In December Electronics Weekly and EE Times Group announced they would partner on a UK show in 2010, and that show has finally got a name: Embedded Live. In our industry it’s nice to get a simple name that is real words and not an abbreviation. Although the UK is probably the toughest market in Europe for trade shows, I really hope that the combination of EW and EE Times group will be strong enough to make this event a success.

Tags: EE Times, Electronics Weekly, Shows and Events, UK

I’m delighted to see that Electronics Weekly has launched a blog about test and certification that is written by our client TRaC. The engineers at TRaC have superb knowledge about this subject, which is not surprising considering they are the leading UK test and certification company. They’ve been supplying posts to EW for some time, so the blog already has some fascinating posts.

Tags: Blogs, Clients, Electronics, Electronics Weekly, News About Napier, Online, UK

I’m told that the joint venture electronics show organised by Reed and EE Times Group (formerly TechInsights) will soon have a new name (I’m betting it will include “ESC” and “Live”). The two companies have already been working on the show, which thankfully will move from Farnborough to Earls Court, and I was particularly interested in the plans to encourage exhibitors to take seminar rooms to run presentations, tutorials and labs. ESC has always has a good conference, and if vendors can run their own tutorials, hopefully this will not only encourage higher attendance, but also mean that more visitors spend time on the show floor.

Tags: Electronics, Electronics Weekly, ESC, ESE, Reed, Shows and Events, TechInsights, UK

Thanks to all at Electronics Weekly for putting on such a good show last night for the annual Elektra Awards. We had several clients shortlisted, with Microchip walking away with the Semiconductor Product of the Year – Digital award. Many congratulations to Microchip and all our clients who were shortlisted.

Tags: Awards, Clients, Electronics, Electronics Weekly, Microchip, News About Napier

At last night’s Elektra Awards, Paul Briggs, Group Publisher for Reed Technology Group, announced that Electronics Weekly and UBM are to form a strategic partnership for the Embedded Systems Conference and Exhibition, to be held on October 20-21st 2010 at Earls Court. A couple of months ago this partnership would have been almost unthinkable, but with the sale of EE Times, it seems almost anything is possible.

Of course it is good news that there will be two major companies behind the event next year, and I really hope it works. It does, however, need some radical thinking. Neither company generated large attendances at events this year, and more worryingly they didn’t appear to be able to attract big name exhibitors who must sign up early to encourage smaller exhibitors and visitors to attend.

The move will presumably see National Electronics Week refocus on its core electronics manufacturing sector, which may even increase the quality of the visitors, although they will have to work had to secure strong support from the media.

Overall it’s a good thing that we have commitment to ESC2010, but if it is to be a success the organisers need to think radically. Today exhibition success is not about achieving a particular revenue per square meter of booth space. It’s all about getting big-name companies who will not only attract visitors, but also proactively market the event to their databases, and provide compelling reasons to attend, such as running classes on the show floor. I hope that EW and UBM can see the benefit of this, and are able to announce commitments to exhibit from several major manufacturers.

Tags: Awards, EE Times, Electronics, Electronics Weekly, ESC, National Electronics Week, Reed, Shows and Events

The organisers of National Electronics Week (NEW) were busy canvassing exhibitors and visitors at this year’s show, and will surprise no one with their decision to cut the show down to two days in 2010, saving exhibitors’ time and money. Perhaps more controversial is the decision to move to the NEC – my informal conversations at the show suggested that exhibitors were split on whether it would be right to move the event, with the production equipment suppliers more enthusiastic about a move to the Midlands.

NEW will also be held earlier in the year, running from the 18th – 19th May 2010, instead of June. This date fits nicely between Bank Holidays and is before the schools’ half-term break, so should maximise the number of people who could attend.

Perhaps the most important thing is that NEW will happen in 2010 – with the tough economic climate, the recent introduction of NEW and the reluctance of UK engineers to attend shows, it’s great to see exhibitors commit to next year’s show. Let’s hope the change of date and location and the more compact schedule not only encourages more visitors, but also is the incentive exhibitors need to attend.

Tags: Electronics Weekly, Shows and Events, UK

I liked this idea from Electronics Weekly. A simple mashup of R&D locations in the UK that are taken from press releases with Google Maps gives you a great view of where research and development activity is happening in the UK.

Tags: Electronics Weekly, Online

And then there were three… Elektroniknet and Elektronik Praxis both offer pay-per-lead campaigns and now Electronics Weekly has joined in, offering to supply a stream of qualified leads at a fixed cost per lead. The level of qualification and the cost varies hugely – there is roughly a 30 to 1 ratio between the most expensive and cheapest options, so you need to be careful that you are picking the option that delivers the best value leads for your needs.

Pay-per-lead is an approach we’ve used with several IT clients, and it was pretty inevitable that publishers in our sector would follow. But the approach has pitfalls for electronic component vendors.

When we work with IT clients, they often have systems with an entry level cost of several tens of thousands of dollars, and the difference between a small and large client might only be a factor of ten.

Many of our electronics component clients have products that sell for a couple of dollars or less, and the difference between small volume (e.g. a proof of concept) and high volume can be a factor of 100,000 or more. Setting the qualification questions is therefore more important, but can also be much more challenging.

If you’re interested in pay-per-lead, and would like to talk to an agency that has run these campaigns, why not send me an email?

Tags: Electronics Weekly, Online

It’s good to see that some great traditions survive. Although I’m desperately hoping for Andy Murray to make it in to the second week of Wimbledon, and that it doesn’t rain during the tournament, some traditions do make you smile. As with previous years, the deadline for the Elektra Awards has been extended – you now have until 3rd July to submit your entry.

Tags: Awards, Electronics Weekly

The 2009 Elektra (European Electronics Industry) Awards are now open for entries. It’s time to enter the Elektra Awards 2009. This year there are fifteen categories, including 5 New Categories, two of which focus on green innovations and a new contract manufacturer of the year award. The semiconductor product of the year – always the most popular category – has also been split into two categories, one for analogue and one for digital. The new categories are:

• Contract Manufacturer of the Year Award
• LED Lighting Application Award
• Renewable Energy Design Award
• Semiconductor Product of the Year – Analogue
• Semiconductor Product of the Year – Digital

The closing date for entries is 30th June and despite the traditional deadline extension in recent years, I’d recommend getting entries in on time. All entry details are on the awards website.

Tags: Awards, Electronics Weekly

Clearly electronics companies don’t go to trade shows to exhibit. I’ve just been sent an update from Electronics Weekly about their 3-day design conference taking place at Electronics Weekly Live (which itself is part of National Electronics Week) in June. There are 21 companies speaking. In fact 21 really good companies speaking at the event. It’s an impressive list, and would definitely encourage me to attend. So I checked out the exhibitor list, naively thinking it must be impressive. Sadly of the 21 companies speaking only four were listed as exhibitors.

This doesn’t make sense to me. I can’t believe the exhibitor list is that out of date. Why do so many companies invest the time to speak, but not exhibit. They must value the quality of the visitors to put in the time to write and present a paper. If this approach continues, we’re going to see a “tragedy of the exhibitions” where visitors don’t turn up to the event because of the small roster of exhibitors, leaving a great seminar schedule poorly attended. Personally I still think that trade shows can be great lead generation tools, so I hope that this gloomy vision doesn’t happen.

Tags: Electronics Weekly, Shows and Events, UK

Electronics Weekly has just updated the look and feel of their website, and so I thought it would be a nice idea to use the wonders of the wayback machine to have a look at how the site has changed over the years. I accept that the wayback machine is limited, presenting pages without most of the graphics, but it does give an idea of how the look and feel of the site has changed over the years.

September 2002

September 2003

July 2005

July 2006

April 2009

I like the clear and somehow less cluttered layout of the new site, although it is interesting to see that the various channels have been organised into categories (design, components, etc) and have been given less prominance than in recent versions of the site. Also the slightly wider layout probably isn’t going to win any fans in the world of netbooks, but I would expect that most users would have displays that are more than capable of showing the entire page width.

Tags: Electronics Weekly, Online, UK