Much as trade shows are in some sense a microcosm of the industry that they serve, trade publications like Commercial Integrator and Security Sales & Integration are a microcosm of the industry that they cover. That means, as market contours change, media properties naturally adapt to reflect new on-the-ground realities. For months, the CI editorial team has advanced the argument that the “non-overlapping magisteria” view of the technical trades (e.g., commercial AV, residential AV, security, IT) no longer accurately captures the merged technology ecosystems we find today. That outmoded, siloed view also doesn’t capture what each trade is learning from the other. The AV industry’s emerging openness to the standards-based approaches that reign in IT circles is just one example.
Commercial Integrator + Security Sales & Integration
As they say, actions speak louder than words — and we’ve decided to act. Starting with the September/October issue, CI’s print publication will merge with the print issue of sister publication Security Sales & Integration. CI will continue to help commercial AV integrators run their firms better by providing inspiring thought leadership, business playbooks, profiles of best-in-class integration businesses and exclusive market research like our Deep Dive reports. Likewise, SSI will continue to empower security company management with news, information and analysis to bolster their business prospects. We will simply wrap it in a common print package that physically reflects these worlds having grown together. (Commercial Integrator Expo’s co-location with CEDIA Expo likewise concretizes the increasing alignment of the commercial AV and residential AV worlds.)
Change is always tough, and there may be some who question our decision to bring CI and SSI together as a single, more robust print package. Of those people, I’d simply ask this: Think about the most recent enterprise, education or government jobsite that you worked. Did your team members and you occupy the same space as security professionals, IT specialists and other technical tradespeople? Were there big, impermeable walls separating your respective activities? Or, more likely, was there coordination and comingling — maybe even cooperation? Consider this change our best effort to exorcise the ghost of our walled-off past.
We hope you enjoy the combined print issue. The digital edition will launch on the site on Friday, September 1.
