I’m a little surprised that since everyone’s been on Zoom as the coronavirus pandemic lockdown took full force, I haven’t seen or heard people invoke Aretha Franklin’s 1985 song referenced in the headline.

Then again, the Queen of Soul’s tune is 35 years old and I’m just dating myself and my nostalgia for the ’80s (for the record, the song did reach No. 7 on the Billboard charts).

But everyone is Zoomin’ everyone these days, and now CE Pro is as well. As it turns out the ease-of-use factor of the Zoom platform plus the suddenly greater availability of pretty much anyone we’d like to interview … well, this was a perfect opportunity for to launch the CE Pro Podcast using the now-ubiquitous format.

Zoom has afforded us the means to make video house calls with a range of guests that represent various areas of the custom electronics industries. We’ve been rolling out one episode per week, and following our inaugural podcast in which CE Pro editors gathered for more of a roundtable (or round room) discussion, we’ve talked to integrators, industry association leaders, manufacturers, PR folks and more.

During this time of uncertainty, challenges and changes, these CE Pro Podcast chats have become not just fun “catching up” discussions like we might have at an industry event, but an important complement to our coverage on cepro.com as we track the latest coronavirus-related news and ways custom integrators continue to serve customers as an “essential” workforce.

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CEDIA CEO Tabatha O’Connor, for example, joined us to further detail the association’s CEDIA STRONG initiative that launched in early April.

“The leadership team had been brainstorming efforts that would best support our members during this difficult time, and we were able to get some great feedback and support from some key volunteers, including our board members,” she told us. “What’s so great about the initiative is it’s a starting point, it’s an opportunity to build and find new things that we can continue to put in there.”

The following week the CE Pro Podcast provided more specific insights into how integrators have been navigating work opportunities and communicating with clients amid shelter-in-place orders. Dan Fulmer, founder of FulTech Solutions in Jacksonville, Fla., outlined the steps he and his team members took when the lockdown began, the types of jobs they’ve been completing and the safety and health measures they take to work on those projects.

“When this all started out, I figured that we would be deemed an essential business because of the networking and video conferencing and what not, and wanted to keep our team working so I immediately went online and started looking for masks, booties and gloves,” Fulmer recalled.

“Booties and gloves weren’t too hard to find — you’re not going to get surgical gloves, but mechanic gloves, other kind of gloves like that … the masks were a real problem.”

FulTech has been prioritizing commercial jobs and take great precaution handling residential requests beyond some of the technology that’s really become essential. Naturally, some projects have been put on hold and some were canceled, but FulTech has been capitalizing on commercial jobs — where it serves technology needs for corporate conference rooms, telemedicine and more — as well as pressing residential issues like home networks.

Speaking of networking, in another podcast episode Access Networks CEO Hagai Feiner explained to us how all the work-from-home and schooling- from-home have really pushed the category into a critical spotlight. Bandwidth strain is stoking the flame for integrators to lead with home networking solutions in their sales consultations, he says.

“I even felt the challenge with my network because this is an apartment where we moved into, it’s a rental,” Feiner says. “We put the network in that we brought from our old house, didn’t really think about it, there’s no wiring here so there’s one access point downstairs … and guess what, all my conferences are up here in my master bedroom and video doesn’t transmit that well because of the issues in this apartment.”

We’ve also been able to share another side of the custom industry, with a recurring segment called Industry’s Got Talent. Leon Speakers’ Camila Ballario, for example, sang a tune and strummed the guitar onscreen for us to kick things off.

So drop us a line if you’d like to be a part of the show, and check them out at here!

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