President's Blog

The 2010 midterm election sure was an interesting one, resulting in a lot of new faces in the 112th Congress. If you don’t already know whether or not someone new will be representing you on Capitol Hill, we have a tool on our government affairs website that gives a brief introduction to the new class. All of these freshmen members and the change in power in the House of Representatives could mean a lot of things for you and your business.

What if you already had a connection with someone who was voted out of office? What if you had a relationship built with the head of one of the various House committees? If you are wondering how to go about starting over - or just starting from scratch - on connecting with your lawmakers, NAED has an upcoming webinar you don’t want to miss. “Election Update and Connecting with the New Congress” was designed specifically for NAED members and is hosted by Stephanie Vance of Advocacy Associates, LLC.

Stephanie is known as the “Advocacy Guru,” and with more than 20 years experience on the hill; she is full of great tips and strategies. By taking this webinar, you’ll get a look at election trends, what’s going on with important issues relating to small business and energy, and how to make an impact with your legislators in the coming year.

This webinar is open to all NAED members for free on Thursday, January 6, 2011 at 2 p.m. EST. Making your voice heard is key to the success of your business. Register now and you’ll find out how your role as a constituent in the legislative process can be most effective.

One way to go about making business easier for the distributors and manufacturers in our industry is by using IDEA’s Electrical Industry Attribute Schema. IDEA’s mission is to drive costs out of the supply chain, and they help you do just that through solutions and services such as the data synchronization platform, Industry Data Warehouse (IDW). Data synchronization is key to the efficiency aspect of our channel, and needs to remain a top priority.

Anyone who knows the history of IDEA knows that creating the Electrical Attribute Schema has not been an easy process. It could not have been done without the commitment of numerous industry leaders and the members of the IDEA Industry Standards Committee. IDEA’s Synchronization and Standards Adoption solutions and services can be used to help eliminate channel costs and ensure the distribution channel is the most economic way to go to market. The standards help distributors and manufacturers work together so that product information can be given in a consistent manner.

IDEA’s Electrical Industry Attribute Schema provides a global standard that is based around the global product categorization standard called the United Nations Standard Products and Services Code® (UNSPSC®) list. This eight-digit UNSPSC® is a required field for all products that are synchronized through IDEA’s IDW. The Attribute Schema standard drills down beyond the UNSPSC product category levels with product descriptors.

Having the UNSPSC standards gives an advantage to all sides of the supply chain. By reducing redundancy errors and streamlining transactions, companies are given the opportunity to become more profitable. In order to take the standardization process to the next level, we need all of our distributors to insist that their suppliers use the attribute schema. To find out more about IDEA’s schema, visit www.idea-esolutions.com.