commbasics

I concluded a great week with a sit-down with Paul Miller, CEO of EE Times Group  for United Business Media, regarding what the new format and philosophy for the venerable publication will mean for entrepreneurialism and investment in the electronics world. To me, everything looks to be moving up and to the right.  This interview was sponsored by Magma Design and Vpype . Watch video live on Vpype Live Broadcaster

For a couple of months now, I've been doing live broadcasts on a variety of subject, ranging from semiconductor design to marijuana legalization , on a new network called Vpype. The broadcasts are sponsored by Vpype and Magma Design Automation and can be about anything that might pop into my mine. Yesterday, I had an interview fall through so I vamped on the subject of privacy in social networks, which I had touched on earlier this week in a blog. This is a big topic right now and I'm kinda surprised I haven't had more discussion... but a lot of people may be on vacation. So the interview can be seen here, and you can comment here, or go directly to my channel on Vpype  (that's even better for the show). Watch video live on Vpype Live Broadcaster

While at DAC last week I had a few interviews scheduled for the live Vpype broadcasts (sponsored by Vpype and Magma Design Automation ) that never got off the ground due to bandwidth issues.  One of them was with Robert Cravotta, former embedded and microprocessor editor for EDN and now the chief analyst for Embedded Insights .  Luckily, I brought my Zi6 with me. Robert and I have been talking off and on for the past couple of months since his layoff about the uses of social media and he's taken technical journalism to another level in his new endeavor.  He was in charge of EDN's very popular Microprocessor Directory... that has disappeared under the new ownership.  In Robert's head, however, was the seed of an idea that would make the directory more valuable to the engineering community but never had the opportunity to implement under Reed Business Media.  Embedded Insights is, in essence, the culmination of that idea.  But I'll le...

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 ...

Big news all around today.   Denali and Cadence merge and New Tech Press will go to DAC this year with live video broadcasts on line. Yep, today we reached agreement with Vpype , the social video startup for partial sponsorship of live (and later archived) interviews with technologists and industry leaders at the Design Automation Conference in Anaheim, beginning June 14. Here's the catch: You won't be able to see the live broadcasts unless you have a Facebook account.  You'll have to wait until the archived interviews go up on the Vpype site, New Tech Press, and the NTP network partners, like Electronic Products , as well.   The offer of sponsorship came after I started a series on the Use of Social Video  a couple of weeks ago on Facebook that will be continuing indefinitely and will probably be expanding to multiple weekly events on other subjects. So this is a heads up on both of those opportunities.  We had about 10 people in the audienc...