Based on Reflections from OpenDrives’ CEO Sean Lee on the 2025 NAB Show
As CEO, it’s important to always keep a pulse on the industry your company serves, which for OpenDrives is media and entertainment. I’ve been in this industry for 20+ years, and I’ve noticed a big shift in how the current state of the industry has impacted M&E companies like OpenDrives. Nowhere was this more apparent than at the 2025 NAB Show, M&E’s main tradeshow event, where we exhibited from April 6-9 in Las Vegas.
In this blog post, I’ll explore the M&E industry’s current dynamics and share practical strategies for both first-time NAB exhibitors and seasoned veterans on how to navigate uncertainty, turning disruption into advantage. Thriving in our evolving landscape—regardless of your role, company size, or offering—means embracing change and viewing pressure and challenges as fuel for innovation and growth. By adopting a mindset that champions resilience and learns from adversity, you won’t just survive—you’ll emerge stronger and chart the course for what comes next.
Authenticity & Empathy: Two Winning Attributes
Walking the aisles of the 2025 NAB Show in Las Vegas, I felt a shift in the air. Gone were the throngs of attendees and fancy booths that once defined the event; instead, conversations revealed uncertainty and doubt. Attendees huddled over the ripple effects of tariffs on the supply chain, debated the fine line between artificial intelligence (AI)-driven efficiency and content quality dilution, and shared painful stories of tightened budgets and job losses. Cloud versus on-premises storage was another popular topic that challenged us to think about how to keep content flowing when resources are stretched to breaking.
Since the M&E industry’s new reality means dealing with leaner resources and higher stakes, I think it’s more important than ever that we focus on things that cannot be bought: authenticity and empathy. These attributes can cut through noise faster than any flashy demo can. But fostering authenticity and empathy requires efficiency. When budgets tighten, efficiency becomes non-negotiable; true efficiency demands razor-sharp focus and earnest listening.
Prove Value to Remain Competitive in a Rapidly Shifting Landscape
Due to COVID’s lingering impact (on the economy, the supply chain, where we work and how we work), recent Hollywood strikes, changing viewer habits, and rising production costs, it’s easy to see why the M&E industry is on the decline. Interestingly, this decline has not dampened viewer demand for content. Not at all! Viewers want more quality content, and they want it now. The problem is that not all available content is good, and AI’s hand in both streamlining production and in content creation is not helping. AI’s prevalence, is in fact, exacerbating the content quality problem (not in every case, but in most).
Then there is all the content we haven’t seen. Maybe that content is stuck somewhere due to lack of budget or reduced personnel, or it’s being held hostage in the insecure, cost-unpredictable cloud, or maybe it’s lost and irretrievable in some broken data or workflow technology. We’ll never know that content is good because it hasn’t gotten released. What’s wild is there is a ton of content that fits that description! When content is stuck, it’s not worth anything. When content isn’t good, it’s not being watched, and it’s losing money. No wonder why M&E industry experts are so risk averse in investing in new content projects, new technology, new anything really. This results in companies scaling back, people out of work, and an ever-expanding content drought. And as stated earlier, this evidence of a declining market was apparent at the 2025 NAB Show.
What I also saw were companies that were stuck in their old ways. They were selling their products and services. They were hyping up speeds and feeds. They were relying on their established brand names and big marketing and advertising budgets, ornate booth designs and gimmicky swag to drive traffic to their booths. They also looked at vanity metrics like number of total scans as an indicator of success.
Luckily, OpenDrives stayed focused and didn’t do any of that. Our authenticity and empathy shone through the kind of conversations we held at our booth. We asked our customers and partners questions like: “What’s the one workflow that keeps you up at night?” and “If you lost critical footage tomorrow, where would you turn?” These questions opened doors to co-creative, real-time problem solving, turning casual booth visits into committed partnerships.
We showed up as collaborators, not vendors—removing obstacles so content creators could focus on their vision. It’s what I call service-oriented leadership; technology is important, but our mission is to clear the path for content creators to thrive.
The era of “business as usual” has passed; today’s leaders must look at shifting tides not as roadblocks, but as springboards to reinvent how they deliver value. For OpenDrives, our value is not just in the products we build, it’s in our people, and the way we build connections.
Value of Human Connections: Quality Versus Quantity
I think technology companies often forget that humans are really the driving force behind the products we build and the services we provide. It’s easy to get lost in all the numbers that come with running a company, e.g. number of employees, productivity hours, operational costs, profit margins, etc. When you start focusing on just numbers, you lose sight of the individuals that make your company stand out.
I truly think that the culture we built at OpenDrives has helped us remain steadfast and resilient when it’s most challenging, and certainly at the 2025 NAB Show.
You see, we’ve never had big budgets or a known brand name to drive visibility and traffic to our website, let alone our booth. And when compared with our larger competitive peers, we are definitely a “small-ish” fish surviving in a big ocean full of hungry sharks and giant whales. We’ve survived, and are in fact growing, because we have learned to adapt, to stay nimble, resourceful, and are willing to take risks—even as others have folded, scaled back, or stuck to the same playbook they have followed for years.
At the NAB Show, we crafted an environment that was tailored to having deep, meaningful conversations, not transactions—in the flesh. In-person relationship building is a huge reason to invest in tradeshows. And meeting someone for the first time in person, rather than via Zoom, can make a world of difference. We’re humans; not machines, and AI can never take over real connections.
I know this philosophy works because I saw the proof at our booth. We had long-time customers come asking us to solve new data problems fo them. We had technology alliance partners ask us to help solve their customers’ data challenges. Some of them had never worked with us before. Our extensive network of channel partners told us they came to us first to collaborate on ways to solve common data challenges, e.g., handling reduced budgets, meeting performance and security expectations, making data accessible, available, and shared across widely-dispersed teams. You can see an example of how we worked with our channel partner Key Code Media to solve the data storage and content creation challenges of our customer at Goldcrest Post by watching this recording of our live fireside chat at the 2025 NAB Show: Finding Your Perfect Technology Match on a Tighter Budget.
The OpenDrives brand might not yet be widely known, but seeing all these repeat customers and partners, plus new prospects purposefully come to our booth was both revealing and gratifying Succeeding when times are tough doesn’t require having the perfect safety net made of both luck and money. Most of the time, all you need is to make a good impression and build trusting, lasting, meaningful connections based on authenticity and empathy. Start off with a few of these kinds of connections, and that number will surely grow. Because quality beats quantity every time.
Let’s Recap: Lessons for Your Next Tradeshow During a Down M&E Market
If you’re stepping into the next tradeshow or leading your team through a resource squeeze, here’s what I’ve learned:
- Listen first. An open question can uncover pain points no pitch ever will.
- Embrace constraints. A 20 percent cut to budget or time isn’t a roadblock—it’s opportunity for creativity and growth.
- Lead with service. Your role isn’t to sell; it’s to clear obstacles so others can create.
- Share vulnerability. When you admit your own worries, you invite collaboration and build trust.
Ready to turn your biggest constraint into your next breakthrough? What’s the challenge keeping you awake at night—AI uncertainty, budget cuts, lost projects stuck in limbo? Let’s chart your path to growth—together.
For more tips and advice on leadership and personal development, be sure to follow Sean Lee on LinkedIn. You can also message him at s.lee@opendrives.com to book a complimentary 15- minute, “no-fluff” discovery call.
Also related from OpenDrives at the 2025 NAB Show:
New product news: Atlas data storage and management platform and Astraeus cloud-native data services platform
Improved Empower Partner Program