Being Present

With CEDIA, our industry’s largest tradeshow event of the year next week, I find myself getting excited for the long gruelling days ahead.  While that seems counter intuitive, taking from the old “what gives you energy?” line, connecting in-person with business partners, industry partners, old colleagues, and new businesses is something that I genuinely get excited about.  The in-person experience and being present with everyone is so important in our industry.

From every seat at the table what we all want from any experience is to know that we are heard and are important.  Support tickets, quotes, jobs, follow-up, it all requires us to tap into the human part of our jobs.  Emails contain formalities whereas the in-person meetings, or even phone calls, shed much more light on how everyone is feeling.  You can see it in someone’s eyes and hear it in the tone and inflection of their voice.

These events are the best possible time to engage with everyone in those verticals.  I personally want to hear about your successes and the joy you’ve been able to bring.  On the flip side of that, if there’s something on your mind, whether it be feedback, a problem, an issue, a suggestion, nothing is off the table.  Okay, not nothing, because you always want to know what is next, and you will hear me say “official Brilliant policy is we do not comment on future product or partners”.  

But it’s these conversations that drive our products and our industry forward.  It shares the best practices to help all of us succeed.  This industry is large and will continue to grow.  It’s how we collectively work together that makes all the difference.  Brilliant is uniquely positioned at the center of the smart home, but without being present, and listening to your feedback, we won’t reach our ceiling.

In the end, being present comes down to some basic things.  Are you showing up when called upon?  Are you treating each situation or job as if it were your family’s?  Are you making the time to prioritize this?  Are you self aware to these things and how you do them or don’t do them well?  I do have one thing for you to think about as I stand I my soap box for this.

Have you ever said you don’t have time for something?  Not to say that your lives aren’t busy with any number of things, but I personally call myself out if I ever utter those words.  It’s not that I don’t have time, it’s that I haven’t made it a priority.  If you know me, you know that I love golf.  Ask me how much I’ve played this year, and it hasn’t been much.  If I prioritized it, I would wake up early for the first light tee time so I can still spend time with family and friends, but I haven’t.    So it wasn’t that I didn’t have time.  

Think about how that can apply to your business.  Did you make that extra check-in phone call?  Did you leave a hand written note?  What did you not prioritize that could have helped you be more present.  Come tell me at CEDIA next week.

-Oki

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Hi, I'm Ryan "Oki" Okimoto - and yes, the nickname stuck.

I've spent the better part of 15 years making tech feel less like a chore and more like a superpower. I cut my teeth at Sonos, where I helped people fall in love with music across their homes. From there, I joined eero to help the world's connected devices just work. Now at Brilliant, I'm knee-deep in the smart home space, helping builders, integrators, and homeowners realize that home automation doesn't have to be complicated, because within the next decade, every home will be a smart home.

If it plugs in, makes your home smarter, or has an app.  I've probably tried it or trained someone on it.  Pull up a chair — let's talk tech.