CEDIA’s educational conference lineup at this year’s CEDIA Expo show includes more than 125 classes, 50 percent of them brand new and covering 17 different areas of expertise. CEDIA Expo will be held September 10-14 at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver.
“We are introducing many more intermediate and advanced courses in our offerings, as well as continuing to offer the foundational classes intended for newer entrants to the industry,” said Tom Darling, senior vice president, education and certification, CEDIA. “More than half of the new courses we are offering fall in the advanced or intermediate level and for the first time we are offering an in-person new hire training track.”
The New Hire Training track offered onsite is designed to help home technology professionals earn the ESC, or the CEDIA Electronic Systems Certification, credential.
CEDIA has also expanded the number of courses and certifications that will be offered in Spanish. The ESC certification and the ESC-T (Electronic Systems Certified Technician) certification, as well as six courses, will be offered in Spanish.
Of the total courses at CEDIA Expo, 72 percent are either intermediate or advanced, 40 percent are business, and 60 percent are technical.
“The conferences were curated by the CEDIA education team with input from key CEDIA volunteers. The CEDIA education team has extensive experience in the adult education field – with nearly 80 years of experience between all of them,” said Brian Pagel, senior vice president, Emerald Expositions. “The conferences are vital in keeping the show relevant and valuable in our rapidly changing industry landscape, we’re excited to see how attendees respond to these new offerings.”
CEDIA training will begin on Tuesday, September 10 with some of CEDIA’s most popular offerings, including the day-long Technology Trends Workshop and the Rack Building and Wiring Fundamentals Workshop. Wednesday, September 11 will feature the new Home Cinema Master Class that is being taught by three renowned experts in the field – Joel Silver, founder of the Imaging Science Foundation (ISF), Anthony Grimani, president of Grimani Systems, and “the father of home theater” Theo Kalomirakis of TK Theaters and Rayva.
Course Highlights:
Business Focus
Connect with Everyone: Understanding Gender Differences in Management and Sales
Friday, September 13: 1:00p.m. – 2:30 p.m.
Instructor Name: Carol Campbell
This hands-on course will focus on gender intelligence. By understanding the characteristics that distinguish attitudinal and behavioral differences between men and women, we gain a better sense of gender-related tendencies that help illuminate why men and women think and react differently. The experience will also explain how to overcome gender-biased blind spots with our co-workers and clients.
How to do Customer Service, and Fail at It
Friday, September 13 10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Instructor Name: Greg Scott
Mistakes teach valuable lessons. This course will retrace a journey through a whirlwind of misplaced effort to please everyone and a failure to bring employees along for the ride. Learn from my mistakes and what I did to turn things around.
Quit Messing Around on Labor
Friday, September 13 10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Instructor Name: Frank White
This session will address the industry-wide dark habit of “buying the job” with discounted or even free labor. Discussions will include understanding proposal anxiety, corrective progress without losing gigs, and what success looks like.
Change in the Workplace: Let’s Do Better
Friday, September 13 1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Instructor Name: Samantha Ventura
Change can be difficult in all facets of life – especially in the workplace. Even for those who enjoy new challenges and fresh perspectives, change is often accompanied by frustration, watercooler dissent, and overall griping. This course delves into the struggles that leaders face when trying to implement change. Participants will learn the differences between change and transition – focusing on the three stages of change – and explore the best ways to guide employees through the process. The course provides immediate, practical takeaways to promote better acceptance of change within the workplace.
You Have One Shot! First Impressions Are Everything to your Client and their Experience
Friday, September 13 9:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
Instructor Name: Patrick Hartman
This interactive lecture will walk home technology professionals through the crucial and necessary soft skills needed for successful job completion. This is a highly interactive class for new and experienced technicians or project managers. Participants will learn and share techniques with peers that create superior job site experiences for clients to far exceed expectations.
Technical Focus
Integrating Custom Voice Control for the Whole Home
Wednesday, September 11 10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Instructor Name: Alex Capecelatro
Voice control is the new frontier in input technologies and represents a significant business opportunity for home technology professionals. Learn to evaluate today’s voice control options, understand the current capabilities and limitations of the various technologies, and take a close look at real world installations. Gain insight into how these projects were realized and learn how to deploy voice recognition and provide clients with a fully-customized experience, even in complex installations. Discover how to fully integrate voice control with established control platforms from
Crestron, Control4, Savant, and others. Take a glimpse into the future to see where this emerging product category is heading.
AV-over-IP Methods, Formats and System Design
Wednesday, September 11 3:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Instructor Name: David Meyer
Take the deepest dive offered yet at CEDIA Expo into the complex world of AV-over-IP. Distributing video over an IP network is quickly gaining preference over matrix or splitter-based distribution systems. From professional post-production to commercial and residential applications, the course will cover knowledge including current and emerging compression codes and standards, network speed and latency implications, maintaining video features such as HDR, and infrastructure and system design best practices.
How to Achieve Success with LED Lighting (Why Retro-Fit Lamps Flicker, and How to Make them Behave!)
Friday, September 13 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Instructor Name: Sam Woodward
Use of solid-state lighting (LED) is on the rise, yet many projects suffer from flicker problems. The good news is that LED lamps and fixtures can be dimmed successfully. This course takes participants on a journey through dimming system design, detailing the methodology required to specify stable performance.
Immersive Audio: Unified 3D Speaker Layouts for Multiple Listeners
Friday, September 13 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Instructor Name: Tom Garrett
Immersive sound offers the possibility of life-like home cinema experiences, but also raises challenges with new formats – especially with non-compatible 3D speaker layouts. This presentation will cover immersive sound, the three immersive sound formats, and recommended speaker layouts. Additionally, the course will explore constraints found in high performance home cinemas and proposes unified speaker layouts for multiple listeners. The course will also demonstrate practical implementation in a real project.
Attendees can browse the online session schedule and sort by session track, session type and day.
Click here for attendee and conference registration.
