CEDIA: Building a community
Members of the residential systems integration sector will undoubtedly be familiar with the Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association (CEDIA). With more than 3,500 member companies globally, the association serves an estimated 22,000+ industry professionals that manufacture, design, and integrate goods and services for the connected home.
Lately, the association has had a rough trot in Australia and New Zealand, undergoing a number of changes to the way it services the region. Now, the association wants you to know that it is here and ready to work with local industry members to continue to build the local market.
Laura Hockstra is the global senior director of membership for CEDIA. She says the association is busy building a worldwide community for its members to better enable networking, training and troubleshooting opportunities.
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“The cool thing to come out of Integrate is confirmation that people love the CEDIA brand. They get excited about it and they want the best for the organisation, and that’s been pretty exciting for us,” she says.
“We’re now looking to continue the build in Asia Pacific, but as the industry changes we’ve had to adjust the association to meet the needs of members.
“The whole organisation is now taking a different approach to building a global community, to assist our members make connections – from the manufacturing community to the distribution community, right through to integrators. That’s what we do well.
“A lot of our integrator members tell us that they want an opportunity to reach out and connect with other integrators and talk shop (in particular business and operations). We’ve got the technical training and it’s as strong as ever, but we are definitely focusing more on building a more complete community.”
In the past two months, CEDIA launched ‘CEDIA Groups’, which offer like-minded business owners a platform for discussing business opportunities and challenges – all with the goal of improving their businesses.
Each CEDIA Group is made up of five to seven CEDIA member integrator executives who meet monthly via phone or webinar to network, discuss key business issues, share best practices and have candid conversations about operational challenges.
Every CEDIA Group has a team leader to provide organisational support and groups have access to advisors, integrators who have demonstrated operational excellence during their years of experience within the industry.
To date, the association already hosts nine groups in the US and one is being formed in the UK.
“We are dedicated to creating network platforms, that are cost effective, that can be accessed any time our members need assistance,” Laura says.
“As an industry association, we need to build opportunities for our members day in and day out, and that’s where we will spend a lot of effort moving forward.”
In addition to CEDIA Groups, the association also has plans to launch online forums before the year is over, allowing members to share in an environment that is safe.
Further, in 2016, the organisation plans to launch a job board/career centre.
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