Has everyone recovered from their trip to Dallas for CEDIA 2016? Feet rested? Brain recharged?
As you’re (hopefully) aware, CEDIA offers quite a bit more than an annual show – in fact, there’s a ton of benefits to members of the association.
CEDIA Education
Boot camps. Training events. Hands-on learning. Online courses. Webinars. CEDIA’s Education department is constantly updating coursework and literature to reflect the ever-changing residential technology market. Plus, CEDIA members can access discounted training passes at the annual CEDIA show, along with other price breaks and free resources. And that education culminates in …
CEDIA Certification
Multiple levels of industry certification are offered by CEDIA, covering everything from basic installation techniques to advanced networking. After you’re certified, the aforementioned education products can help you maintain your bona fides with continuing ed credits. Ben Larkin of ListenUp tells us “We have dozens of employees that are certified … we deploy their expertise daily. It’s important for us to portray that to our clients and customers as well.”
CEDIA Community
There’s a new digital platform that allows members to share thoughts, ideas – even documents. The CEDIA Community is a notion that had been bubbling for a while, growing out of a previous iteration that had been frankly a bit catch-as-catch-can. The new offering includes a forum features that allow for posts for general discussion and perusal as well as offline messaging, a member directory and a library of sharable documents and business templates to help your day-to-day operations.
CEDIA Groups
Imagine the CEDIA Community you just read about – now imagine a subset of like-minded home technology professionals; a group of 10 or so, say, all in markets other than yours. CEDIA Groups give you the opportunity to connect with your peers on a regular basis in a space where you can comfortably share challenges and solutions without worrying about whether or not you’re tipping off your competition. CEDIA Group meetings are run by a team leader, and the team can be as single-issue-focused – or freewheeling – as the group decides. Dana Devance of Devance Electronic Lifestyle says that her group of integrators cover topics such as “making good hires – administrators and technicians – managing cash flow, [and sharing] some of the risks in our industry.”
CEDIA Business Xchange
Odds are good your focus is likely technical – but how do you achieve real business success? The goal of the Xchange: learning from your peers in an environment that’s at once relaxed and intensive. The three-day session covers a variety of business-ops topics with presentations and workshops that cover a lot of ground in a conversational and collaborative fashion.
CEDIA Awards
As a member, you’re welcome to enter the annual CEDIA Awards competition – a win elevates your status and can be leveraged as an incredibly effective sales tool. (Plus, the trophy’s pretty cool, too.) “It’s a morale booster for our staff – and it gives us credibility when we’re talking to our clients,” sums up Mike Chorney of La Scala Integrated Media. Plus, “We get really great attention when it comes to tech support,” as a result of la Scala’s multiple wins. All the entrants, finalists and winners are showcased in the annual CEDIA Awards yearbook.
There, as you’d expect, dozens more benefits for CEDIA members – all of which can be found at http://cedia.net/cedia-membership.
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