commbasics

What do these things have in common? CES AMD board firing the CEO EDAC Annual Forecast meeting Articles about engineers not liking Twitter Give up? It’s all evidence that engineers need to be removed from corporate management in the semiconductors space... that includes electronic design automation (EDA) and test. The nation is either coming out of the recession or is on the cusp of a second recessionary dip.  Revenues in semi are up, Revenues in capital equipment are up, revenues in design automation are up. everyone should be breathing a sigh of relief, but there are ominous clouds on the horizon.  There was all the hoopla at CES about tablets and 4G wireless but the real undercurrent was there was no real innovation.   Not only was there little innovation on display but there were few product that anyone would actually want.  A widely reported study from Accenture showed that 95 percent of the products that were announced at CES would be returned with no def...

In part one of this series I talked about how Gen Y (and everyone else since then) are the first people in history to not need formal organized gatherings to maintain relationships. Those gatherings include religious groups (churches, temples, mosques, synagogs), political parties and, trade shows. Does that mean those gatherings are going to disappear? Not necessarily. There are enough baby boomers with enough buying power to keep those things going for another 10-20 years, but those efforts are going to die out altogether unless they make some significant changes. Right now, as the economy seems to be leveling off, the attendance decline in trade shows has flattened, but should there be another dip, look for popular events like CES to start nosediving again. Where you will see growth is where companies approach these gatherings with a new perspective. Most companies gear up for their primary trade shows, many target only one now, and they pour the lions share of the marketing budget ...