Heard in the Channel: ECIA readies for Executive Conference next week

Oct. 22, 2013
Leaders from Cisco, Intel, Avnet and PEI Genesis top list of industry speakers to address annual conference of electronic components execs; plus news from element14, Coilcraft

The Electronic Components Industry Association will meet in Chicago next week for its annual Executive Conference, where leaders from component manufacturing, distribution and sales representative firms gather to network and get the latest industry news and analysis from experts inside and outside the electronics supply chain. Titled “Shift Happens,” this year’s meeting addresses critical changes taking place in the electronics industry and how companies can turn those challenges into opportunities.

The meeting will be held October 27-29 at the Intercontinental Chicago O’Hare.

Industry experts speaking at the event include Steve Fisher of distributor PEI Genesis; Brad Whitworth of Cisco; Rick Dwyer of Intel; and Ed Smith, president of Avnet Electronics Marketing Americas. Their presentations will focus on various aspects of the electronics supply chain, drawing on each executive’s particular experiences.

Fisher will discuss “How to Grow a Niche Business without Losing Your Identity (or Your Soul),” for instance, and Dwyer’s presentation will focus on “The Internet of Things.” Other business experts will address topics such as on-shoring, economic trends, market changes, venture capital, sales strategies and global branding.

For more information on the meeting, visit www.eciaonline.org.

In other news, distributor element14 recently announced pending changes to its online community at element14.com. The distributor will add the following features to the site:

  • Activity Streams that allow users to get an overview of trending content and people based on their interests.
  • Connection Streams that let users see the content their connections create.
  • Custom Streams that allow users to build their own content feeds to follow new trends.
  • An @Mentioning feature that makes it easier to loop members into conversations.
  • A Content Creation feature to help find, respond to or create content in one streamlined step.
  • And a new search feature that allows users to instantly access discussions, documents, products and their favorite members.

Element14 also said it will remove members’ private messages during the upgrade, which begins October 25. A new Direct Message feature will replace the current private message feature, and members are asked to copy any messages they wish to retain by October 24.

And in other electronics industry news:

  • Coilcraft, Inc. recently delivered two sets of Power Magnetics Parts Cabinets to the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. The parts will be used in undergraduate- and graduate-level Power Electronics Labs to give students hands-on experience in design, operation and application of electronic circuits and power conversion.
  • Avnet Electronics Marketing released two kits designed by Avnet experts, the Zynq®-7000 All Programmable SoC / AD9361 Software-Defined Radio Evaluation Kit and the Zynq-7000 All Programmable SoC / AD9361 Software-Defined Radio Systems Development Kit. Targeted for software-defined radio, MIMO, public safety networks and general purpose data acquisition, the kits enable wireless communications from baseband to radio-frequency (RF).
  • Avnet EM also announced that its Avnet Embedded division signed a new distribution agreement with Swissbit, which designs and manufactures DRAM and Flash memory products. The distributor will offer Swissbit’s memory solutions to industrial, embedded, communications and networking, military and aerospace, transportation, casino gaming, and medical equipment markets in the Americas.

EVENTS

ECIA Executive Conference
October 27-29, 2013
Chicago

14th Annual ISM Indirect/Services Conference
December 5-6, 2013
Phoenix, Ariz.

SAE 2013 Counterfeit Parts Avoidance Symposium-South
December 10, 2013
Irving, Texas

CARTS International
March 31 – April 4, 2014
Santa Clara, Calif.

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About the Author

Victoria Fraza Kickham | Distribution Editor

Victoria Kickham is the distribution editor for Electronic Design magazine, SourceESB and GlobalPurchasing.com, where she covers issues related to the electronics supply chain. Victoria started out as a general assignment reporter for several Boston-area newspapers before joining Industrial Distribution magazine, where she spent 14 years covering industrial markets. She served as ID’s managing editor from 2000 to 2010. Victoria has a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of New Hampshire and a master’s degree in English from Northeastern University.