Publishing and communications technology might change over time but the fundamentals of making a magazine remain the same: understand the information wants and needs of your audience; keep asking questions until you find sufficient answers; then broadcast your findings to people who will find them interesting and useful.
Clearly it is important to ask the right people the right questions, which means being in the right place at the right time. Admittedly, this process has been eased by the introduction of technologies like Zoom and Teams which have shrunk the world and leapfrogged time-zones. Alongside this, humble press releases continue to pose and answer questions, as do random conversations at exhibitions.
However, the apex environments for such conversations are industry conferences. The reason is simple, conferences tend to focus concentration and attract peoplewith a real passion for the subject, often paying thousands of dollars to attend.
With this in mind I have some good news. As I write, my esteemed publisher Mark Leary, is preparing to attend the ERA conference in Austin, Texas. As the website states, the gathering provides an educational and networking event offering electronics industry reps, manufacturers and distributors the opportunity to learn together from experts.
Mark is tasked with harvesting answers to questions aligned with conference topics including the role of artificial intelligence, digitization, cybersecurity and more.
Tune into future issues for Electronics Sourcing’s reporting on our findings.