have specially scheduled shows with the Media Room for Easter, Christmas, and NYE, along with exclusive shows for Summer or Winter months.”

CEDIA’s judges noted immediately that this media room, with its fantastically intuitive user interface, clever audio delivery, sound isolation applications, and brilliant — pun intended — lighting solutions, was as they put it, “SUPER creative.”

@BoutiqueAV boutiqueav.com.au CEDIA Member Since 2015

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PROJECT PROFILE

TOWER OF

BILINGUAL CONTROLS AND GREAT ATTENTION TO DETAIL GAVE GRAYTEK A TROPHY FOR BEST INTEGRATED HOME, LEVEL I, IN THE 2020 CEDIA AWARDS (AMERICAS) 16

CEDIA COMMUNICATES

Ed Wenck Content Director, CEDIA

G

raytek took a one-size-fits-all, building-wide automation system and customized the integration to meet the client’s needs. The system that had been pre-installed in this condominium just wasn’t quite up to snuff, as Graytek tells us: “The spec system had limited lighting and motorized shade control, no audio/ video, inadequate touch panel size and functionality, and unsatisfactory shade fabrics.”

The firm says, “Our objective was to deliver a solution that the client could use to entertain guests or allow a variety of business visitors to stay short-term while easily and intuitively navigating the system, even users who may be unfamiliar with this type of home automation. We also provided remote access through a secure VPN (virtual private network), so the client could assist guests staying in the home easily and efficiently, regardless of his location.”

From English to Simplified Chinese

POWER

One of the most important aspects of this entry — in the eyes of both the customer and CEDIA’s judges — is the Crestron controls’ ability to toggle between English and Simplified Chinese. Since the homeowner is bilingual, and many of his guests hail from the Chinese mainland, controls and interfaces had to reflect the comfort level of a variety of users.

AV, network, HVAC control, security, and many more elements are all a part of this brilliant integration. The team from Graytek has the details: “There are eight audio zones including the media system. Each bedroom features Totem Tribe onwall speakers and a dual-eight-inch subwoofer. The kitchen features invisible Sonance speakers hidden in the bulkhead with a dual-eight-inch Totem subwoofer vented out of the kick in the kitchen cabinets.

“Crestron DM (4K compatible) distributes video to all bedrooms and the media system. TV source selection is available on all remotes, iOS and Android devices, and touch panels.

“The client wanted exceptional sound for his media room but large, bulky speakers were not an option because of the room’s high traffic. In-wall speakers wouldn’t work, either — one wall was partially concrete and the other was glass. The ceiling is concrete, which meant in-ceiling speakers were out.”

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The Media Room

EQUIPMENT LIST

Arlington Autonomic Carlon Cisco Control4 Crestron GiantTech Plastics ICM Corp Kanto Legrand Leviton

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Metra Middle Atlantic Neutrik Panamax Panasonic Samsung Sonance Thomas & Betts Ltd Totem Acoustic Ubiquiti Yamaha

Graytek found the answer. “We selected low-profile wall-mounted Totem Tribe 3 and 5s flanking the 75-inch 4K QLED television and Totem Tribe 3 speakers on stands for surround channels. The media room is controlled by a TSR-302 Crestron remote with a touchscreen interface that also has access to the shades, lighting, and climate. The room was calibrated once all the furniture and throw rug were in place to ensure precision.

“We used Crestron’s infiNET wireless lighting solution with engraved lighting keypads, with access to shades and drapes where applicable.

Different colored lighting keypads were used in each area depending on wall color and trim. Lighting system controls are available on touch panel, iOS and Android devices, and media room remotes.”

Shading is part of the environmental solutions here, too: Automation helps keep the west-facing condo — 60 stories up — comfortable regardless of the time or weather. Plus, says Grayek, “The unit’s climate control is tied into building’s HVAC system. Scheduling can be done on mobile devices and touch panel. We are monitoring and controlling humidifiers because some of the custom finishes in the condo require a specific air humidity to prevent drying out or cracking.

“We integrated the building’s intercom and lobby camera into the home’s system and made it functional on the 10-inch touch panel in the main living area.”

The final result: A win for Graytek for Best Integrated Home, Level I, in the 2020 CEDIA Awards (Americas).

Graytek graytek.ca CEDIA Member Since 2004

Integrated Home Level I

MEMBERSHIP MEANS COMMUNITY Your CEDIA membership puts you in the center of a thriving community of home technology integrators — a network of thousands dedicated to helping you build connections, stay competitive, and tap into new opportunities for growth.

Find out about all the benefits that come with being a CEDIA member – or renew to stay connected to those resources at cedia.net/membership.

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Ed Wenck Content Director, CEDIA

The 2020 CEDIA Awards One night, three virtual celebrations, and dozens of trophies for CEDIA’s finest Despite a worldwide pandemic, the CEDIA Awards went on — a little later than usual, and very much online.

The 2020 Awards all hit the CEDIA HQ YouTube channel as “live” premieres at various times on October 8, with regional shows dropping in the Asia Pacific, EMEA, and Americas regions.

Hosting duties were split across the shows. The Asia Pacific program featured the dynamic duo of Paul Skelton, the association’s regional development consultant for Australia and New Zealand and CEDIA’s Vice President of Engagement and Global Development Wendy Griffiths. CEDIA EMEA Managing Director Matt Nimmons hosted that region’s show, and CEDIA’s Interim Co-CEO Giles Sutton handled duties for the Americas.

Sutton had this to say regarding the shows: "Once again, the innovative spirit and technical brilliance of CEDIA members were on display in grand fashion as we salute the 2020 CEDIA Awards winners. The high level of work — submitted in the face of a global pandemic — continues to elevate the industry to new heights. CEDIA member integrators, manufacturers, and thought leaders should be duly proud of their accomplishments and we were honored to provide a sparkling, global platform to recognize them at the CEDIA Awards virtual celebration."

Besides stunning projects, the

shows featured vignettes highlighting everything from advice from CEDIA’s thought leaders to CEDIASTRONG stories of firms pitching in to help during the pandemic — making masks, providing high-tech solutions to hospitals and food suppliers, and folks who volunteered to fight fires during the other crisis that befell the Australia/ New Zealand region earlier on in 2020.

There were cocktails, too. As a way of thanking the evening’s sponsors, some classic recipes were adjusted for a series of boozy tie-ins. (Example: The classic “Sazerac” cocktail became the “Savant-erac” for the evening.) A gent known only as “Tom” handled the pours with dizzying speed for the EMEA and Asia Pacific bar scenes, while bourbon expert Meredith Barry served as mixologist for the Americas.

Big Winners

A number of firms scored massive hauls when it came to the Awards shows. Some examples: The team from the UK firm SONA walked away with an entire case full of EMEA trophies for a single project, dubbed “The I’s Have It.” Awards included: Integrated Home Level III, Best Dressed Rack, Best Documentation, Best Lighting, Life Lived Best at Home, and a Global win for Best Integrated Home.

In the Asia Pacific region, the team from Boutique AV had a spectacular

run themselves, winning Best Media Room Level II, Best Documentation, Best Lighting, and Technology Meets Design trophies for the “Bespoke Art Deco Media Room,” which you can find on pages 12-15. That project also took the Global Award for Best Media Room. Another project by the firm, “Advanced Hilltop Living,” won Best Integrated Home Level II and the Life Lived Best at Home award.

California’s AudioVisions submitted a brilliant project called “The Best of Everything,” a massive job that focused on wellness as much as entertainment.

The integration at work — designed to help sell a $40 million residence in SoCal — won Best Integrated Home Level IV, Technology Meets Design, and Life Lived Best at Home Awards, too. Another California firm, Audio Images, continued a tremendous run of Global Awards for their work.

After winning worldwide acclaim for media rooms the past two years, 2020 saw the team pick up a Global trophy for Best Home Cinema.

Manufacturer and product awards rounded out the shows, along with recognition of this year’s CEDIA Fellow, Dennis Erskine, and the 2020 Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, Michael Heiss.

You can find recordings of all three shows at the CEDIA HQ YouTube channel, and a complete list of winners and finalists at cediaawards.org.

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2020 Honorees EMEA Home Cinema Level 1

Sound Sense

Winner Winner

Home Cinema Level 2 Cyberhomes Intuitive Homes & Ultamation

Winner

Integrated Home Level 2

Henri

Winner

Integrated Home Level 2

Awicon Technologies

Integrated Home Level 1

Integrated Home Level 3

SONA*

Integrated Home Level 3

Perfect Integration

Highly Commended Winner Highly Commended

Media Room Level 1

MEGA AV Installation

Media Room Level 2

Perfect Integration

Winner Winner

Multiple Dwelling Unit

Perfect Integration

Winner

Best Dressed Rack

SONA

Winner

Best Documentation

SONA

Winner

Best Documentation

Perfect Integration

Highly Commended

Best Documentation

Sound Sense

Highly Commended

Best Lighting System

SONA

Winner

Technology Meets Design

Henri

Winner

Life Lived Best at Home

SONA

Winner

APAC Auto/Marine/Aircraft

Liquid Automation

Winner

Home Cinema Level 2

The Digital Picture

Winner

Home Cinema Level 3

McCormick Concepts

Winner

Integrated Home Level 1

Argus Technologies

Winner

Integrated Home Level 2

Boutique AV

Integrated Home Level 2

Electronic Living

Winner

Integrated Home Level 3

Len Wallis Audio

Winner

Integrated Home Level 4

Shanghai Sentiment

Winner Winner

Highly Commended

Media Room Level 1

The Digital Picture

Media Room Level 2

Boutique AV*

Winner

Showroom

Wired Life

Winner

Best Dressed Rack

The Digital Picture

Winner

Best Documentation

Boutique AV

Winner

Best Lighting System

Boutique AV

Innovative System or Solution Liquid Automation

Winner Winner

Technology Meets Design

Boutique AV

Winner

Life Lived Best at Home

Boutique AV

Winner

Americas Home Cinema Level 1

La Scala

Winner

Home Cinema Level 2

Thoughtful Integrations

Winner

Home Cinema Level 3

Audio Images*

Home Cinema Level 3

Audio Images

Winner

Integrated Home Level 1

Graytek Winner

Integrated Home Level 1

Smartlab

Integrated Home Level 1

Land & Sea Entertainment Highly Commended

Highly Commended Highly Commended

Integrated Home Level 2

La Scala

Integrated Home Level 2

Wicked Smart Homes

Highly Commended

Winner Highly Commended

Integrated Home Level 2

Union Place

Integrated Home Level 3

Land & Sea Entertainment

Integrated Home Level 3

All Digital LLC

Integrated Home Level 4

AudioVisions Winner

Winner Highly Commended

Integrated Home Level 4

Admin One Home Systems Highly Commended

Integrated Home Level 4

Cantara

Highly Commended

Media Room Level 1

Union Place

Highly Commended

Media Room Level 2 Cantara Media Room Level 2

Winner

Land & Sea Entertainment Highly Commended

Multiple Dwelling Unit Smartlab

Winner

Showroom

Cinegration Winner

Showroom

Echo Systems

Highly Commended

Showroom

Quality Audio Video

Highly Commended

Best Dressed Rack

Audio Images

Winner

Best Integrated Home | Global

SONA Best Home Cinema | Global

Audio Images

Best Documentation

Admit One Home Systems

Winner

Best Media Room | Global

Best Lighting System

La Scala

Winner

Boutique AV

Innovative System or Solution Cantara Winner

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*GLOBAL WINNERS

Technology Meets Design

AudioVisions Winner

Life Lived Best at Home

AudioVisions Winner

CEDIA COMMUNICATES

First, there was television.

Now there’s EpiqVision.

TM

Introducing the Epson EpiqVision Laser Projection TV1 Whether you’re watching a live sporting event, streaming your favorite series, gaming on the latest generation of consoles, or watching a blockbuster movie, the Epson EpiqVision LS500 Ultra Short-Throw Laser Projection TV1 will simply amaze you.

Epson EpiqVision LS500 Ultra Short-Throw Laser Projection TV1 A Complete Television Solution up to 120"

Learn more at epson.com/tv 1 TV Tuner not included. Purchase of separate TV Tuner and Antenna are required to watch free over-the-air local channels. 2 HDR performance available with select third-party devices. For more information, see www.epson.com/hdrcompatibility 3 4K Enhancement Technology shifts each pixel to double Full HD resolution on screen. Resolution is Full HD in 3D Mode.

2

3

2020

FELLOW AND VOLUNTEERS In addition to recognizing an individual as a Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, CEDIA’s annual awards also honors those inducted in the CEDIA Fellows program and the Volunteers of the Year Dennis Erskine, founder of Colorado-based Erskine Group, Inc., has been recognized as a 2020 CEDIA Fellow. Erskine is the 30th industry contributor to be selected by the CEDIA Board of Directors as a CEDIA Fellow.

The CEDIA Fellows program honors longtime CEDIA members and volunteers who have contributed significantly to the association's success.

“Dennis' name is synonymous with CEDIA,” says CEDIA Board of Directors Chairman Rob Sutherland. “His efforts to drive higher standards, progress best practices, and strengthen outcomes and rigor for CEDIA Certification have been exceptional throughout the years.

Dennis represents the best of spirit and service in the industry, and he joins elite company, indeed, as a CEDIA Fellow.”

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Erskine currently serves as chairman of the CEDIA Certification Commission, which recently helped shepherd in a new era in CEDIA Certification with the launch of the Cabling and Infrastructure Technician Certification and the Integrated System Technician Certification and the ongoing improvements and modernization efforts of CEDIA Certification. He has served as a dedicated volunteer and home theater design subject matter expert for years with the organization, holding key leadership positions, including a two-year term as chairman of the CEDIA Board of Directors beginning in 2016 and multiple stints as a board member. He has been instrumental in the development of standards and

certifications as a volunteer for CEDIA. Erskine Group, Inc., which specializes in architectural acoustics, room construction, and installation, currently produces designs, blueprints, and specifications for home theaters.

Erskine has served as an instructor for the Home Acoustics Alliance.

He previously served in high-level leadership positions for companies and organizations including: Holiday Inns Worldwide, Intelligent Networks, iNet Company of America (a subsidiary of Bell Canada), ITT Dialcom, and Electronic Data Systems. Erskine previously played a role in defining international telecommunications standards. He is a licensed commercial pilot and flight instructor.

Education Volunteer of the Year Janeen Gaskins Volunteer of the Year Stuart Robertson After 12 years as an electrician, Stuart first started in the audio/visual industry installing home theaters and multiroom audio/video systems. From the early ‘90s through today, he has been integrating all forms of electronic systems and lighting controls. In that time, he’s been involved with CEDIA in Asia Pacific as a previous board member, education chair, and vice president. He currently serves on the Professional Development Advisory Council (PDAC) and the Technical Education Working Group (TEWG).

He is the owner and founder of Sound Living in Melbourne, Australia.

Janeen Gaskins is the founder, president and chief executive officer of G.A.S.K.I.N.S. Charity, a new non-profit providing vulnerable populations with lifestyle convenience through designs engineered to integrate and automate smart spaces that improve safety, enhance health, increase socialization, advance productivity, and ensure a better quality of life.

Prior to starting her own nonprofit, Janeen was the owner, vice president and chief operations officer of Shakatronics Audio Video LLC., a for-profit technology solutions integration company for 12 years. Janeen is currently involved in in CEDIA’s Business Working Group and Professional Development Advisory Council, and Grant Professional Association (GPA), and recently graduated from Empower by GoDaddy Program, which provided a scholarship to start her charity.

New Volunteer of the Year Peter Trauth Peter Trauth, owner and president of Nirvana Home Entertainment, has spent some 20 years in a variety of industry businesses. He manages and works with multiple technician teams as a home technology consultant and audio, video, communications, and IT technician.

Trauth hires, trains, and supervises teams of three to five employees with an emphasis on driving communication, transparency, efficiency, autonomy, and a “path to solution” approach within the workplace.

He holds multiple CEDIA Certifications. Trauth is an active member of the CEDIA Certification Commission, Technician Job Analysis Task Force, and CIT Exam Development Working Group.

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Leading with Emotional Intelligence Understanding “EQ,” the “IQ” of Emotional Maturity I don’t know what this year’s experience has been like for you, but for me it’s been a confusing, fast-moving rollercoaster of events.

We have turned to the internet for work, social interaction, reassurance, entertainment, and often just to occupy our minds with anything that relieves us from the nagging worry of ongoing crisis and all it entails. As a result, we have placed ourselves on a quickpaced treadmill, but in this case, the treadmill is on loop with our survival depending on our ability to keep up with its pace.

People often choose one of three paths when faced with difficult circumstances: freeze, fight, or flight. For the first time in my life, I’ve seen many attempting a combination of all three to try to carve out some semblance of control.

This is when we as leaders need to understand the profound significance of leading our teams with Emotional Intelligence (EQ), even when we ourselves are grappling with our own very real challenges.

The nature of our current situation forced us to produce and perform without having the proper time and resources to successfully get through the phase of preparing our people for crisis. Good leaders know this is exactly what you should avoid at all costs. This has caused our followers to feel unsettled and confused, not knowing exactly what to focus on, if “good enough” is OK for now, and wondering if their jobs are going to be secure

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Samantha Ventura Vice President of Education and Training, CEDIA

Negative opinions are good to share if you are also willing to rally together to come to a better understanding of the pathway(s) to solutions.

if they are performing them “differently” than they were before. All of this has resulted in disenchantment and anger within organizations, even those who typically foster transparency and open collaboration.

Right now your teams do not need another spreadsheet, reminder email, or meeting, they need you to show up, be present, listen to them, share their worries and concerns, and, quite simply, care. This crisis is pulling back the many layers of leadership, and revealing the leaders who can communicate, show empathy, rally teams with positive influence, all the while reassuring them that all is going to be OK. As leaders we can always get better at EQ. Here’s how: 1. Reflect often. How can you bridge employees’ differences of opinion, workloads, and conversations? Zoom out, think from the perspective of each, and work to strengthen good resolutions, without taking the side of one over the other unless absolutely necessary.

2. Support those in personal crisis.

People are experiencing sicknesses, children schooling at home, worry over elderly parents, and, in some cases, even deaths in the family. If you can afford to buy a gift card for them to order dinner, do that, and tell them to log off and enjoy some free time with their families. Or, if you can’t do that, let them log off without the gift card, but with your thanks and wish for them to have a worry-free evening.

3. Encourage dialogue. Negative opinions are good to share if you are also willing to rally together to come to a better understanding of the pathway(s) to solutions.

Remember, whether you hear it or not, there is always going to be some type of friction in your organization.

Addressing it head on and with an open mind for solving it together, you are actually relieving people of stress and carrying the burden of secret irritation.

4. Be honest. If there is going to be downsizing, if there will be no pay raises for the year, if you are cutting back in areas to move money to something else, be willing to tell people as much of the truth as possible.

Communicate, listen, encourage collaboration, and be honest and present.

Modeling good EQ for your employees will ultimately allow for the culture of your organization to foster those same values.

Throughout 2021, being emotionally intelligent can mean the difference between your team staying to weather the storm with you versus many who will instead choose to jump ship in search of a better one, despite knowing the seas are going to be rocky in both.

School — talks about a shift in thinking that can help: Simply put, one needs to move from “planning” to “preparing.”

“Most of us are great planners,” she explains.

“If you're an integrator, you get the lay of the land in a certain city: there are X amount of homes over $X million, for example. But now, the variables are still emerging. So we've got to shift our mindset of how we think about business planning to business preparation.”

“The question around the executive team table should not be, ‘Is this a good idea?’ The question is, ‘What has to be true for this to be a good idea?’” Then, the process becomes fairly straightforward, according to Homkes: “As a team, you write down those variables. Rank those variables in order from most important to least important and go down them one by one and say, is this true? If you look at those variables and you say, I feel pretty comfortable that this world will emerge, we can proceed.”

Positive/Negative Asymmetry

The Psychology of Success Two business strategists on the mindset you need to succeed — especially when things are tough

D Ed Wenck Content Director, CEDIA

r. Rebecca Homkes has a blunt bit of wisdom for those running a business: “Your opinion doesn't matter.

“Only the market opinions matter.”

It’s a hard bit of reality at any time, but especially during a downturn, when the notion of “predictability” has essentially vanished. And it’s one of the key pieces of Homkes’ strategic guideline called “Survive, Reset, Thrive,” which proceeds from the premise that, yes, you can actually grow your business when market forces have gone negative.

But in order to get there, you’ve got to reassess your mental approach.

Homkes — a high-growth strategy specialist and lecturer at the London Business

Jason Griffing, director of product at OneVision Resources, has a take on how we process that data in the first place. “There’s a term in psychology known as a positive/ negative asymmetry, and that's just a fancy way of saying that as human beings, we are very drawn to solving problems,” he says.

(To really simplify it, bad things impact our brains more than good things.)

“That’s not inherently a bad thing,” explains Griffing, “but if we're not deliberate and mindful about our approach, what this can lead to is a myopic focus on fixing problems. And that often comes at the expense of zooming out a little bit and saying, ‘Hey, what is working?

Where are the places in our organization where we are having success? And what can we learn about where that's happening?’”

Griffing gives a concrete illustration: “You might have an individual who is particularly good at selling service plans, for example. And if you're focusing all of your energy on the people who aren't even including that plan in the proposal and kind of bashing them over the head and trying to fix that problem, and you're completely ignoring where it is working well.”

The next step? “Ask yourself how can we replicate and scale what’s working — maybe that individual has found successful hacks to the conversation. Maybe they have a really creative way of framing it or presenting it in the proposal. And if you can go dig into those bright spots and figure out what it is about this individual that's driving that success, you'll find that that's a great way to propagate those best practices out across the organization.”

Homkes and Griffing have a lot more to say on this subject and several others: Homkes is a guest on the CEDIA podcast “Survive, Reset, Thrive” and Griffing appears on the episode “Creating Lasting Change.”

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CEDIA'S

NEW A dive into the thought process behind the development of the CIT and IST designations

CERTIF As the new CEDIA website was being updated — including the new CEDIA Academy education platform — another project has been progressing: the revamping of CEDIA Certification.

With the assistance of the CEDIA Certification Commission and the Technician Job Task Analysis (JTA) task force, David Whitney, the association’s director of certification, is seeing the results of a months-long process. “The first thing we did was ensure we had the right volunteers involved,” says Whitney.

Whitney and those volunteers then looked carefully at the actual work that was being performed in the field — and how technology had advanced since the last certification update.

“Every few years, it’s critical that we go back and look at what jobs there are and how we define them,” says Whitney. The decision was made to start reverse-engineering those certification requirements at the entry level. “We wanted to first make certain that the best practices for those coming into the industry were very clear.” That work — including reviews of more than 1,000 job descriptions and a survey of those in the field – yielded the new CEDIA Certified Cabling and Infrastructure

Technician (CIT) and CEDIA Certified Integrated System Technician (IST) Certifications. (You can find more of the “nuts-and-bolts” aspects of the designations at cedia.net.)

Next Steps

Another critical goal of the new CEDIA certification development: ANAB (ANSI National Accreditation Board) accreditation, specifically to the ISO/IEC 17204 standard. As CEDIA Certification Commission Chairman Dennis Erskine notes, “We’ve heard a common thread for many years, namely, ‘What’s the true value of CEDIA Certification?’

“When somebody sits down with an architect, a home builder, an interior designer, or any allied trade and they tell that person, ‘I hold a CEDIA certification,’ what does that mean to them?” Erskine continues. “In many cases, those other tradespeople hadn't heard of CEDIA, much less CEDIA Certification — but if we can have the same body that recognizes their trade recognizing ours, that’s a new level of credibility.”

Achieving that accreditation — especially for a global workforce — is no small task. “I thought I was busy when I was Chairman of the CEDIA Board,” says Erskine. “This is a brand-new level. There's an incredible

“The first thing we did was ensure we had the right volunteers involved.”

DAVID WHITNEY

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Ed Wenck Content Director, CEDIA

FICATIONS amount of work involved and time spent developing policies and procedures.”

That work includes (and is certainly not limited to) creating policy manuals that will be audited again against ANSI requirements, the development of committees to review and update standards and ethics, and, of course, creating the certification exam. The accreditation application process will begin after CEDIA has published the CIT certification exam.

The Test

Creating the exams for these certifications comes with their own set of challenges. First and foremost, there must be an absolute firewall between CEDIA’s Education and Certification departments — the association can’t have its instructors “teaching to the test.” The next issue is building an exam that challenges technicians to show their competence, but is also reliable, fair, and does not stray from the defined level in the blueprint. “We beta-test the exam with an army of volunteers and candidates who fit the profile,” says Whitney. The Certification team then uses the data and feedback from the beta test to establish a passing score and create multiple test forms that all hit a “sweet spot” of difficulty. “Obviously, if you’ve got a really high pass rate, you’ve made the exam entirely too easy,”

Whitney explains.

This process, and the ultimate result, is a point of pride for all involved, and the realization of a key part of CEDIA’s strategic plan. “We will be the leading standards organization within our industry,” says Erskine. “We will be the leading education and certification body within our industry.”

“The organization is actually growing up and becoming a force to be reckoned with,” Erskine adds. “The other thing that is important to add is that this is the result of long two years of board discussions about setting these goals and objectives.” In order to do that, says Erskine, “We had to define ‘What is our industry?’ And it became very simple. Any place a family would spend a night is our turf. That could be a hotel room. It could be a yacht, it could be an airplane.

“But most importantly, it’s the family home.”

“We will be the leading standards organization within our industry.”

DENNIS ERSKINE

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SKILLED TRADES: Samantha Ventura Vice President of Education and Training, CEDIA

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A CALL TO ACTION

Recently I sat down with a professor I had long admired and had a very real and open discussion about higher education, the attendance costs, and the negative and unfair stigma that has often been associated with skilled trades. She is older than me, and has seen trades and how they are viewed and supported societally change over the years, with the past few decades people pushing for high schoolers to aspire mostly to traditional schools of higher education to further their learning.

This is something most everyone I know in higher education agrees with me about: A one-size-fits-all approach to education does a huge disservice to our young people, our economy, and our view regarding not just what people should learn, but how they should learn as well.

According to the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES), the average trade school degree costs around $33,000, compared to the daunting $127,000 price tag associated with many Bachelor degree programs. In our own industry, CEDIA prides itself on the total cost of two brand new pathways (New Hire Essentials Package), with their corresponding certifications, being less than $1,500 for a member. For many achieving certifications from trade schools, the starting rate of pay can go up to $25.00 per hour, with other trades such as aircraft technicians having a starting salary of $50,000 and up, only requiring on-site technical training. Additionally, the U.S. Department of Education recently noted that those with trade and technical educations are actually more likely to be hired, and more quickly, than their academic peers who went through traditional colleges and universities. With shorter learning times, much less in tuition costs, and a higher rate of return upon graduating out of a program, the question remains: why are skilled trades often viewed through a negative lens?

The best way for us to break the stigma often associated with skilled trades can be broken into what I like to note as our three significant industry action items—a Call to Action, if you will.

1.

Accept and support all kinds of learning, and all areas of study, recognize the way in which students learn and the topics they learn, and abandon the mindset of “acceptable programs and schools.”

2. Applaud students and their families who are self-aware and able to accurately assess the needs of the student first without falling victim to misguided opinions attached to non-traditional learning experiences as well as institutions of higher learning.

3. Consider giving back to our industry by bringing your success and expertise to others by presenting at skilled trade and industry related conferences (like Expo and ISE), writing blogs, and maybe even program teaching at a local trade school. Your success will provide a clear and enticing illustration for those interested in our industry.

Why are skilled trades often viewed through a negative lens?

You may have heard me use the phrase, “we are strongest when we are stronger together.” As we continue to see our nation struggle with shortages in the area of skilled trades, we can be very real champions for helping to solve this problem.

Supporting the education in our industry, believing in the certifications we provide, and upholding the standards within your own organizations that mirror those supported, explored, and developed through a joint CEDIA/CTA/ANSI accredited standards body, are all ways we can continue to commit to raise the bar together and showcase this industry as the viable, exciting, and fulfilling career option it is.

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Ed Wenck Content Director, CEDIA

Spotlight Q&A: A Chat with the Chairman of the CEDIA PDAC A few minutes with Mal Fisher, Chair of CEDIA’s Professional Development Advisory Council CEDIA: What’s the mission statement of the Professional Development Advisory Council?

Mal Fisher: It’s best if I just read it for you: “The PDAC serves as the global voice of industry to the education team at CEDIA. This globally focused advisory board works with staff to develop new channels of business for education advisors on topics for the education portfolio, identify current and future skill needs and manages the working groups of the PDAC.”

CEDIA: Couldn’t agree more. What’s been the biggest challenge?

Fisher: Ensuring the virtual CEDIA Expo Experience was on point when it came to education — we created two days of learning in a medium we’ve not used before. This pandemic has been quite something. Back in early March I’d put together several pages of notes of what I’d hoped to achieve — and then within two weeks 90% of it became almost irrelevant.

CEDIA: What working groups report to the PDAC? Fisher: That includes the Technical Education Working Group, Business Working Group, Instructor Working Group, and the Workforce Development Working Group.

CEDIA: What’s the best part about volunteering for CEDIA? The sheer amount you learn in this process is far more than you're ever going to teach. You're listening to voices from all over the industry, from manufacturers to distributors to all levels of integrators. Many of those voices become valuable contacts and, above all, friends. And getting such a broad range of industry feedback is incredibly valuable for both what you do with CEDIA and in your own role at your day job.

I’d encourage our industry to offer time when they can, as they’ll get far more in return.

The other benefit is being able to work closely with the CEDIA staff. After getting to know all these people in the education and workforce departments, you suddenly understand why they're in the position they’re in — and how qualified they are for that position.

There’s one more thing I’d like to add — it’s something I think people should know about: There are dozens and dozens of volunteers who never appear on a podcast or a webinar. They’re the quiet volunteers. The remarkable amount that those individuals contribute to our association and industry should be celebrated.

CEDIA: How often do you all meet, and what’s the primary point of discussion lately?

Fisher: We meet once per month, varying the meeting time to accommodate the wide variety of time zones for our PDAC members. It’s the most diverse group ever in terms of global representation.

We're trying to build a body of knowledge that can be used irrespective of events. We’ve got to shore up the content base and improve the educational platform that CEDIA provides. In a given meeting, we could be discussing a technical topic, Wi-Fi 6 perhaps, or a business class. We’re often discussing ideas that people have brought into the group that they think would be a valid topic for education — or the process of the education itself. What format are we using to deliver the material? How are we making certain that curriculum is ensuring competency?

CEDIA: What have been the biggest gains the PDAC’s made of late?

Fisher: The launch of the CEDIA Academy has taken a huge team effort over the past few years, and I’m proud of the contribution that the PDAC has made, even if it’s minor compared to that of the staff.

(Editor’s note: As of June 1, 2020, there were more than 145 member volunteers serving in the CEDIA working groups, advisory councils, committees, and the Board of Directors.)

Mal Fisher is the CTO of AWE Europe LTD www.awe-europe.com/

Meet all the members of the PDAC cedia.net/membership/get-involved/volunteer/advisory-councils

CEDIA COMMUNICATES

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EXPO RECAP

THE CEDIA EXPO EXPERIENCE, DAY ONE: THE KEYNOTES Although the 2020 Expo Experience happened in cyberspace, the show had some familiar elements: notably, the opening keynotes.

After a rollout of the latest CEDIASTRONG initiative, the “CEDIASTRONG Fund” (find more info on cedia.net), keynote speaker, Linzi Boyd began her first of two presentations, “Building Brands to Shift Industries: Today, Tomorrow, The Future.”

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Ed Wenck Content Director, CEDIA

The Changing Business Model

Boyd’s fundamental question is as complex as it is brief: “What if we could build a brand that shifts the world?”

Boyd — who sold her fashion sneaker brand at the age of 24 to embark on her current career — notes something incredible has happened with the dawn of the digital age: Everyone could be seen at a moment’s notice. The old mode of selling something has now morphed to match the instantaneous, saturated nature of the internet. Margins for goods are squeezed as price comparisons become a quick search.

“Want to grow your business?” asks Boyd. “The fastest growth can be found when you shift from sales-led to a brand-led to ultimately a ‘purpose-led’ business.”

As Boyd notes, any economic downturn carries with it three phases: “Shock, Recovery, Rebuild. We saw some companies lose 90% of their revenue in the ‘shock’ phase, the first three months. And those companies that used that time to engage with people as humans, as people — not customers, but people who needed connection during a terrible upheaval — those companies are roaring back.”

“You can change from a business leader to becoming a world leader,” says Boyd. “Ask yourself, ‘What do you want to be known for? How do you want to leave people feeling?’”

even when they’re not triggered by a sudden viral disruption. What Shirlaw sees is an “L-shaped” recession; the drop we’ve all experienced and then a period of pain. The good news? The arc turns northward in September 2021, and Shirlaw is predicting no less than ten years of economic growth.

So how do you prepare for that upturn?

“The 20th century was all about making money. If you could load up food with chemicals to preserve it or bring higher yields, if we generated tons of cheap plastic — if we could make money at it, we did.”

“The 21st century will be about cleaning all of that up.”

And in that cleaning up, the companies that connect with that concept as a purpose will likely thrive.

The best way to illustrate commitment to that purpose? Human connection.

Business to People, or “B2P,” as Boyd calls it, not the antiquated notions of B2B or B2C. “You can present yourself in so many channels at once now — so many that the concepts of B2B and B2C are dying.”

Boyd likes to ask businesses who sign up for her “BoB (Business of Branding)” school: “Do you Google people?” Hands go up.

Then she asks, “Are people Googling you?”

The answer is, “Of course,” no matter how many of those business owners are willing to admit it. “People don’t go looking for your company brand — your website — they look for you.”

“This is especially helpful for a small business,” notes Shirlaw. “It’s so much easier for your team to establish those human connections in a place where everyone is working toward a singular purpose.”

Linzi Boyd

Cleaning Up the 20th Century

Boyd’s second keynote was a conversation with her business partner Darren Shirlaw in a presentation entitled Economic, Societal, and Consumer Trends for a 21st Century Mindset.

Shirlaw — a former fund management exec — saw this recession coming, pandemic or not. “Look back through history,” he notes, “and you’ll see a pattern of 14 years of flat economic activity, followed by 18 years of growth.

“You can trace it back to Egyptian grain prices from 3000 years ago,” he adds. What’s even more fascinating is that those 18-year cyrcles are often abruptly interrupted by corrections, CEDIA COMMUNICATES

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THE CEDIA TALKS 2020 The CEDIA Virtual Expo Experience included, of course, a virtual CEDIA Booth — and the Booth played host to 2020’s round of CEDIA Talks

CEDIA’s Director of Government Affairs Darren Reaman was the opening act with an overview of what his department has been up to — legislation continues in the midst of a pandemic, after all. Reaman’s been handling this particular desk for decades, keeping watch for legislation (especially at the state level) that might impede CEDIA members from doing their business.

Reaman notes that, “The majority of state legislation that we look after deals wtih state-wide electrical licensing related to PoE and low-voltage licensing, alarm and security legislation related to home automation, connected devices, and workforce development.”

Reaman says that he’s currently registered to lobby in eight states: Arizona, California, Indiana, Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, and Oklahoma.

(He registers as a lobbyist when a state has legislation pending that needs to be addressed.)

“In 2020 CEDIA lobbied on legislation and regulations related to the industry in Maryland, New Jersey, and Oklahoma,” says Reaman, noting that the busines of governance has been disrupted by the pandemic.

“During the 2020 legislative sessions, CEDIA has tracked 605 legislative bills in all 50 states and Canada, and 70 regulations in 28 states.” Notably, about half of the legislation that’s gotten on Reaman’s radar has been COVID-related.

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The Surveillance Show, Workforce Updates

Voice Control – The Good, The Bad, the Difficult

CEDIA Board Director Michael Cogbill began the Wednesday slate of sessions with a talk on “Trends in Video Surveillance.” The headline: It’s all digital now, of course.

Josh Capecelatro, the brain behind Josh.ai (and a CEDIA Board Director), knows the business of voice control — the Josh platform, is after all, just such an interface.

“The sweet spot for cameras will be 4K very soon in the IP universe,” says Cogbill, and the technologies that are advancing in this realm make the images better and better. Recording solutions and lens technology are making strides, too, as are video analytics — it’s an area that Cogbill finds incredibly interesting, since analytics will ultimately replace a human’s attention span (which is limited) when it comes to monitoring a security camera system.

“When we talk about AI, it’s important to understand the difference between ‘machine learning’ and ‘deep learning’,” he explains. “Machine learning means that you send a set of rules that the device follows those rules: Thing A moves like a car, thing B moves like a person. Deep learning means the device is being trained to create its own rules and learn from the massive crush of data it receives.

“We’ll see cameras with deep learning capabilities by the mid-2020s,” says Cobill. “And by the later ‘20s, cameras won’t just recognize a ‘car,’ they’ll be able to ID, say, a vintage 1990s Ferrari.”

CEDIA’s Ian Bryant checked in on the work the association’s been up to regarding workforce development: “By end of 2021, we’ll have hands-on CEDIA training via a network of providers, and we’re establishing links between jobseeker pipelines and member employers,” notes Bryant. “We had a big win at ISE 2020 this past February — we connected with 400 students, and that outreach is planned for other events such as next year’s Expo and Tech Summits.”

In his CEDIA Talk at this year’s “virtual booth,” Capecelatro is trying to answer the question: “Why is Voice Control so Hard?”

VUI does have its critics, which is to be expected given its growth: 157 million Americans now own smart speakers, up from 67 million in December of 2017. And naturally, as its popularity expands, so does that vocal group of naysayers.

Capecelatro covers the mechanical issues inherent in these controls. A perfect VUI device environment would be free of dust, vibrations, ambient noise, and objects placed between microphone and speaker. Of course, that’s not possible.

The bigger problem here, though? ASR, or Automatic Speech Recognition.

“ASR takes a word, converts to text, then translates it with a probability formula,” says Capecelatro. Of course, it’s easy to trip up those formulas. “Think of words like ‘would’ and ‘wood,’ or even ‘we can’ and ‘weekend.’” Mix in accents and the like, and the issues multiply.

“Now think of a phrase like ‘turn on the lights,’” says Capecelatro. “The lights in a room? Sure, but there’s a show called ‘The Lights,’ several songs called ‘The Lights,’ a band called ‘The Lights,’ and so on.” It’s why Capecelatro and the other folks developing these interfaces are working doubly hard to provide the perfect voice experience for the customer — it ain’t easy, but when it works, it’s a jaw-dropper.

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Wi-Fi 6 Update Nathan Holmes, director of training and development at Access Networks, has the latest deets on Wi-Fi 6 — the new name of next-gen wireless was to eliminate consumer confusion. (“802.11ax” does seem a trifle clunky, after all.)

“Wi-Fi 6 has dual band support: 2.4GHz and 5GHz,” says Holmes, “And there’s some good news for IoT devices: Wi-Fi 6 includes something called High Efficiency Extended Range Single User format — simply put, that’s a stronger signal for gear at the very edge of its range — that’s especially great for outdoor devices at the perimeter of a property.”

Another advancement due in the next year and a half, says Holmes, is Wi-Fi 6E. Holmes tells us, “The FCC approved an additional 1200MHz of bandwidth for 6E, mainly in the 6GHz spectrum — this gives you up to seven channels that are 160MHz wide.

“It’s the first time we’ll be able to achieve data rates that these standards are capable of.”

Wi-Fi 6’s efficiencies also include tech borrowed from the cellular world: Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (OFDMA). “With legacy Wi-Fi, a device used a whole channel,” explains Holmes. “Using OFDMA, each client device only requests the amount of bandwidth it needs for its given broadcast. Now, one can send or receive from multiple client devices.”

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Company Culture and the Life-cycle of the Employee Joe Whitaker — also on the CEDIA Board of Directors and the owner of the firm Thoughtful Integrations — had some thoughts about how a company’s culture and the life-cycle of its employees are intertwined.

“Company culture is critical,” says Whitaker. He cites a survey that found 39% of employees would leave a firm if they had negative views about its culture.

But what is “company culture,” exactly?

According to Whitaker, the components are: •

Values – Perhaps this is summed up with words like honesty, integrity? What’s the “moral center?”

•

Ideals — What is it that your firm does — what do you offer to the client base?

•

Attitudes — How do your people work with each other, how do they do things for clients — does the technician greet the customer with a smile?

“We sell a lot of the same boxes, and at the end of the day, most clients pick you based on your people,” notes Whitaker. It stands to reason that finding and then retaining those people is really the key, and there’s strategies for doing that. One obvious one? Whitaker says, “Look for life milestones. Empathize. Is the employee getting married? Buying a house? Coping with a divorce? Just by asking that simple question: ‘Are you OK?’ can go a long way toward building employee loyalty.”

A love letter to Amsterdam from ISE Mike Blackman Managing Director, ISE

I

n February 2020, we hosted “¡Hola Barcelona!” in celebration of Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) moving to its new location in 2021. While the move is an exciting milestone for ISE, it is also an emotional one as we had to say farewell to the RAI in Amsterdam — our home for the past 15 years. Amsterdam and the RAI have been very good to ISE, so good in fact that we physically outgrew it, hence our relocation to the Fira de Barcelona in 2021. This marks a monumental new chapter in the history of ISE, but we must not forget Amsterdam and the achievements it enabled us.

So, it is with great pride that ISE, in partnership with our co-owners, CEDIA and AVIXA, will be leaving a legacy in the city we once called home. Het Jeroen Pit Huis (The Jeroen Pit House) is a new transitional care unit for chronically ill children and their families, who are being treated at Emma Children’s Hospital — the RAI’s chosen charity — located within the grounds of Amsterdam University

Medical Centre. We are supporting the project alongside multiple AV brands and two integrators, AVEX Technology and CEDIA Member of Excellence, Woelf.

Thanks to the ongoing generosity from industry contributors, we are bringing together the best in technology, design, and installation expertise to deliver a hi-tech entertainment space within the transitional care unit. Including a sensory room and home cinema, the project will provide an area of escapism for chronically ill children and their families to enjoy. Work is due to begin in January 2021, with completion scheduled for the first quarter of 2022.

The aim of Het Jeroen Pit Huis is to make the transition from hospital to home for sick children and parents easier, safer, and steadier. This care unit will help families to adapt to the changes that will be required at home, providing education and support for the journey ahead of them.

Our hope is that Het Jeroen Pit Huis will be a cherished resource for the people of Amsterdam for many years to come.

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INDUSTRY Q&A

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE

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Terry Morton, Land & Sea Entertainment, USA: There's no other place that we know of in the world where your work can be judged by the top people in the industry, so a win from CEDIA means everything to us.

Why do you enter the CEDIA Awards?

Scott Sauer, The Digital Picture, Australia: We enter the CEDIA Awards every year, mainly because it's great to have our work measured against the best of our peers. There aren't any other places for us to see how the quality of our work can be benchmarked against everyone else in the industry — and that's not just Australia, but across the world.

Michael Sherman, Henri, France: We enter the CEDIA Awards for our team. We do it to highlight the amazing and precise job they can deliver working all together. But most of all, we enter to reward them. When we win a CEDIA Award, there is a true feeling of pride from the team, knowing they compete with the best and that they are one of them.

Kassa Harrison, Harrison Home Systems, Lakewood, CO, USA: We enter the CEDIA Awards to showcase our team's work. Entering the awards drives us to keep improving and pushing the envelope to be the best we can be as a company.

How do the Awards elevate your business?

Oliver Hall, Ultamation, UK: We've been to a few of the Awards dinners now, and every time I come away buzzing with new ideas of things that we could do better.

“Every time I come away buzzing with new ideas of things that we could do better.”

Oliver Hall, Ultamation

Stephen Nevison, Intuitive Homes, UK: I feel based on what we see from our peers and how they do things, the CEDIA Awards gives everyone a chance to see how they can raise the bar.

Jan Erik Eden, Atlantic Control Technologies, USA: I believe that the CEDIA Awards really help to elevate the entire industry, maybe even the entire building industry, because their rigorous inspection of best practices and documentation really resonates with the idea of professionalism with our industry partners. And also, a little friendly competition amongst peers never hurts, right?

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Dean Belton, Argus Technologies, Australia: The CEDIA Awards have been a great form of promotion for our business. We've only been members for a very short time, but to be able to leverage the Awards and to showcase some of our winning projects to new builders and new clients has been a great way to attract new business.

What does it mean to be nominated for a CEDIA Award?

Mark Bridger, Bridger Automation, Australia: To be nominated for a CEDIA Award, especially in the toughest category — Best Integrated Home, Asia-Pacific — is a great accolade for our business. It puts us on a stage where we're recognized for all the hard work that we do.

Simon Clarke, Clarke Infinity, UK: We're really proud to be nominated for an award with CEDIA. It elevates our business to a new level, and it's good to be recognized within our industry.

Jason Voorhees, Cantara, USA: At Cantara, we've been fortunate enough to have won a few awards from CEDIA over the years, and each year it's special for us.

It's a moment for us to take just a little bit of a pause and reflect on the quality of work that we get to do for our clients.

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CHALLENGE & SOLUTION

Leveraging Any Upturn for the Next Potential Downturn

A recap of the Business Recovery Planning 2.0 webinar from Luke Desmond of the UK firm Crisp Accountancy

Luke Desmond, whose firm Crisp Accountancy has guided integrators through choppy waters in the past, is presenting his thoughts on the “new abnormal” in a webinar called “Business Recovery Planning 2.0.” For a good many firms, Desmond notes, as lockdown restrictions ease (in both the U.K. and U.S.), there’s a torrent of business that’s been unleashed. Integrators are suddenly seeing pent-up demand released back into the marketplace, and the firms that survived are suddenly flush with work orders.

The problem? “This is likely temporary,” cautions Desmond. “We’re very likely to see another economic dip, and you need to prepare. There’s a false sense of security when demand spikes. You can’t become overconfident. Otherwise, the consequences could be dire.”

Four Ways to Improve Your Prospects

Depending on the kind of business you have, Desmond believes there are four paths one might take to adjust your business model, from the radical to the immediately practical:

Ed Wenck Content Director, CEDIA

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Innovate. “I know of one business that sold travel gear, and obviously, that business has collapsed. They’re transitioned to at-home hair clippers,” says Desmond.

Re-engineer. “Liquor companies have begun making hand sanitizer. An F1 race team has begun making ventilators for the UK health service.”

Adapt. Desmond says this is one that he’s seen as most prevalent among integration firms. “I’ve seen CEDIA companies using drones to scout big jobsites that are still under construction, and then walking their clients through what might be placed where when things loosen up.”

Widen Your Lane. Simply put: Broaden your product or service offering. Are you selling service contracts with every job?

Why not?

Turning the Checklist on Its Head

Desmond presents a slide that ticks off all the items one might find in a business budget, from gross revenue (at the top, see illustration) to an increase or decrease in cash (at the bottom). “The bottom is where you need to start,” explains Desmond. “What were you making pre-COVID versus postCOVID? Has the cash caught back up yet?”

Your revised business budget • • • • • • • • • • • •

Gross Revenue Gross Profit Gross Profit % Overheads Net Profit before tax Tax Net Profit after tax Drawings (not included in wages) Asset purchases (sales) Loan principal repaid (drawn) Other cash movements Increase (decrease) in cash

As you’re accounting for losses (or gains), Desmond says the small business owner should really focus first on his or her personal budget. “What do you need to remain comfortable? Do you have enough to account for catch-up repayments if you have loans?”

Next up: Build your resources. “Are your accounts up to date? Has everyone paid on time? Is there equipment you no longer need? Do you need an office? Can you cut or abolish your rent payout, maybe even sell of a building if you own it?” Desmond says that the key to your cash flow — even if times are strong just now — is to build a big enough “war chest” to survive any sudden plunge.

Build Your Lists

Desmond says you could be regularly checking on a few numbers. “Get some sort of reporting on your finances right away that you can understand and stay on top of it. It’s different for every business,” he explains, noting that the numbers you track should total no more than five or six items that can give you a very quick, back-of-theenvelope calculation on your financial health.

“Perhaps it’s sales, profit, cash on hand, stats on jobs in the pipeline — it’s what you think will paint that picture quickly.”

One also needs to develop a “risk register,” a matrix built on an x-y axis to determine the likelihood of various scenarios and their potential impact. Could your operation be affected by a lawsuit? Could supply chains be disrupted?

And once you’ve filled in all the blanks, Desmond walks through a sample business plan — which you can see in the complete webinar: https://youtu.be/btbrU1BMw6c crispaccountancy.co.uk

@Crisp_Acc

Ed Wenck Content Director, CEDIA

The fundamental difference between “standards” and “best practices”

THE CEDIA PODCAST:

Shall Versus Should

A

s CEDIA marks its approval by The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) as an Accredited Standards Developer (ASD) (more details at cedia.net) it’s likely a good time to explain the difference between a “standard” and a “best practice.”

The quickest way to delineate the two? “Shall” versus “should.”

Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary defines “shall” in this case as a word “used in laws, regulations, or directives to express what is mandatory” (definition 3b). “Should” is less definitive: That word is “used in auxiliary function to express

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obligation, propriety, or expediency,” propriety being likely the operative word in this instance (definition 2).

The Audio — and the Auto — Example

Walt Zerbe, CEDIA’s senior director of technology and standards, explains the difference with the illustration of a “best practice” set of guidelines developed for audio, CEDIA’s CEB 22.

“If you have a standard for speaker placement, that means you can only put that specific speaker in that particular spot in a room — and we know that ‘perfect placement’ isn’t always desirable or even possible.”

Client desires for aesthetics, the room’s limitations due to construction or cost — all of those factors make for

For more on CEDIA’s Best Practices, check out CEDIA Podcast episode 178 at cedia.net.

a situation where “should” is a vastly more reasonable an ask than “shall.”

Peter Aylett (HTE), who volunteers as part of the committee developing these practices, likes to use an automotive analogy. “I would argue that if someone that had never driven a really decent car drove an Audio, BMW, or Mercedes, they would think, ‘Wow, this is amazing! This is the last car I ever want to buy.’

“However, if you then let them drive the other two from that trio, the chances are they're going to have a preference. Now, that doesn't make the original one bad, and you can't really criticize the engineering of any of those cars.”

“Every single time you design an audio-visual experience for a customer you're having to balance compromises.”

PETER AYLETT, HOME THEATRE ENVIRONMENT

The Difference Is…

The cars all perform within a set of parameters — from acceleration to braking to suspension and handling — that put them in a particular performance category. In “practice,” however, they’re different: different fits, finishes, looks, and “feels,” from sporty to more sedate. Perhaps an even better example: all three comply with safety and emissions standards, but the seat-belt buckles and exhaust systems may be vastly different.

“They're fundamentally incredibly well-engineered, but the art is all about a balance of compromises,” says Aylett.

“And as we know, every single time you design an audio-visual experience for a customer you're having to balance compromises. There are certain things that are art — but you can't argue the physics. The physics of sound is the physics of sound.

“You can discuss the implementation of the physics, how it's interpreted, but you can't say the physics of sound is somehow errant.”

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THE LAST 5% WISDOM FROM OUR MEMBERS (AND SOME OTHERS, TOO) “The toughest part of a job? Sometimes it’s the last 5%.” – Anon.

I’m a great believer in the notion of “Do what you say and prove it.” Being able to prove that you're technically competent and able to work within a set of industry wide-guidelines — and meet and exceed them — is really the ultimate goal for any company.

Nic Black, The Pyramid Group, from the CEDIA Awards panel presented in the 2020 CEDIA Expo Virtual Booth

Groucho Marx said, “I wouldn't want to belong to any club that would have me as a member.” On the other hand, being in the club of recipients of the CEDIA Lifetime Achievement Award is certainly something I really am honored to be a member of.

Michael Heiss, from the CEDIA Podcast “Michael Heiss, Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient”

We do this to help our neighbors, so they might help us when it’s our turn.

Because it will be our turn one day. Living in the bush, we know it’s not if, but when.

John O’Brien, industry consultant and writer, on why he volunteers as a firefighter with the CFA (Country Fie Authority), Australia

The best piece of advice I ever got? Leave 10 bad jobs and pick one good job. One good job for a client, and that client will become your promoter without you spending an extra penny.

Manoj Soni, AV4U (India), from the “Tips, Tricks and Tidbits” vignettes featured in the 2020 CEDIA Awards Show

I don't do any programming with the system until I've had a formal manual handover of the system from the electrical contractor to myself as the installer. The second that you inject some kind of program into it, you've accepted responsibility for the entire job and that leaves you responsible for everything.

Simon Buddle, CEDIA EMEA head of standards and curriculum, from the preview of his class on Lighting System Documentation on the CEDIA blog

I feel fancy. Do you feel fancy?

Meredith Barry, guest bartender for the 2020 CEDIA Awards Show, Americas, enjoying one of her champagne-based creations

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