A Discussion About the 2024 CEDIA Awards

In this podcast Walt Zerbe, Sr. Director of Technology and Standards at CEDIA and Host of the CEDIA podcast talks with Owen Maddock, Owner of Cinemaworks, Ben Goff, Technical Director of Cinema Lusso, Mike Chorney, President of La Scala Media, and Eddie Shapiro, Founder and CEO of SmartTouch USA about the 2024 CEDIA awards program.

We discuss what it does for your business when you participate and how being considered a finalist is a major win. We discuss how much you learn just by following the process for submitting a project and what it's like to be a judge.

To find our more email: awards@cedia.org

CEDIA Awards site:  https://cedia.org/news/cedia-smart-home-awards-open-with-new-opportunities-for-individual-recognition/

Podcast Transcript

Unknown Speaker  0:01  
I am CEDIA, I am CEDIA, I am CEDIA, this is the CDM CEDIA podcast.

Speaker 1  0:08  
It's, it's, it's part of our culture here we have a wall, got everybody's photo on it, and above the pictures, there's a bunch of words on there and it says it's our people's pride and passion to make our company and my business partner and I feel strongly about that. And we talked about the awards from a team perspective and it's really about us, you know, our clients, a lot of them may not know who CDA is, or be interested in the awards but the team if they build the pride and passion it becomes a great project and then they get recognized it's a real morale builder for for the guys Atlas Gala. The other part of it is is that if you're a part of an award winning house, you get to go to CEDIA, so internally the guys want to play at that level, so they get a trip to get the experience of CEDIA.

Walt Zerbe  1:07  
Hello and welcome to another CEDIA Podcast. I'm Walt Zerby, Senior Director of Technology and Standards and your host for the CD podcast and today we are going to be talking about the 2024 CEDIA awards. And the awards are awesome. And the awards have changed. So and there's a lot to Awards, which is why we're doing this podcast. So I wanted to get a few experts on with me. Some are judges, some are past award winners, and multiple award winners, you know who you are. And I would like to introduce this fine cast of characters here. So I'm just going to start in no particular order. With Owen Maddock, he is the owner of cinema works. Oh, and how are you? Hi, well, good. Thanks. Yes, thank you for joining. I also should say that some of you folks also volunteer for sin for working on standards, which helps us to elevate our work. So I want to I want to thank you all, all for doing that as well. We also have Ben golf, and he is the director or the Technical Director for cinema. Lusso. Ben, how are you? Good. Thanks. Well, good. Excellent. Edie Shapiro. He's the founder and CEO of Smart Touch USA Edie.

Eddie Shapiro  2:22  
Hey, well, thank you. Great to be here again.

Walt Zerbe  2:25  
Yep, nice to have you as well. And Mike Charney, he is the president of LIS Gala, Integrated Media. And, gosh, if you've attended any award ceremonies, like I don't want to start a competition between you guys. But a scholar has walked away, stepped up on stage a fair amount of time. Thanks. So let's talk about all the awards that you just just just so people know who's here, like what categories have you all personally entered awards for and, and also received awards for so let's let's start off with that. And I'll just start off with Ben, since you're the you're the first video cube in my in my view,

Ben Goff  3:06  
we've entered cinema level one and level two. Then we picked up another one that is done without directly entering it. So we also want the best lighting Award, which is taken from all the other shortlisted projects. So once we were shortlisted for cinema, the best light and with a nice bonus. Okay,

Walt Zerbe  3:28  
great. Oh, one.

Owen Maddock  3:30  
Yeah, so if I may finalists three times for various different stuff for show room and four, there was a category that used to enter separately, and it's now one of those incidental awards that you pick up, which was best innovative solution. The one we won, which was a joint entry in 2018, with another firm was best media room.

Unknown Speaker  3:49  
Okay. Great, Eddie.

Eddie Shapiro  3:53  
We won an award for MTU I believe, but yes, is that a category? So? Yeah. MTU. So that was for the four seasons and Baltimore and then level two, residential system. I think in 21 Okay.

Unknown Speaker  4:11  
Excellent. And Mike, we've

Eddie Shapiro  4:14  
we don't have all the time in the world. To shorten it up.

Mike Chorney  4:21  
We enter focused on residential and we've won cinema, all levels, documentation. I really liked the spin off boards, the technology meets design. Life live best with technology. So we've been fortunate enough to win some of those. The ones that we have not entered are the showroom and MDU and your work that we're working on as well. But we're any idea

Walt Zerbe  4:54  
any particular reason why you didn't enter a nose He just not a focus or just If you pick you pick what you want to go for,

Mike Chorney  5:02  
yeah, we generally pick one or two projects and submit them. And those projects are focused on the total home automation, but we might get the best documentation or a best lighting design spin off from one of those. Okay,

Walt Zerbe  5:20  
gotcha. And just to sort of when he knows, we do have an international crew here, so we have Canada, United States and the UK, all represented on this cast, which is important to note, because this is, this is a global thing. So let's start off with a question of why, why why why did you guys decide to get involved in entering for the CD awards? Who would like to start that?

Ben Goff  5:46  
Who's gonna lie and not start with ego?

Unknown Speaker  5:50  
Are you really you think it's ego? Ego is

Ben Goff  5:52  
a great place to start that first award, no one puts pen to paper without a bit of ego, right. But there's a difference between that slight bit of ego thinking we've done a great job, this has got to be award worthy. And the reality of what, you know, maybe happens to the business. You know, once you've once you've entered once you see the effects that it's hard on your business on your team. The boost that that gives everyone who worked on that project and entering the second award is probably for very different reasons to the first one, but the first one Come on, it must be ego, right?

Owen Maddock  6:25  
Ego, but envy. Envy, yeah, I the first time I went to CD awards, I was shortlisted for a project that I thought was pretty cool that we were doing things with 4g sticks to someone's house before that was a thing because they had terrible, rural internet that was really, really super slow. And I managed to get them about like 20 megabits per second with 4g technology in the loft. And I was pretty pleased myself. And we were finalists, but they because I went solo because I've just started a business the year before I was on a table with Peter ala rich green, Christiane guy Singleton, just all these kinds of and so on all these massive hits from the industry because basically, they just didn't know where to put me. So they put me with with these guys, every single person on the table came up with an award. And I was not happy, right? I was when one and that's kind of how it happened about two years later. I

Walt Zerbe  7:15  
want to get the same answer from Eddie and Mike as well. And then I'll ask another question.

Eddie Shapiro  7:21  
Michael, let you go first.

Speaker 1  7:22  
It's, it's, it's part of our culture. Here we have a wall got everybody's photo on it. And above the pictures, there's a bunch of words on there, and it says it's their people's pride and passion and make our company and my business partner and I feel strongly about that. And we talked about the awards from a team perspective, and it's really about us. You know, our clients. A lot of them may not know who CEDIA is, or be interested in the awards but the team if they build the pride and passion it becomes a great project. And then they get recognized is a real morale builder for the guys at Lesko. The other part of it is is that if you're a part of an award winning house, you get to go to CEDIA, so, internally, the guys want to play at that level, so they get a trip to get the experience of CEDIA not saying I've been part of our culture here for three years.

Walt Zerbe  8:23  
That is that is super cool. I really liked it. It's part of your culture. Yeah. Eddie.

Eddie Shapiro  8:29  
Yeah, Mike, I think that's brilliant. And I love I forgot his name. Maybe it's Tim he comes up he he breaks open his shirt and the Tavish Yeah, he's Tavish That's right. He's just awesome. What what a showman. But I would say it's not in the bin or, or ego up and along the same lines as Mike. We're not as creative about it. Meaning I love the idea of the wall. And I love the idea of you were invited to go to CTF Expo, I think that's brilliant. But it is a matter of pride. I mean, it is a cultural thing. We're teaching everybody to make sure they take a lot of pictures now that their their racks look great. I've seen a rack that was started and said, you know, that's not bad. But that's never going to pass through CD judges and you got to do better. And so it also creates bar. So I just think it creates a culture of pride and engagement and I think it's really important that

Ben Goff  9:33  
that becomes very obvious with repeat entrance and, and don't get me wrong when I say ego. That was a reason for first putting pen to paper but the second entirely different reasons. You know, by the time we entered a second time, it was absolutely about the team and the people but one of the things that we say I don't know if if you to know because so these are things are now judged internationally. So a judge for us, us judge APAC, APEC Jamia, I think the current way. So I don't know if if you turn over no and and I have both judged entries of yours. So as judges, you know, I, I don't know, Mike, you may or may not have ever seen some of my judging feedback, but that culture of your shows through incredibly in your entries. My feedback on one of your projects last year was but if I had to go and work for another firm, this girl is the only firm in the world I can imagine going to work for were hirings from just the way you write those awards. It shows how much you care about your clients and your passion for the team, the projects that come through every word you guys write, and that is pretty uniform across all the entrance. So yours are just brilliantly written. But every one of those entries you see, it's, it's about that passion. It's about caring for the client, it's about doing the right thing. There's consistency across everyone entering but that is the case, it's amazing to see.

Unknown Speaker  11:03  
Thank you. Yeah, that's really the other

Speaker 2  11:05  
thing I'll throw in as well as envy is, I think the projects kind of jumped out at you, you're going to enter when you get kind of when you know you've done something a bit better than your average. And when you've done something particularly Oh, that's a bit different. But it really helps the customer and you can talk about it, you know, one that you're going to put in for awards? I think they're really obvious from the beginning. Because yeah, this is some of my best work. Yeah, I want to talk about this.

Walt Zerbe  11:28  
Yeah, I want to ask a question on that. When do you know, you have an award winning project? Is it sometimes when you're sitting down with the customer, and you're like, okay, this person is really into it, and we're gonna get to get really creative here. And then you take that you take that perspective, from the very beginning, does it happen in the middle sometimes isn't happening in the end? Or is it all the above?

Unknown Speaker  11:50  
Is depends? Like

Speaker 1  11:55  
we talked about as a team, and one of the things I'll ask is, you know, why is this one special. And the other dynamic is, where I think other people can learn is they talk about the system so much without talking about the customer. And in our write ups, we talk about, you know, the specific needs or desires of the customer. And then we layer in, you know, how we got there through technology. I've been asked to review other people's entries before they entered, and they're quick to talk about the remote and the amounts and all that other stuff. And I've never judged. But if I was a judge, I'd be yawning over that, like, Tell me more. I want to know how this is changing the individuals lives, what are the needs? And so our write ups, you know, to Ben's point, their stories, and, you know, come up with a creative idea, or there is a need, or there was a situation that we needed to address. And how did we use our skills to

Unknown Speaker  13:04  
accomplish it? That's awesome,

Eddie Shapiro  13:06  
Eddie. Yeah. So Mike, I think you're right about that. I think that's really important that the story is important. I think sometimes our stories have been better than other times critique our own entry. But I think sometimes, you know, and sometimes, if you look at CD awards or or other venue awards, you look at the property, like some of these properties are just outstanding, right from the start. And, and sometimes, I think you get a sense of just how gorgeous the property is that you know, what you're doing, along with that is just going to be a home run. So you kind of know which ones to enter and you know, which ones maybe to pass on.

Walt Zerbe  13:51  
Yeah, and I love what you said Mike and Eddie because that also dovetails perfectly into you know, with the with the RT 10 standards, which a lot of you guys do work towards or utilize in your work. We have to have a scope and rationale for for for antsy to be anti accredited. And what she said Mike exactly dovetails with the scope and rationale of our 10 which is CDC recommends best practices and specifies standards for design, installation and integration of technology for people to support their lifestyles. That's like the very first part of it. And I think that's spot on. Don't be focusing just on the gear and be like, Man, this rack Well, maybe if you're going for best wiring or something, but if you're going for an entire job, it shouldn't just be about Yeah, can't be just about tech, it has to be about the story. Right and and how you improve someone's lives and what he ended up doing. So because we talked about and you guys can talk about this as well. Everything's always a series of compromises, right? And so how you've worked with budgets, worked with, with with customer's with all the people in the house and ended up with a final solution. That was probably one of the biggest challenges in that whole project was how did you decide to compromise? Where, what, how and when? Is anybody want to talk about that?

Ben Goff  15:13  
Yeah, I mean, both projects we've won four have have been compromised. So one of the questions we answer in the entry is where we've deviated from standards. And as a judge, I've seen entries with less than 100 word answers to that. And the the integrators think they've hit every standard and it's, there's no deviations at all.

Unknown Speaker  15:37  
And one look, and they have

Ben Goff  15:41  
to find them, I'm you're allowed or historically have been allowed 1500 words for Where did you compromise, and I don't think I've ever written an entry that wasn't at least 1400 99 words. Wow, like that, of course, compromises. That's a massive part of explaining that system is explaining, where we've had to find things and you can't hit every standard. But the thing is consistent across winning projects, exactly, as the other guys have said, is the focus on meeting the client's needs. So if we're hitting a brief if we first are understanding, so we, the jobs, we're going to enter we, we work that out during discovery, you when we're in that long period of understanding our client, we know at that stage, if it will be special, we don't know we have a winner on our hands until the shocks worn off five minutes after you pick the award up. But you know, you know, from discovery, but a job screen special when a client understands and are really interested in working with you on all the little bits. If you can't understand how you will improve their life, you can't improve their life at the technology is irrelevant. It's fixing their problems. So that's a that discovery bit. You have to get that right and then balancing the standards to meet their needs. That's that's where the winning projects, everyone has that in common. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  17:05  
sounds alright. Edie?

Eddie Shapiro  17:07  
So I think Ben is hitting on a point, that's really important. And Mike has hit on it, too. So discovery is where it all starts. And if you can't really nail what the client wants and what they're thinking and, and what's important to them, then you're going to fail all the way through the project, not even not even just at the award level. And Mike, talking about how people were focusing on mounts and remotes. I mean, these days, I talk less and less and less about technology more about what do you want? What's your experience? What what makes you sing? What what what's exciting to you, you know, what don't you like, so that you make sure you deliver the right product? And the solution? What can

Walt Zerbe  17:48  
I do for you that you didn't know you needed? Because we had a good conversation and suggest something right?

Speaker 1  17:53  
It was missions key. It was funny, the the awards banquet this last year, the tag crazier was the art of technology. That's been the scalloped tag phrase for 25 years. But yeah, when when we talk, please don't sue us. Yeah, no, no, no, it's like a private party. The the when we talk about standards, Atlas, Gallo, who said any job that we do, there's art in there science. And the science is what I would bucket as the standards. The art is when there's no standards there. So you have to be creative, and how are we going to get through this desire or complexity to facilitate? One at one of the I'm trying to put some meat on the bone here. So last year, there was a project that we submitted, the city would kept failing the house for an occupancy permit, because of a safety requirement for a car elevator and a turntable on the driveway. So we have to come up with creative ways to get their blessing to get an occupancy permit. That is the art because there was no standards. And you know, the outcome of that was obviously a happy customer but also an Innovation Award. Yeah,

Walt Zerbe  19:10  
I would also venture to say the art is knowing how to meet the customer's needs with the technology. So I mean, you know, you got a bucket of tools and then you end up okay, how are we going to blend all this stuff to get the goal to get the job done? That is that is got to be part of the art I want. Were you gonna chime in on that? You're, you're nodding or did I miss read your

Speaker 2  19:31  
mind kind of set it for me? It's okay. But this is really interesting because I kind of talked to a lot of people and some of my friends are like Ben and they're kind of fully committed to CDO world and some of my friends are kind of more on the fence and some of them are all the way on the other side of the fence. Yeah, there's a lot of things that people outside the process thinks the CDR awards

Unknown Speaker  19:53  
are no good. Let's get into this.

Speaker 2  19:57  
And so I think we should we should look at that. Um, For example, I think I can't remember where it was. But someone was talking to her about Ben and saying, Oh, you're just designing for awards? And it's like, how would that be possible? Because I can't tell a good human centered story until I've met the client done the discovery, done something really special just for them that suits them, and then written it up such that the judges in another country kind of completely understand and follow what you've done there. Just a lot of that chat, and you know, how it is the kind of the light runs around the world before the truth has started. Has anyone else come across any kind of myths stuff around seedy roads,

Speaker 1  20:35  
I call it the Hot Rod shop mentality where they, you know, they're changing mufflers and brakes 90% of the time, but you know, on an odd occasion, they build a beautiful artwork. We, for us, we're not doing anything different than we're not doing for any of our jobs. As far as the whole intake, what's the client's story? What is the end outcome desired? How we build our racks, we could take virtually any of our jobs, and submit the documentation and have a fair chance of winning an award. We're the ones that do get awarded are the ones that have a really good story. But as far as the day to day, how they come together. If I hear rumors like that, I would challenge him to pick any of our jobs, the non award winning jobs and see if, if they see like type craftsmanship on those jobs. The

Speaker 2  21:34  
problem is, as well as everyone gets to see the awards book, right. But of course, the awards book can't contain all Mike's design documentation or all Ben's documentation, you know, it's proprietary, it's taken you absolutely ours. We can't share that out into the world, even as judges we have to treat that with respect when we're judging right, though, I think people just kind of take those lovely pictures and a sort of a few page write up or even a one page write up and they sort of make up their own facts. Oh, they only want it because such and such the only one it because such and such. And I mean, one answer is more people should get involved with judging. That would be really cool. Cool.

Walt Zerbe  22:09  
Let's talk about that. Well, before we talk about judging, let's say I'm somebody listening to this podcast, and for the first time I'm like, okay, maybe, maybe I should think about entering CEDIA awards. First of all, you need to be an active CD member. So that's, that's step one. What advice I mean, there is a lot of great information, there's a whole portal with a bunch of information to tell us to help guide someone on how to do an entry, how to take pictures, and all these different things. What What would you guys say? What would you guys suggest to someone that's thinking about? Well, maybe I'll go for this myself, let's let's just go around and get a thought from everybody. So Eddie, you want to go first?

Eddie Shapiro  22:52  
I would say, just jump in and do it. You got to get started. And I'm not sure I've seen some really great projects that never get entered by other companies and not understand why I think some companies want to stay under the radar. And maybe that's fine. I'm not sure why. But go ahead and stay under the radar if you want, but I think it would be so much better for your team. And frankly, clients are really super happy to learn that their their project won an award as well. So I mean, I think you're shortchanging some of what you could be doing for your, your team and for your clients. But if you're unsure, just jump in. And if there's ever a channel that isn't more generous at helping, I'm sure you could ask a dozen people on how to do it and what what you need to do, and they'll help you CDs like that. Also, I would create a culture where your team is starting to take a lot of pictures all the time. Because ultimately you need to go back to those pictures and use them for your entry. So I think that would be helpful.

Unknown Speaker  23:58  
All right, Ben.

Ben Goff  23:59  
Um, one of the key things about the entry process is there is a big list of documentation that is required. So there's a double shot to this part of the myth and part of the benefit of doing it. So if you as a team are not currently producing that documentation, the awards entry is pretty much a checklist of industry best practice documentation you should already be making. Oh, good. As Mike says, all of our jobs have that documentation already. This isn't a months and months process of making up documentation after delivering a job to enter. So it's a great thing if, if actually, the job doesn't have all this documentation. The first time you enter, creating some as built retrospectively, we'll show you a process that if some of those documents you're not currently making as a company, it will. This is a good example of how to make them what you're going to need. Do you put that back into your business on every future project? Next year, every entry is really quick. But also your work will be better you will be doing better work you will be doing, getting closer to meeting all those clients needs it just that funnels through. So I think using that awards entry form as a checklist during your construction and design phase. If you don't have that documentation now you probably should have it before you start building. That's a great, you know, the first year you enter, maybe not and you've got to make it. But that will, it will improve your business for future years, every time.

Eddie Shapiro  25:37  
I think.

Speaker 1  25:41  
I totally agree. And I mean, I think there'd be a whole lot of Greek companies, that would be CD award losers, if they would just use that kind of philosophy that assume that every job is going to be submitted for an award, I have a lot of documentation already. And I believe there would be better product out there. The only other thing I'd add is see. And Ben you commented on, which I appreciate is the the write up the I read the write off before we submit it. And I read it from the perspective of a client. And if I was to read the write up and say, Hey, this is really interesting, and cool, then it's I believe it should go in. If I think there's a general understanding that the write up needs to talk about all the geeky stuff that we do, from the geeky side of the business that we live in, and not from the perspective of an end user. So the documentation with a really interesting story, I think, is what helps us.

Walt Zerbe  26:51  
Yeah, perfect. Oh, when you wanted to get into the judging side of this,

Speaker 2  26:57  
judging has been really interesting. So I go before you

Walt Zerbe  27:01  
go into it. So there is a, again, there's a folder, and the website is awards are actually the emails awards@cedia.org. There is a website, which I'll put a link in that has a lot of information. And there's a frequently asked question sheet on there. And one of the questions to set you up Oh, and is does my entry have to be completely anonymous, to have to have logos removed on my documentation, photos and videos? And it says yes, all logos and company names shall be removed from the entry photos and documentation. This ensures that the judging process stays completely impartial. The only one that that's not necessary for is if you're going for best showroom, because obviously, we need to know what company that is. But I just wanted to let everybody know, as a judge, you don't know you're just looking at the project. So go ahead on and talk about why we need more judges and also touch on, you know, it doesn't take five or 10 minutes of your time.

Speaker 2  28:01  
And no, it's not, it's not quick. To be honest, the best thing for me about doing judging is I got to see the project's right, I got to see some really, really best in class documentation. And, of course, we can't publish that, you know, it's kind of proprietary IP for that particular provider. But it's amazing to kind of sign up the things and say, I'm not going to use this for you know, nefarious purpose, just to see the best work in the world. And not all of it is you know, it's a really, really variable field. But when you're looking at these examples, just the ideas, you're like, Oh, I could do that. Oh, that's really cool. I can definitely do that. That's been probably more influential to the way I've taken things than than entering. because how else are you going to learn? Yeah, then all the courses and they take you so far, but you know what, what the best people in the world doing? Well have a look at the awards.

Ben Goff  28:52  
Now, as a long process, as you said, it's a long job. I mean, some of the full home projects, especially when we're judging us. So I like as I said earlier, I like the fact that one region does another. So not only are they anonymous, through the documentation, it's not like you recognize your friends work, we're judging a different continent. It's unlikely we're going to recognize anything in that job and have to if we do, we've got the option to sit out and say, I know whose work that is like that's a friend of mine on another continent. I can't judge us but that becomes quite rare that ever happens. We're judging different continents. We don't know other firms globally so that international judging is great. But some of those big jobs, you know, some homes in the US are big compared to home in London, you know, there might be candidate footage, a North American projects is huge. So some of these jobs are two or three hours to really understand what's gone on and just to review it properly and understand actually what has happened in that whole project. It can be hours to judge one home for sure. So, yeah, this isn't, it's not like we're looking at pretty pictures, and, oh, they win an award, they've told a nice story in pretty pictures, they're gonna win, we are reviewing everything cable schematics, we are, you know, we will find out if things aren't going to stack up. Now, it's not unusual for me to look at people's rack calculations and really calculate their heat output and check what they've, you know, they specified how much AC they've got in that cupboard. Here's their equipment, I will dig down to the point of checking if they've put enough in if they've not got the engineering, right. I'm gonna find it.

Speaker 2  30:43  
Yeah, so and if you don't just gonna have meats in in ima, who's been chairing the the awards process for more than 10 years, like a really long time. And he's amazing, because I sort of I remember, early phases and was like, Are these projects really good? They've got this, they've got that. And he's like, Yeah, but if you take a look over here, and they've calculated that wrong, or they've just, they just copy pasted that over from a different project, because the numbers are actually totally different. So again, one of the myths I'd really like to bust is that we don't kind of check your work in because we really, really do. That's the important bit. And definitely, people do try and fake it. Right. We have seen that not not many, I think most most people are honest, and most people are nice, but you've definitely got people trying to pull the wool over your eyes that just don't get through, gets kicked out. Yeah.

Ben Goff  31:29  
You know, a project has been shortlisted, you know that we have actually checked the calculation, the engineering all stacks up for everything that's been done. So there is, this is why these projects are, you know, are the best in the world and why they get the recognition they do. Not only will they have discovered what the client really wants a need, and met it, they then followed proper engineering standards to deliver a system that will be long term reliable, that does everything it should do. So there is a lot these projects, they win in every factor, they are going to generally be pretty, they are going to hit the client brief, they are going to meet all engineering standards. That you know, and that's why winning one means so much to us. If we aren't and I jokingly call these chips up awards. I don't know what the equipment in the US would be. But every fish and chip shop in the UK has an award for something really nice chicken pie with chips in three area. Yeah, best fish shop next to a lamppost where a dog wants walked by like everyone has some number one

Speaker 2  32:43  
one. Connery burns outstanding award for excellence in the thing or other in the same sights. Yeah, no,

Ben Goff  32:48  
that's not that's the antithesis of it's either or every single award that has been won. In these fields are for excellence. You know, they are, they are not just given lightly, and you will notice, pretty much every single year, there'll be at least one category where no awards been given. Yeah, that's because not not because no one entered. That's because as a judging panel, we can look and say, right, this category it might be integrated home level three. There's six entries. None of them deserve that. So not like there will be no one shortlist.

Walt Zerbe  33:23  
I liked it. You don't take the Yeah, the greatest common denominator, it's gotta pass muster.

Ben Goff  33:27  
Yeah, we're not giving these things out lightly. If if none of the entrance deserve to win one, no one wins. Yeah.

Speaker 2  33:36  
It's also why finalist is quite I mean, I say this because I've done that more often. But you know, finalist is a big deal. finalist means you deserve to win. It's just someone else was better. Alright. Well, I fiving yourself for that. I know people who've been finalists loads of times well done, you know, amazing stuff.

Walt Zerbe  33:49  
Really good. So Mike, you've talked about the way it's your company culture and the way all of you have the way it's, um, it motivates your employees. And and it elevates your your workflow and your culture. I would I wanted to know, what do you do with this externally? So do you show this to your customers? Has it helped your business? Can we can we touch on that a bit? All you guys,

Speaker 1  34:14  
we have lit shelves in our meeting room with our client. And they're all there. So it's a discussion point and we talk about it. And we're, I would say pretty nonchalant. I'll say You know, this acedia. Really it has no bearing on you and just conversation. But this is what all these awards mean to my team. And having those highly engaged people that are entertaining, working on your home, that's the crew that you've got working for you. So that's about as deep as we get when it comes with a client. Obviously, you got to ask for permission to submit for their house. They seem really really keen on it will get duplicated awards. and go and present it for them. Oh, wow, some of them get really excited about it, I think it's pretty awesome. And showcase it in their own house. But for the most part it's a trust. It's, it shows the characteristic of the company, for a client that's trying to decide whether or not they're going to use us. And it's very, very subtle, there's four shells that are up late with it sitting on there. So it's a pretty impressive room when they go in there. And

Walt Zerbe  35:35  
they're like nine foot wide, or to three meters. Four shelves, we feel 30 feet deep. Once I go next, Edie,

Eddie Shapiro  35:46  
I was gonna say Mike did you have to expand the conference room a few times. And

Speaker 1  35:52  
he actually ran, we have earned it, we got 37 awards. So it's, it's a busy, busy,

Eddie Shapiro  35:58  
we've been watching you, it's very possible. And you should be very proud. And, and I'm glad you guys mentioned the finalist thing because we we've been placed there a number of times, and I didn't realize the value as much as I do now. And I love like how you actually present your client with the award. I think that's super cool, beautiful. Just it's it's ingrained in the core of what you guys are doing. And I think we do that a little but not anywhere near you, in terms of how you're doing it. And I think it's again, it comes back to making your team proud and motivating them and, and just being able to set the bar high enough. And in hearing some of what OpenEmbedded said about judging, I think that's helpful, because it lets you know, where you shouldn't fall short, both on every project. And if you're interested in winning an award.

Ben Goff  36:49  
Those duplicate trophies, I remind me the our second thing, well, we won also won the global award. And I still haven't actually arranged to duplicate and the original sits in the client's home. That, wow, it means a lot to us to have won it. And it's a really big deal to us to have won it. But that trophy meant more to the client when it does to us, you know, we we've got the pride of winning it, but it's a big deal for the client. And we've given them the original it sits in his home. And on from there more things, you know, it would, because of it when it was featured in the UK is only real remaining cinema magazine. So the client has the magazine, I didn't tell him it was going in he had given permission previously, but as a subscriber of that magazine, it landed on his doorstep, and through the post, and he didn't know his room was going to be in it. So he has the magazine, he has the global award trophy in his home. It's a big deal, like the pride that he has in knowing he's got the only global award winning cinema in Europe. That's a really, really big deal to the client. And we didn't know what it would do to our business when we're on the first one. But certain clients now will seek us out because of we've won some awards. We do more work International, certainly like our phone will ring from clients that we have made. No, we've got no other possible outreach. We could have reached them internationally and the phone rings. I think we're currently working on six continents. Wow, we would not be working on six continents if we hadn't won a global studio award. Impressed it's really good to know it's no have a job in Antarctica, it would be cool to finish the set.

Speaker 2  38:39  
Oh, that's another mess. Actually. Yeah, customers don't care. Well, no, make your customers don't care because you're not engaged. So other people are ringing you. But guess what, there's a whole different tier of people for whom it really matters. And they're ringing, mostly Ben, and mostly Mike.

Walt Zerbe  38:54  
Oh, and I want to do a myth podcast with you. I think this is fun.

Speaker 1  39:00  
They, some people may interpret the awards as a bad thing from a class perspective, because they they say, you know, I'm not interested in, you know, building a Lamborghini. So maybe we're not a good fit. So I want to be careful how its presented. When we bring a client in, and we briefly talk about it. Really, what do they have to make their decisions? They're looking at a piece of paper that quote, it's about establishing trust, and what's your value proposition versus your competitor? So we use it awards to establish that that's the standards that we do on all of our jobs, that they're not we don't pit customers and say this is going to be a trophy house. I think that's important. You know, get it, get it out there. That's probably the most valuable thing that I have in our boardroom with the awards. There's that when you're Trying to when we're we're trying to decide whether we can work with them and they're trying to decide to work with us. It's, it's that I don't have to go too deep on that, hey, we're gonna do our best to do a high quality job for you. Yeah,

Walt Zerbe  40:16  
that's really good. So we have some new things for this year. This year, the program has been split into four groups, integrator, business manufacturer and individual. So that's supposed to make it easier for people to to enter things. We got some new categories like assisted living user that's underneath the integrator category, user experience that's under the integrator category, best showroom or Experience Center, that will be under the business category. And now manufacturer or distributor, and manufacturer reps can also enter, which is good to know that we have Excellence in Business. Look at that. So you know, we were doing more focused to get in on business. Because, you know, if you don't have good business, or good business skills, you know, freaking forget the rest, you're not going to stay in business. So I love that we have Excellence in Business. That, again, is a bunch of different categories that was formerly for trade suppliers. But now it's also for manufacturers, reps, and and integrators, best newcomer, and best technician, and best manufacturer representative, there are a ton of award categories. And I'm not going to read them all. But there are, I encourage you to send an email to awards@cedia.org If you would like to explore being being part of awards, so you can get a larger picture on this. If you would like to do this, there are some deadlines. So I wanted to just make sure that you all knew that the global awards opened on February 14. And the home technology integrator category, that deadline is coming up. That's April 15th. So if you wanted to do home technology integrator category, that is you got to April 15, to get that done. Business category, deadline is June 1, individual categories is June 1, manufacture product categories. The early bird deadline is May 1, and the the final deadline for manufacture product categories is June 1, so it's coming up. And so let's say you do enter an award and now you want to find out, you know, be part of the ceremony. And even if you don't enter award, I would say and I would like to get your opinion on this guys. I mean, I've attended. I obviously haven't entered any awards, because I'm staff. But these ceremonies I find interesting, I like to hear a little bit about the projects, I like to look at the pictures and find out more and then actually network and meet and greet because you're going to have man this people sitting in the audience at the awards. That's a crew, an international crew, which is very interesting. So I don't know if anybody wants to that how many people here sat in awards before they entered anything? actually went to the awards? Conference? Eddie?

Eddie Shapiro  43:15  
Yes. Yep. Yes.

Walt Zerbe  43:18  
Did that help inspire you to decide, you know, maybe I'll give this a shot myself?

Eddie Shapiro  43:22  
I think so. But it's, it's really eye opening to go and I've done it in other categories outside of CD as well. And I would say that some of the some of the manufacturer awards, if you will, and, and everybody does a really good job. And you're really, you are humbled and you're inspired at the same time. And, you know, we we entered our experience center. The first we have will probably enter our new revision for the new awards at CEDIA, but we did that for another manufacturer. And we were just humbled by how amazing these experience centers were. So I think it's great to see that it really makes you understand where you are, what you need to do and how you may need to climb to do better. And yeah, you don't know that you don't know you don't know is that famous phrase. And that's true here. So, again, I think that that you have to if you haven't done this before, you have to do it. Do it once understand it, even if you don't become a finalist, or any of that, do it get started. It'll change your company.

Walt Zerbe  44:41  
Yeah, and Ben, all of you guys said that very clearly. It's more of a Let's challenge ourselves as a company to grow and better ourselves. I love that it does set a benchmark. If you want to attend the awards in the Americas the winners are announced on September at To see the expo, Asia Pacific winners will be at the Australian tech summit, which is October 23. And EMBA winners will be announced at the EMA ceremony date to be determined. So I don't have a date for you on that one.

Ben Goff  45:13  
thing, don't worry, I love I love going to the US awards at Expo and being being on the show floor and then going up to the awards an hour later and you've been got a room of, as you said, some incredible companies many of whom have entered and you're, you're suddenly in a room of people and you know, most of them are either excellent or they care about becoming excellent because they've gone and it's a great room. Amir is a very different proposition we do before you know we it's a bowl we do a proper black night dinner sit down it's a big event usually in really cool venues. You know, we've we've done some of the big museums in London Science Museum National History Museum, so we we've had some really cool venues it's a Harry Potter was amazing. Yeah, I wasn't there annoyingly, but cool venue. So it's a the Amiga one is a real place to be part of the the industry for an evening, you know, everyone's made an effort to bid, you know, it's a cool place. But the thing with both of them is the people who were there are incredible people to hang out with it's yeah, it's a cool place to be at the awards. Because you know, everybody cares about doing this, right? And if they didn't, they're probably not going to get the award. So it's possible that

Unknown Speaker  46:32  
we all like dweebs for a living but you know,

Ben Goff  46:36  
people who get it, isn't it? Yeah, there are many in the industry globally, who, who don't get it, but but do sell bill of materials, but do just put a shopping list together and they don't spend the time to understand their clients and to be excellent and to follow standards. And the ones who do a generally the people, you'll find that the awards that you know you it's a room full of excellence. And that's a cool place to be even if you're not an entrant. That's a cool place to be and feed off the kind of companies who are there. Yeah.

Walt Zerbe  47:10  
And, Mike, you've said this repeatedly. And I know, others have said this on the on the cast as well. When people say, Why should I be a CDL? Member? You know, what, what do I get out of it? This is one of the to me, one of the greatest things you could get get out of it being able if you go to that award ceremony? You can't if you're just an integrator on your own versus an integrator that's creating a network and learning from others, there is no there's no comparison. The what what what can I get out of being a CD a member, a being able to volunteer like oh, and said, if you start getting involved in judging, you will learn so much that that that will completely change your mindset and your business. Same with volunteering for any of our committees or standards, I hear nothing. But people that volunteer on standard say, I don't know why I didn't do this long time ago, because I just the education and professional development, but the networking, you know, giving back to your community, but improving and learning. And as Eddie said, learning what you didn't know, you didn't know that. You just can't, you can't get that anywhere else. So that would be my little plug for if you're not a senior member, you should be an aspire to be awards entry. So what am I missed? For? Talking about awards in general?

Eddie Shapiro  48:35  
Yeah, I think we hit the nail on the head. I mean, it really elevates your business. It elevates your work. I think the big takeaway here is get started and start elevating your work. Yeah, we

Unknown Speaker  48:45  
should talk about ego.

Speaker 2  48:48  
I mean, that's how it starts. And then the kind of down the rabbit hole, right? And

Ben Goff  48:52  
maybe it's just us, in your opinion, maybe that far more altruistic on that side of the pond? No, I'm gonna call

Walt Zerbe  48:58  
I'm gonna call out back on that ego thing. I know, Ben is a Ben is a competitive and prideful guy. And I would say that you after you started doing this process of entering for awards, because I've seen you come up in the world here, which is another cool thing about being a senior member, you can see folks that get started and see how they go in and you can see some that you know, really start to kind of hockey stick trajectory. Then you're one of those guys. And you know, you said I'm gonna go for entering an award and you did, and you said, I'm gonna go for volunteering for standards and get involved and you did and then all of a sudden, when you talk, Mike, you talked about that ego thing, that pay gets knocked down a bunch. And then you're like, Whoa, okay, yeah, I thought it was good. But there's a lot more I can learn. And now now I'm on a quest to learn as much as I can learn and be as good as I can be. Yeah. Is that a fair statement?

Ben Goff  49:54  
Yeah, I've been volunteering for standards does that very quickly, you and I Armenia we now see that I, this week spent two days teaching the the RP 22 course. And everyone's first standards call is the same as sitting in a classroom to be taught it, you walk in a hero, you think you're really good. And you leave realizing you've won. Right? Where you thought you were, oh, we

Speaker 2  50:21  
got a word for that in the greatest way. So it's the big Oh, shit moment.

Ben Goff  50:25  
Yeah, you're

Unknown Speaker  50:27  
mocking that either? Yeah.

Ben Goff  50:31  
The Radiant should think about a standard score. You know, I still know, the exact moment where my career changed. I know exactly. Where that trajectory changed. When Peter elite, who we have to be fair is probably the greatest volunteer we have right now. And for the last many, many years who gaze Okay, so many number of hours, you know, just just in terms of number of hours, Peter? Community is absurd. It's amazing. He, he said it on a call. What is the impedance of that wall? And I realized I didn't understand the question, let alone the answer. And as that began being discussed, I realized I needed to go and pick up a book, so that I know the exact moment when I then started properly becoming a professional and learning the things I should have always known but had no idea I didn't even know where to look follows through into the you know, the awards, the feedback from awards, judging, there might be things that you've completely missed, and a job was great. And it was good enough to be shortlisted. But you've not won because of this bit of this bit. And that will come back in the feedback, you know, we're really good. We do spend a lot of time giving good, proper, honest feedback on projects. So that's being judged by your peers is quite important, I think, you know,

Walt Zerbe  51:54  
and you can get all that feedback,

Ben Goff  51:56  
easy to think that works great. But when, when a committee of your peers give you proper feedback, and they're not just telling you what you want to hear, they're telling you the truth, that's a really cool place to learn.

Speaker 1  52:09  
There's there's something also is that our industry is non regulated. Yeah. And I mean, the difference between a pass and fail if you're an electrician, or a plumber is dictated through the permit, and permit approval process. So in our industry, people can say that they're doing good work. Yeah, and they do. And when we have a client that comes in, I talk about CEDIA, and how it's an elective organization that are committed to standards and education. So a, as a company, that you're you're committed to a standards, it's nonregulated should elevate your company to be recognized within that community should be twofold. If I'm competing against a competitor in it's not looking good for us, I'll bring that out all day, you know, and if they decide that it's not important to them, they're probably not good customers for us. Yeah.

Walt Zerbe  53:18  
But yeah, there's no a rule, right, knowing when to step away and when to take the time when not to Yeah,

Speaker 1  53:25  
I think it's crazy that, that our industry, have businesses and some of the large businesses that have no sort of criteria for standards.

Eddie Shapiro  53:39  
Standards, having having been on many of those calls, and being the one who knows the least, it is very humbling, especially when you're on call Peter and, and the team and, and, and a number of other people talking about audio standards, that putting together RP 22. And in the book, which I was less involved in the many of the others was still an incredible experience. And you can learn a tremendous amount standards for an unregulated industry, as Mike says, is crucial.

Walt Zerbe  54:11  
Yeah, and I'll just finish this off by saying, entering awards is akin to standards. It'll raise your standards of your workflow of your business of your employees of your, of your whole company culture. So I would encourage everyone to get involved in awards, because it'll raise your standard, hopefully, or prove your standard of how you do work. So I think that's probably a great way to end this. So I'd like to thank all of you, Ben Owen, Eddie and Mike for taking the time to be on this podcast. Pleasure. Pleasure. Thank you. Well, I look forward to seeing all of you guys at the award ceremony because I know I will. I will be seeing all of you there and I also really want to thank you all for your support of CEDIA and for your volunteering for CEDIA, again, CEDIA can't do anything without volunteers It's, it's crucial. So thank you all for giving your time and your efforts, you know, because every integrator if you say do you have any time? What are they going to say? I don't have any time, right? I'm too busy. But you make time and but you found that that time is worth making the time. so rewarding. I encourage also everyone, anyone to be a CD volunteer and to reach out, you

Ben Goff  55:24  
can volunteer for one hour a week, and it will be the most productive hour you spend that week. It won't be billed you didn't make any money. But it will be the most valuable hour you spent that week for sure. Every every week in and out.

Walt Zerbe  55:36  
Can Can Can you put a price tag on knowledge? Because we might not be even right? You're making brain money, knowledge money,

Ben Goff  55:43  
I've tried to estimate the cost of the education of being on the RP 22 calls. Yeah, if we were to work out the hourly rate of all our volunteers who have given their time filthy to ask the global experts a direct question and get a personal answer. It would run to millions and millions of dollars of dollars. That's a really good way of looking at it by you know, there could be 30 people on some of those calls and they're all incredible at something and there will be the global expert on a question you may have. Yeah, essentially standards give you a personalized access to the global expert on anything you want to know. Well, that is you can't put a value on it but it would be millions of dollars if you tried.

Walt Zerbe  56:33  
All right $1 million All right. All right, guys. Well, you could you couldn't see me put my pinky up to my mouth but I think y'all got it so Anyway, thanks again for being on the podcast and for supporting CEDIA, and thanks for listening to this particular podcast. I encourage you all to get involved in the awards process and attend an awards show. So get involved and I will ask you as always to please keep an open mind. For more information on CEDIA visit CEDIA dotnet.