If you have not already done so, I highly recommend that you flip those 2010 calendar pages over to May, and block out the 11th to the 13th so you do not miss this year's Electronic Distribution Show (EDS). This unique event in our industry will again be held at the Paris-Bally's hotel complex in Las Vegas.
As a long-time participant in EDS and a past member of the show's board of directors, I can tell you from my firsthand experience that this not like any other trade show or conference we attend. It is a high energy, fast-paced, very busy but very efficient, productive environment in which attendees can accomplish in just a few days what would normally require huge amounts of time, travel and expense.
If you've never attended EDS, let me try to describe it. This is a customized blend of trade show and conference, designed to bring together our industry distributors, manufacturers whose products go to market through distribution, reps who work with distributors and reps or manufacturers who are exploring doing business with distributors. This event consists of many parts: literally hundreds of small meetings, most of which occur away from the show floor; an exhibit floor where attendees can discover new opportunities; a jam-packed seminar and program schedule covering industry, economic and technical topics; and some of the highest caliber networking available anywhere.
In addition, the three organizations that sponsor EDS - ERA, the National Electronic Distributors Association (NEDA) and the Electronic Components Association (ECA) - host our own business and hospitality centers on the show floor and offer many programs and services for both our members and all attendees. For instance, ERA's Special Edition Lines Available for EDS annually attracts more than 100 line listings. We send that to our reps in advance, and, as a result, many line interviews are held during the show. In 2009, one of our members was kind enough to return to the ERA business center to let us know that, thanks to our Lines Available Bulletin and an interview he'd just completed, he had landed a new line that would more than pay for his entire trip to Vegas. That's a perfect example of the type of activity that goes on throughout EDS.
