Here we go then. Your guest editor (M Elliott Esq. Once of the Parish of Reed Sutton) is in situ while the regular guy (R. Jones Esq.) has mooched off on his sabbatical. Now devoted readers of this newsletter will know there is what the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band called the Intro and an Outro. The Intro belongs to the editor. The Outro belongs to any publisher or editor out there nursing an argument, and looking angrier than a Millwall fan confronted by a Crystal Palace fan. Well the Outro is where you get it off your chest, so it would be good to see some contributions.
And on to the topic of my first Intro – exhibitions. Writing this in mid-80 degree Fahrenheit heat, Electronica in Munich in November seems a long way off. Yet it’s only just over three months before the Bavarian capital plays host to the industry. It’s a show that has defied the trend against general purpose, industrial shows gradually disappearing. Every other year it manages to reinvent itself by adding new features, conferences and forums without losing its core values, and it packs in the punters as anyone who has tried to navigate through busy halls can testify. Older readers (actually they would have to be bloody old) will remember similar events at London’s Earls Court in the UK, and more latterly those organised by Evan Steadman (see below). So it was with at least a tinge of optimism I approached Earls Court 2 a few weeks back for the debut of National Electronics Week. Initial impressions were favourable. In fact the exhibition looked as good as any show I’ve seen in the UK for a long time. Well laid out, well-designed stands too. Clare Jeffreys and the team had done a terrific job pulling the show together. In the aftermath of the show I saw a comment from the same organisers describing it as “a qualified success.” That may be a tad on the optimistic side. It wasn’t a fiasco, it did lack an audience. This muted effort seems to me to confirm once and for all that the UK does not do big shows in big venues anymore. Choose a niche topic, manage audience expectations and you can be on a winner.
The UK market has changed, and is obviously much more fragmented and more heavily populated by SMEs who can’t spare engineers time to walk around exhibitions for a day. GEC, Ferranti, Plessey and Racal are names that have pretty much disappeared along with the legions of engineers they sent to exhibitions.
So for now the focus is on Electronica and I would remind all those PR and marketers reading this, that the monthly magazines will soon be embarking on their Electronica preview issues so get cracking!!!
And so onto the what’s occurring section. Thin gruel this month (typical just as I take over). I assume many have already skived off to the beaches. Still two big editorial names are making the news
Caroline Hayes will be taking over as the new editor-in-chief of EPN with effect from 29 September. Hayes will be making the switch from EPD where she has been editor for the past six years. She has a long and distinguished track record in the electronics publishing business starting as assistant editor of What’s New in Electronics at Miller Freeman. She advanced from there to Wilmington where she became editor of Electronic Product Review before joining IML to edit EPD. The magazine has progressed under her stewardship, and she launched most recently the successful e-Legacy Awards now in its second year. According to EPN publisher Martin Savery, “Caroline comes to EPN with a great track record from renowned UK electronics publication Electronic Product Design – “the designers’ magazine of choice and the voice of the electronics industry since 1980”.
“She is clearly is very enthusiastic about the new dimension added to B2B publishing by the web and has lots of new ideas about how to develop EPN’s print and online assets going forward to reinforce its position as the longest-standing pan-European electronics publication with the biggest circulation in Europe.”
Hayes replaces Mike Green who has been editor in chief at EPN for the past 6 years, introducing a host of new sections such as CEO Dialogue, Distribution Guide & Distribution Spotlight, Test Corner, Power Perspective and many others which have become established parts of EPN’s Product News coverage today. Green will continue to be associated with EPN and contribute to some of these editorial sections after he stops working for EPN full-time, while he continues to look forward to the publication of his second book.  Until Hayes joins EPN, Mick Elliott will be acting editor and oversee all editorial matters. Elliott is a veteran of the electronics industry in the UK and Europe, as an editor in the earlier part of his career and, more recently, as publisher of Electronics Weekly. He will also serve as Distribution & Test Editor of EPN.
At present all EPN press releases should be sent to Mick Elliott melliott@reedbusiness.fr
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Paul Whytock has been promoted to European Editor-in-Chief of the Electronic Design Group, Penton Media Inc. Based in London, Whytock will retain the editorship of Electronic Design Europe but gains responsibility for developing the European coverage and content of other magazines in Penton Media’s Electronic Design Group. Titles included are: Electronic Design, Microwaves & RF magazine, Power Electronics Technology, Automotive Electronics and Military Electronics.
“Penton Media is firmly committed to developing its international portfolio and I am delighted to be a part of that strategy. The Electronic Design Group has a vigorous schedule of innovative projects that will further expand our digital, online and film media for the international electronics industry,” commented Whytock.
Electronic Design Europe is continuing its video coverage at major European events and Paul Whytock will be filming interviews in his own inimitable style at European Microwave Week (October 29-31) in Amsterdam and also Electronica 2008 (November 11-14) in Munich. 
At Electronica, Penton Media will have several film crews covering the event as part of the company’s Engineering TV operation. Content is expected to range from short five minute presentations of new products through to in-depth discussions featuring emerging technologies at the show.
Leading German publication has updated its web site following a successful past 12 months when according to editor in chief and publisher Johann Wiesbock there has been a tremendous increase in visitors and page impressions. Wiesbock says they have added new usability and content search features to continue this growth.
Evan Steadman, one of the UK electronics industry’s more flamboyant characters had died aged 69. He was best known as the organiser of the UK’s most successful trade shows. He was a larger than life character and in truth the epithet showman would better describe him. He had a highly efficient team which looked after the show organisation. Steadman’s forte was the marketing of the show. Marketing was in fact his background. In the 1970s he was marketing manager for Texas Instruments in the UK. At the time, semiconductor advertising was stodgy fare. A possibly apocryphal story has him calling his team together at TI, picking up sheaves of paper, declaring “This is what I think of your marketing plans”, and chucking the lot out of the nearest window. His modus operandi was to make an impact. For TI he achieved this by commissioning Ralph Steadman, the eminent British cartoonist and caricaturist to design an advertising campaign. The electronics advertising industry had never seen anything like it and hasn’t since. In the early 70s after his time at Texas Instruments, Evan Steadman went into the exhibition game with a semiconductor show called Seminex. It was not a great hit. He then hit the jackpot with the All Electronics Show, which started as a very affordable bench top show in the Great Room of the Grosvenor House Hotel in London and, via the Barbican Exhibition Centre, grew into the British Electronics Week, which took up half of Olympia. It was a huge success, and very different from previous rather stuffy UK shows. The feature was a prize car to be won by one lucky visitor. The show did not however fulfil his ambition of toppling the Munich Electronica event as Europe’s premier electronics exhibition. The parochial title put off some overseas exhibitors and visitors, and Steadman’s marketing, which featured a John Bull character holding a British bulldog, was also seen as a deterrent. Alongside the show he staged the Electronics Industry Ball at the Grosvenor House featuring the first annual industry awards. As Electronica remained impregnable Steadman sold the business for ÂŁ5m to of all people Robert Maxwell, thus becoming one of the few who made money from the man Private Eye dubbed the Bouncing Czech.
Inevitably, he was attracted to the real show business world and he became a backer or angel to the musical Me and My Girl, which originally starred Robert Lindsay and Emma Thompson. He was a generous host to many at the Strand Theatre, the venue for the show that ran for years in London. Another of his ventures was the Jewellery Fair and Steadman appeared on BBC’s Breakfast News adorning the presenter Selina Scott with a ÂŁ1m necklace to publicise the event. However he never lost touch with the electronics industry and launched in the 90s a new show called the Electronic Components Industry Fair. The show’s democratic theme limited the exhibitors, no matter how big or small, to a maximum of three shell scheme units. One could be bought for ÂŁ1,000 - thus producing the show’s motto of A Stand for a Grand. It proved a popular strategy with the SMEs, less so with the bigger companies who like to flex their exhibition muscles with large, purpose built stands. The visitor turn out was excellent. The industry ball was also successfully revived and is the forerunner of Electronics Weekly’s Elektra Awards.
In latter years Steadman also attempted to produce a musical based on Robert Maxwell’s life. He was prevented from staging it because the High Court decided it could prejudice the upcoming trial of Maxwell’s sons. This decision made the BBC Nine O’Clock News where, incongruously given he had just seen a great deal of money disappear, Evan appeared pouring champagne for the disappointed cast. That however was his way!
Unfortunately Steadman’s health which had not been robust for some years - he was on his third liver transplant - began to fail and without his energy the show plateaued and was sold off, and while remaining a constant visitor to other shows, that was pretty much it and he retired gracefully to his homes in Cambridge and the South of France. Obituaries appeared in the Independent and Daily Telegraph which I suspect Evan would have thoroughly enjoyed reading.
The American Society of Business Publications Editors (ASBPE) annual awards, recently staged at the Intercontinental Hotel in Kansas City, USA, honoured Penton Media’s Electronic Design Europe magazine with a Bronze Award in the hotly contested Digital Publications, General Excellence category.
“I was delighted with this win which is a national USA award and so attracts a high number of entrants,” said Paul Whytock, Editor-in-Chief. “This is the second time we have been honoured with this award which not only reflects the high standard of work achieved by the editorial and design teams of Penton Media but their ability to meet those standards consistently.”