Speaker 0 00:00:00 A three is not your grandfather's trade association. We've completely transformed to benefit all companies involved in the exciting field of automation.
Speaker 1 00:00:17 Hello everyone. And welcome to the <inaudible> robot industry podcast. My name is Jim Beretta and thank you for joining us today. Uh, as many of you know, uh, I am a member of <inaudible>, I also research webinars and have partnered with a three on this podcast, and I'm really happy to be able to, uh, bring in Jeff Bernstein. Who's the president of <inaudible> and Jeff, uh, we've known each other for a bunch of years, but I just wanted to, uh, have you tell the audience a little bit about how you got started in the industry?
Speaker 0 00:00:47 Well, thanks Jim, and thanks for having me. Um, I got started in this, you know, I was an English major in college. Uh, never saw myself being in an automation field, but I did see myself as a PR person and I was working for the society of manufacturing engineers back in 1981. I believe it was. And I realized there was a need for somebody to communicate to the general public and to policy makers and to others about what was going on in this new field of robotics. Because at that time that was the hot technology. So I was working for SME, loved it. The robotics association broke off from SME and 1983, I joined the robotics group that had broken away and it has been a tremendous opportunity to learn and to educate people about the benefits of automation. And over time, of course, our association has grown. We added a vision association emotion association, and we have really become, I believe the world's largest trade association for companies active in automation. And so it's been an exciting journey for me personally, and to watch the growth of the automation industry,
Speaker 1 00:02:05 Jeff, what is happening in robotics, motors, automation envision from your perspective?
Speaker 0 00:02:10 Well, thanks for having me today, Jim what's happening. Wow. What isn't happening? I mean, these technologies along with artificial intelligence are transforming the world and, uh, we're happy to be at the center of it at a three.
Speaker 1 00:02:26 And which major trends are likely to have the biggest impact on <inaudible> and its members?
Speaker 0 00:02:31 Well, the acceleration of robotics and vision and motion and AI in industries, where up until now, it really hasn't been used that much. I mean, again, if you look at the history of these technologies, they were pretty much confined to manufacturing and the leading application areas were in automotive and electronics. But if you look today and you look at where they're being used in warehousing and logistics and life sciences and food and industries, I mean, it's, uh, uh, it's hard to even find an industry where automation isn't being used today. And it's that trend. This continued, um, adoption of these technologies in every industry. That's really changing the face of our association and now
Speaker 1 00:03:18 Automation firms, whether the pandemic and how they contribute solutions to their recovery,
Speaker 0 00:03:25 It's been up and down in terms of how our members navigated the pandemic. So at the beginning, you know, it was problematic for a lot of companies, especially if they were having trouble bringing in workers, uh, who were getting sick or, you know, there were other factors that were impacting their ability to sell their products, not being able to go out and visit customers. But on the other hand, the pandemic really accelerated trends that were going to happen. Anyway, companies who were considering automating made the decision that, yeah, now's the time we have to go forward. We have to be able to use robotics for instance, to create social distancing. We have to use these technologies to do disinfecting of our workplace. It was the only way to, in some cases, keep the operation up and running was to rely on the automation to augment, um, a reduced workforce.
Speaker 0 00:04:24 So as a result, new opportunities were created. Many of our members started to do very well. In fact, I think the fourth quarter of last year was the best quarter ever for the adoption of robotics. So I think it's really changed the way that not only industry has looked at automation, but maybe the way the public is viewed automation as well. Instead of seeing it as a job killer, as we often would see in the past, we saw that, uh, automation was helping create, uh, masks or vaccines or, you know, speed up testing things that benefits society. And that's a really important message because there are a lot of companies that depended on automation to achieve their goals. And there were a lot of people benefited from that. And I think it's, it's been a great Testament to the value of automation
Speaker 1 00:05:17 As an association. You and your team have been very successful at it at engaging many industry professionals. How, and when did you get started?
Speaker 0 00:05:26 Well, the association itself began in 1974 as RIA was just a robotics association. And then I joined in 1983 and shortly after we launched a machine vision association and, you know, throughout the years we've launched others. It's really about people. What you understand in associations is that you need to get industry leaders involved. You need to get people who believe in the mission and then a trade group bringing together competitors can really help everyone that arising tide lifts all boats, if you will. And when you get people to buy into that and believe in the mission, it gets easier to develop the kinds of benefits that resonate with the industry leaders and everyone in those companies. And we've been very fortunate throughout the years to have so many people believe in what we're doing and to support our efforts, including you, which we very much,
Speaker 1 00:06:27 Well, thank you for that, Jeff. And you know what? I have been a member for a long time and I have been, uh, uh, ever since the beginning been a participant and a supporter for sure. So there's a lot going on in the association today, including a major rebrand. And I wonder if you can give our listeners a bit of the backstory to, uh, the rebrand, the association, the members, and, um, uh, we talked a little bit just before we got on the call today about artificial intelligence.
Speaker 0 00:06:53 Yeah. Well, I mean, if you look at this from the standpoint of a customer, let's say it's a small, medium size company. They're being inundated with all these messages industry 4.0 artificial intelligence, collaborative robots, you know, computer vision. It's really hard to imagine that there is a place where they could go to get all the information they needed about all these technologies. You can't ask a individual company to give you the whole scope of automation. What industry 4.0 is, you know, they're focused on their own products naturally. So there was a need for some buddy to be able to put all this into context and to have the resources necessary because companies need to use all these technologies. It's no longer makes sense to just focus on robotics, for instance, or just focused on vision. You really need to think about a solution in terms of the best use of all these technologies and how do you apply them at your organization?
Speaker 0 00:07:59 How do you get started? So that was sort of the Genesis of why we realized we had to rebrand is the association for advancing automation. I think that over time, the leaders of each of the associations recognized that this made much more sense going forward one website where people could come and learn about all these technologies, but it also made sense for the companies themselves, because we have set up a situation over time, as we added new associations, that in order to take advantage of the benefits, if you were a member, you had to join more than one association. And now if you were a company like Google or Microsoft or Amazon or any number of companies, they would come to us and say, we don't get it. Why do we have to join multiple associations when we're in all of these technologies? And we realized, you know, that's, that's really right that one membership in one association with benefits that cover all of these technology segments, that's the way forward. And that's why we rebranded. And we're very excited about the future.
Speaker 1 00:09:17 And what specific benefits will members receive now as a result of the change?
Speaker 0 00:09:23 Well, we've added a whole slew of new benefits, including access to information and a segment of the website that we call the vault. And depending on your level of membership, you get more of these educational resources available at no cost in many cases. So that was one new benefit we had. We also added, you know, new access to market research. We added new discounts on activities like events that we sponsor. So you get to pick how much information and how much benefit do you want from the association you decide, we don't decide for you. You know, we have bronze, silver, gold, and platinum. You decide how valuable you think it is to you and your team and how many people at your company are going to get involved. All this is so affordable that, you know, any company, a small company can be a platinum member of the organization and afford it.
Speaker 0 00:10:17 If they're going to take advantage of all the resources. The other thing we did is that, you know, a few years ago, we set up a three Mexico and in order to participate in Mexico, which is a growing area for the use of automation, you had to join that too well. Now, every member, every level has access to all of the things that we're doing in Mexico. So that's, that's, uh, one of many benefits. So again, it's a very robust, uh, offering at a very low cost. And, uh, we've done that deliberately so that any company involved in automation, whether they're a supplier and integrator and user consulting firm, startup educational Institute can take advantage of all of the resources that we have available.
Speaker 1 00:11:05 Thank you, Jeff. The <inaudible> had a long history of events and I still remember going to in Detroit going to one of the first robots and vision shows, uh, way back when with ATS. So you've had a long history of events, both physical, and now virtual, can you tell our audience about some of these and which ones have been most popular and how was automate forward received by the industry?
Speaker 0 00:11:27 Well, Jim you're right. We've had a long history of events dating back to the seventies with robotics trade shows. And then over time, as you said, we had a vision motion to those shows. And, um, we rebranded that event as automated back in 2011, that was met with great interest from the community, uh, automate, continued to grow. And by 2019, we had our largest show ever in Chicago. Co-located with ProMat. We had over 20,000 people there and the outlook for our 2021 show, which would have been held, um, next month in Detroit as a standalone event was we were on path to have the largest show we'd ever had. And we were so excited. And then of course the pandemic came, um, little over a year ago. We had to completely change everything we were doing. We had to learn how to do virtual events.
Speaker 0 00:12:24 And so, uh, our first one actually was a vision week. Uh, last year in may great success. We had over 2,500 registrants. We were learning how to do it. We went forward and by last fall we actually held seven different virtual events, including robotics week and an event on autonomous mobile robots and AI and more vision events and our international robot safety conference. All these events that we did last year were great successes as was our webinars series. There's a demand for the information, our goal and our mission is to deliver it in whatever way we had to do it. So if we can't hold live events, then we have to be able to deliver it virtually. And we did. And you mentioned automate forward, which was just held recently at the end of March. That was our biggest one ever. And people thought well with world reopening, there won't be as big a demand for virtual conferences.
Speaker 0 00:13:21 That was a huge success. Over 8,500 people registered. We had hundreds of exhibits. We had all the top industry leaders participating great speakers. Uh, it was just a fantastic event. And, um, very gratifying to me that our staff was able to make that pivot. We are going back to live events. We are certain that we're going to hold the <inaudible> business forum at the end of January, beginning of February next year. We're certain that we're going to hold automate 20, 22 in Detroit next June. So the only question now is will we be able to hold live events this fall? And, um, if so, then we're going to do that as well. And they might end up being hybrid events, part of the virtual part of it live, but we're very confident that at some point soon we'll be able to meet in person again. And frankly, I can't wait
Speaker 1 00:14:14 Jeff I'm in your boat. I can't wait for that. I, I take the virtual con conferences for sure, but I love the face to face events. And that's one of the most interesting parts of the association, I think, is the community that I've found at at age three. And I think that I really have missed that and, uh, look forward to it. What have been some of the challenges with this integrated structure and rebrand?
Speaker 0 00:14:37 Well, you have to bring everybody along. You know, when you have an association like RIA, it's been around since 1974, you have a lot of history there. A lot of people who are personally invested in that, and you have to make sure that everybody understands that what you're doing with this rebrand is the association for advancing automation. Isn't taking anything away, it's adding to their experience. So for instance, if you come to the new website, automate that org, you'll see there are still tech sector communities for each of these technologies. You can go there and get everything you need to learn about robotics. And just do that if you want. However, if you also want to learn about AI and vision and motion, you don't have to go to some other site it's all right there. But that was, I think the, the hardest challenge, again, associations are about people. People identify with their trade group. And so if you identified for decades with RIA, for instance, or AIA, and now you're seeing that name go away and a new name in its place, there's reason, you know, to, you know, feel some sense of loss. However, I think we've done a pretty good job of communicating that nothing is being lost. Things are being added and the response has been very good so far. So we're again, gratified by that as well.
Speaker 1 00:16:03 This podcast is being listened to in over 50 countries. If there's some people who are out there that are interested in joining, like why should they join? Um, and maybe they are too small. Like maybe they're a startup. Can you give us a feeling of why people are going to join now?
Speaker 0 00:16:18 Yeah. And I'm really glad you brought up 50 countries because we have members in about 50 countries, global trade association. And that's one thing that, you know, while we're pasting North America, we have members everywhere. And the benefits that we provide are significant for companies around the world, including startups. We have a lot of startup members and they realize one of the things that startups want to do is connect with bigger players. And they want to connect with customers who might, you know, be able to work with them and evaluate their product and maybe do beta testing. So we have access to users around the world as well. So I think that if you're listening in another country and you're thinking about how do I participate in this growing area of automation? Who's my advocate. Who's a trusted resource. That's who we see ourselves as, and we believe we can benefit you. I'd be happy to personally talk to anybody, listening to the podcast, but we have a whole staff of people who would work with them on benefits, including Alex McCaney Julia Stevenson. Amy's Nick Lee. We have a full staff of people happy to help talk about our benefits in the association.
Speaker 1 00:17:30 And what do you see in the future happening with a 3d association?
Speaker 0 00:17:36 Well, I mean, I see this role as a trusted advisor growing, I see new benefits being created and I see continued growth of automation. I mean, that's really where it starts. I always tell people, I think we're in the early innings of automating, particularly in North America, we have a long way to go before we've really penetrated deeply into every industry. I mean, you think about things like retail. I mean, we're just starting to see the expansion of automation and retail, huge industry. So I think we're, we have a long way to go. I think these technologies are at the center of it. I think our association is at the center of it, so I see nothing but, um, sustained growth going forward. And, uh, people
Speaker 1 00:18:20 Interested in joining, uh, who specifically should they reach out to at 83? And should they get,
Speaker 0 00:18:26 Like I said, happy to talk to anybody who's listening to the podcast. Julia Stevenson is our primary person when it comes to talking to new potential members. But anybody on the team, Alex McCaney Amy's mic Lee and the others
Speaker 1 00:18:39 Can just navigate to the new website to find the email address.
Speaker 0 00:18:43 Yeah. They can do that. And then just send me an email, uh, Jay
[email protected] and that's B U R N S T E I N. First initial J so J
[email protected], happy to direct them to the right person if I can't help them. And, uh, yeah, I'd love to talk to him. Jeff, is there anything we've forgotten today? Well, the only thing I can say is that, uh, we look forward again to getting together in person and, um, I can't wait for the first series of live events, whether they're ours or somebody else's because I think it's important, as I said, associations are about people. People need to talk to each other, they need to see each other. This has put an emphasis on that. You know, we, there was a lot of talk years ago about, um, online trade shows are gonna replace live events or, you know, everything is being done online, but Jim, I'm sure you're hearing the same thing that I am. Whenever we talk to people who are members of the association, board members, committee members, it's the same thing, boy, this has really shown me how much I miss being together. And we can't wait
Speaker 1 00:19:54 Exactly the same way. And I look forward to seeing you at the next, uh, uh, trade event and having a coffee or a beer. And, uh, I'd like to, uh, uh, now close off. And if you'd like to get in touch with us at the robot industry podcast, you can find me Jim Beretta on LinkedIn. We'll see you next time. Thanks for listening. Be safe out there. Today's podcast was produced by customer traction, industrial marketing, and I'd like to thank my nephew, Chris gray for the music, Chris and Colvin for audio production, my partner, Janet, and our partners, a three hated robot and our sponsor Earhart automation systems.
