I received a call about six months ago from the chief executive officer (CEO) of BICSI inviting me to keynote their Winter Conference. I must admit that even though I pride myself on connecting a lot of dots, many which only seem to make sense to me, I was having a hard time seeing the connection.
But all that concern on relevancy dissipated when I showed up at their conference early last week. The organization has thousands of contractors, vendors, suppliers, construction teams, and skilled technicians in their ranks focused on anything that can be built. Broadband is certainly top of mind for all of them with all the funding initiatives on the table and the need for a skilled workforce and crews to do much of the deployment.
My role was to further educate them about the rural broadband industry (who we are, where our member companies provide service, and how the various pieces of funding will work moving forward). I also wanted to hit on how their membership might actually fulfill a few needs that NTCA members have particularly in the workforce arena. Even with my speech mapped out, I’ve got to say, there’s nothing like walking into a convention center and seeing a huge picture of my head!
Prior to sharing my thoughts on stage, I walked through their expo floor with their board president as well as John Daniels, their CEO, and had a very enlightening time comparing notes on who I will see at NTCA’s upcoming RTIME Expo and what exhibitors were new to me.
But my favorite part? The international cabling skills challenge that they were hosting right in the middle of their show floor. Entrants from all over the world were competing in their ability to splice fiber, do timed installs, and other fiber skills. It was fun to watch and made me feel like we could actually be at an NTCA RTIME meeting!
All in all, it was a great experience to really dig in with the folks who own firms that spend most of their time in the field and share why those with experience should think about reaching out to see how they can support NTCA members as the broadband rush continues.
And as a nice aside, it gave me a reason to do some scouting for RTIME 2024 in beautiful Tampa. It was a great location, and I know that our members will have a wonderful experience next year.