Despite noting a slower industry-generated news cycle this week, chief editor Maury Wright was spot on when he wrote in his weekly newsletter column that our latest news developments represent “reality in the face of a pandemic and ongoing challenging business conditions.” Hold on, though, it’s not bad news! A lot of the week revolved around announcements made by LEDs Magazine and associated brands at Endeavor Business Media.
First, the event & operations team has decided that the Strategies in Light conference is going virtual. While the event will still be held within the same week as planned (Aug. 24–25, 2021), the format will be online only — one reason being that the Santa Clara Convention Center has been repurposed for the foreseeable future as a COVID-19 vaccination site. And continued restrictions on international travel would certainly impact many of our overseas attendees. In the face of other recent statements such as the move of LEDucation’s August 2021 program to an online format, this can hardly be shocking, but it is necessary to make sure our audience is aware of shifting plans at all touch points (wait — can I still use that phrase since we are not actually touching anyone??). We released this announcement on Tuesday morning, and the registration team has worked hard to modify the conference portal for new registration options — including the virtual event cost dropping now to $50 to attend. We are grateful to all of our colleagues for handling the logistics and program execution with determination and agility, and we look forward to putting the editorial spotlight on Strategies in Light content and speakers soon.
Second, we’re also pleased to announce the launch of a new event from our Lighting Group, called LightSPEC West. Along with debuting this event, to be held in September 2022, we welcomed Danielle Gibbs to the fold as event director for LightSPEC West. Danielle is an exceptional pro in lighting circles as former owner of LightShow West. She launched and ran that event for a number of years, and we will surely benefit from her perspective on audience and program development. As Danielle explained to me, “LightSPEC West is the only trade show and conference dedicated to the commercial, architectural, and high design lighting market to showcase products and technologies to architects, engineers, designers, and those who specify lighting on and around the West Coast.”
Finally, in case you haven’t heard, our company’s Advanced Technology Group has also launched a new media brand called Smart Buildings Technology. Yes, LEDs Magazine covers smart buildings, but our central focus has been and will continue to be the lighting as a networked system enabler for connected applications. The demand for a broader resource to address the dynamics of disparate systems that need to work together, which are also often managed or implemented by distinctly different individuals or teams, is what lies at the heart of Smart Buildings Technology.
“Today more than ever, the characteristics that make a building ‘smart’ are about improving the human condition. For years, a smart building’s most recognized attributes were energy conservation and that conservation’s financial implications. Now, energy conservation is just one of several aspects of a smart building that make the space sustainable on our planet. And as the world’s population emerges from a global pandemic, the health, safety, and wellbeing of building occupants is a primary concern, which can be addressed by certain smart building technologies. So we’re going far beyond counting kilowatt hours as a measure of how effective a smart building is. These structures truly are making people’s lives better,” commented Smart Buildings Technology chief editor Patrick McLaughlin.
The website has had a soft launch already, as linked above, and the editors will bring the first issue to the market in June. Sign up for the magazine and newsletter if you’d like to be updated on security, HVAC, lighting, networking, and cabling for smart enterprises.
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