What we learned from the event

We vacillated between participating at NEOCON or Realcomm/IBCON. We finally defied conventional furniture wisdom and chose the latter.

We were warned we could be technically challenged at Realcomm/IBCON and might not be able to deal with the experts we would meet. This wasn’t a problem.

And we were pleasantly surprised!

The Audience

The attendees and exhibitors were typically the following:

1. Commercial real estate professionals from companies that managed millions of square feet in multiple facilities. These people see the big picture and are concerned with building function, efficiency, and cost. They want their portfolios to be occupied and attractive to potential tenants. They quickly understood our real estate value propositions, specifically the ability to lower infrastructure costs, repurpose older or historical buildings, enable quick occupancy, and facilitate shorter lease terms with lower risk.

2. Power over Ethernet (PoE) experts. These attendees are passionate about the possibilities to reduce infrastructure and operating costs in buildings. The PoE Consortium, “a joint venture by today’s leading Power over Ethernet companies to bring awareness and share education about the sustainable and energy-efficient benefits of this safe, alternative technology”, had its own Pavilion inside the trade show floor.

3. Internet of Things (IoT) experts. If you understand IoT as basically being “sensors” and “actuators”, you would find many exhibitors and attendees fit this definition. Many of the sensors require so little power they can operate for years on a single energizer bunny cell. The actuators require power and the PoE community is intending to provide everything necessary. IoT pairs well with low-voltage power

4. Building software professionals. There were many variations on this ranging from more traditional applications to AI-assisted intelligent building management systems that consider the state of power sources (solar, wind, battery, AC) and uses (examples: device consumption, HVAC, lighting, battery re-charging) taking into account such facets as the building occupancy, season, day of the week, time of day, and weather forecast.

It was also interesting to me to observe who was not an attendee. I don’t think I met a single interior designer, architect, space planner, ergonomist, dealer, or VAR. The crowd was typically highly educated experts solely focused on technical solutions. No one asked about colors, sizes, fabrics, or finishes. Nearly every conversation was about building functionality, nothing else.

It will be interesting to observe how the various players in office building design collaborate or conflict in the future. Notably, the winning product at NEOCON in the office systems category is a product built atop a raceway for managing 120V power.

The Fit

Our exhibit was unique in two important ways.

1. We were the only company that marketed cordless power at office workstations. Several visitors remarked, “We have never seen this before”. And they meant it as a complement. Elsewhere at the event, other companies were marketing various aspects of Power over Ethernet (PoE), which is another way to eliminate 120V wiring in offices. If a building adopted both strategies, almost all 120V wiring could be avoided. When building microgrids becomes a thing (soon) and facilities can be completely “islanded”, there may be no reason at all to have 120V wiring.

   The value propositions for PoE are very similar to the value propositions we pitch for cordless power. It was valuable to August Berres to have visitors that understand PoE. Those that do immediately understand our products.

2. We were the only company marketing furniture. While twelve or more companies displayed battery power at NEOCON, none have taken the concept as far as August Berres Most still think of battery power as a novelty or accessory, not a facility-wide strategy.

   While we displayed three ways to apply cordless power at Realcomm/IBCON, most attendees did not focus on the individual applications. They seemed more interested in the breadth of our pitch, and the fact that we had multiple solutions. A partial solution such as a battery accessory would not have gotten much attention.

The Best Takeaway

We learned that it is technically possible to create a PoE power supply that we can use in our charging products, including our 24-place charging carts. Or said another way, we can use Class 4 wiring (which can be installed by Larry the Cable Guy) to charge batteries. This would remove the last and only connection to 120V power in our solution.

Stay tuned.