Not much to be honest, except that they will all be at this year's
Digital Non-Conference in Cincinnati at the end of September.
The
announcement just came out this morning that the Founder of Pandora, Tim Westergreen, will be speaking at the event, along with America Ferrera from Ugly Betty. To be honest, I'm not sure what Ugly Betty has to do with it all but I'm confident we'll find out.
I attended
last year's event and came away super impressed. Breakout sessions where held throughout downtown Cincinnati and "forced" attendees despite the rain to get out and explore the city. I had the fortunate experience of getting to meet
John Battelle, one of the co-founders of Wired, and sit with him at his table before his keynote presentation.
One of the breakouts I attended last year focused on digital signage, which was great to have but I was a bit disappointed in the direction it went. That's why I'm pleased this year to be one of the panelists. The session is being led by Tim Burke (
Electronic Art) and I will be joined by Bill Collins (
Decision Point Media) and Christopher Hall (
Digital Signage Today).
Last year's discussion centered around digital signage as a dynamic advertising tool, which it most definitely is. But there is so much more that the technology can do and I hope the panel heads in that direction with the conversation and presentations. I'll make sure we bring up corporate communication networks.
During last year's panel, Bill made a comparison of digital signage networks to ice cream (hence the picture) that I completely disagreed with. So I plan on having some fun with that this year. Can anyone say PROPS?!
If you're interested in attending, you can
register today. It's a great event and not very expensive at all.
___________________________
Photo by Neil Conway
Years ago, it wasn't easy to track down quality research on digital signage. But iff you're just now getting into the technology, there's a wealth of information at your fingertips.
There are a host of great blogs out there, but many times corporations are fascinated by the almighty white paper. And fortunately,
Digital Signage Today is a great resource for these more authoritative resources. Many are sponsored by vendors in the digital signage space (including this
one on 3G/4G cellular by
MediaTile) but they are all very well written and provide sound advice.
They are even broken down by market, so if you're looking for digital signage for healthcare, there's a
white paper for you. Retail?
White paper. Want to learn more the real cost of digital signage?
White paper.
The point being that there is now a lot of information out there that can help you not only determine if the technology is right for you and your company but also provide you guides on making the most of your investment.
- By David Trounstine -
Recently I was asked to speak at the first annual
Digital Signage for Corporate Communications conference. It was a wonderful event where many of us got to share and learn about the experiences of working with digital signage in a corporate communications environment.
Corporate communications content really is its own beast, and all too often treated as a lower priority. I firmly believe that the better a company does at communicating important, relevant, and motivating messages to their employees, the better they will do at customer service, productivity, and worker retention. Informed employees are happier employees, and that's what we're all after.
The presentation I gave was geared toward the idea of treating your digital signage network as a company "television network". I encouraged communicators to think of their employees as their audience, and create content that was built for them. The use of personally relevant content is going to help foster a relationship between the employee and the information network, which will invariably lead to higher viewership.
I, for one, had a great time at the event, and I hope that the information I put together was informative and helpful. Here's my presentation. Enjoy.
I'm catching up on my blog reading and there for a while I'd have to declare Google Reader bankruptcy. But I'm glad I didn't.
I came across this
post from Chris Brogan and about tightening up communication. In his post, he focuses more on public speaking but the lessons learned apply to all forms of communication, including employee communications.
With attention spans shrinking all of the time, communicators must get tighter with their communication. This could be newsletter stories, messages for your intranet or digital signage content.
At this month's Digital Signage for Corporate Communication event,
Mediatile's David Trounstine showed examples of how important it is to simply get the point with your content. With digital signage, you might only have somebody's attention for three seconds.
What will they get in those three seconds? That's up to you. David showed a series of examples of content going from multiple paragraphs down to one sentence with a headline. And even if an employee just read the headline, they'd get the gist of it.
The key to is regularly review the content you're displaying and make sure it works for your audience. As Chris writes, "Work on your efforts, and tighten up."
____________________
Photo credit, NeoGaboX
The first Digital Signage for Corporate Communication was a big success (in my opinion of course) because for an entire day we had communication experts focused on how to best use the technology internally. The day-long event also included a tour of Eli Lilly & Company's network, in addition to content presentations from David Trounstine and Steve Crescenzo.
Digital Signage Today was kind enough to publish the list of
top opportunities and obstacles facing digital signage used for employee communication. The challenges faced by these networks are often quite different from those that are public facing.
Please check out the full detail on
Digital Signage Today but here's a sampling of what the group cited:
The Top Opportunities (in no particular order)
Flexibility – Forget cluttered bulletin boards and printing flyers. Recognition messages, HR updates and daily notices can be changed instantly and often through digital signage software. Also, you can play a variety of content, including static images and video.
Gives content depth & context – Through the use of images and/or video, digital signage templates, messages from screens can resonate better with workforces than flyers, whiteboard messages or company memos.
Interactivity – The network's messages will resonate better with an engaged user of digital signage. Interactive screens on the user level can also be used to access the company website or perform HR tasks, such as requesting days off or checking 401k statuses.
Break news to a non-wired workforce – Believe it or not, there are still members of the workforce not on e-mail all day. These groups can still be informed via update messages through digital signage.
Passive channel - E-mail can be very intrusive to an employee’s work day. Digital signage places key messages in the environment and lets employees digest the communication at their pace.
Reinforce & redirect – Digital signage can provide basic info and redirect employees to communication channels better suited to deliver the full message.
The Top Obstacles (in no particular order)
Money – We are still feeling the effects of a recession, and the initial non-reoccurring cost (capital expenditure) of a network is not something companies are eager to be shelling out.
Executive buy-in – This is along the same lines as the money example. CEOs have to have the final signoff on the network and are generally concerned about the bottom line. Executives have to be presented with a detailed cost/benefit comparison in order to get them on board. It’s best to do this early in the planning process.
IT – Successful digital signage is a collaboration between IT and marketing departments. Often times, IT staffs are strapped as it is without the responsibility of managing operations of a digital signage network.
Risk & security – Because operation of the digital signage network often lies on the company’s LAN infrastructure, proper IT security measures need to be put in place to ensure there is no misuse of the network.
I have been asked by many for details on the next event. All I can say at this point is stay tuned. I'm determined to make sure that each event is worth the time and expense it takes to attend events like these.
- By David Trounstine -
Our partnership with Alcatel/Lucent and 4G VideoPresence has been mentioned several times in our blog now, but I just wanted to give the design team perspective.
4G VideoPresence is two-way video conferencing software for your digital signage network that will allow customers to connect directly to a specialist at the point in time that they have a decision to make. There has already been a lot of buzz around it, and we have interest from a number of different vertical markets.
With 4G delivery of content is going to become much less restrictive. "Store and forward" will be an option, not a requirement, as full HD video and interactive content will be able to stream to any enabled consumer electronic device. We are talking real time user interaction with Internet based content, and instant feedback to content providers.
Real time interactions draw users in, they also provide extremely useful information because it can be contextual and relevant. Using 4G to drive these real time interactions means they can happen anywhere at anytime, without the need for complicated infrastructure.
Bi-directional video chat is only the beginning... we have much more to come, so stay tuned!
- By David Trounstine -
OK it has been almost a year since I have posted any entries to our design/development blog, and for that I apologize. So much has happened in the last year I don't quite know where to start, but you will be happy to know that I have regained my focus on providing information to the digital signage community about design and development.
The name of the game today is 4G. Being that
MediaTile is a cellular digital signage company we have been feverishly working to develop new applications and uses for the high bandwidth of 4G, and some very interesting products are in store for the next 12 months.
In case you missed the announcements from earlier this year we are now doing public demonstrations of
4G VideoPresence, a point-to-point two way video chat client that enables digital signage audiences to connect with customer services representatives instantly and personally. We won a first place award for the concept at the CTIA show, and oh man has it generated some buzz for us.
We are very excited about what's to come, and I will do my best to keep up with the pace and provide insider details.
That's all for now, but I will be writing more... soon!
As lame it sounds, yesterday was a dream come true. I've worked on digital signage at various employers for more than seven years now and couldn't be happier with how yesterday's Digital Signage for Corporate Communication event went.
Despite some travel issues and cancellations, we assembled a great group of communicators looking to discuss digital signage and learn more about how they can integrate it into their employee communications.
In my opinion, the best part of the day was our kickoff "show and tell" session where companies each talked about how they are using the technology and discussed some of the challenges they've faced.
My only complaint is that more companies weren't able to participate in the conversation so I hope going forward that we get more companies there and more companies using other digital signage hardware and software.
So where does it take off from here? Stay tuned...
I am out-of-my-mind excited for tomorrow's first-ever Digital Signage for Corporate Communication event. But equal to my excitement is my nervousness. I can talk about signage until I'm blue in the face. But planning an event? Not one of my strengths but it's an event that needs to take place.
Though the attendance is not where I'd like for it to be, I couldn't be happier with the list of companies attending AND the speakers addressing the group. (Note to self - do not plan events when so many take vacations.)
And without Eli Lilly & Company and Chris Bias, this event would have never gotten off of the ground. A very special thanks is owed to them for their support and use of the Lilly Corporate Center.
So please follow along to the hashtag
#dscorpcomm tomorrow as I'll be tweeting from the event. If you've read all of this and have no idea what I'm talking about, here are a few articles from the fine folks at
Digital Signage Today and
Digital Signage Expo about the day-long conference.
The first-ever Digital Signage for Corporate Communication conference is just a week away and there are still seats remaining. Please sign up today if you run an internal network and are interested in hearing stories and picking up tips on how you can fine tune your network.
For less than $150, you get to see LillyTV, one of the world's largest digital signage networks dedicated to employee communications, along with hearing from two industry experts and a corporate communication guru. Not bad for such a low cost of admission.
Digital Signage Today ran a very
complimentary article about the event and I'm very appreciative of the attention it has received.
Several people have contacted me who aren't able to attend this session due to vacation or travel restrictions but are interested in attending a future one. At this point, I'm not sure what it will look like down the road, but the feedback received from next week's event will determine steps forward.
If you have any thoughts, please leave them in the comments section below.
If you go to other corporate communication conferences (or any conference for that matter), they always run an impressive list of logos across the screen of companies who have attended in the past. It always looks good, but how long ago is "the past?"
Since this
Digital Signage for Corporate Communication conference is a first-ever event, I can't show the logos of past attendees. But I can do better, showing you the list of companies who have already signed up are confirmed for this event. Needless to say, I'm pleased with the response.
In addition to a "Show and Tell" portion of the event, we also have three outstanding speakers supporting the event, including David Weinfeld from
The Preset Group, David Trounstine from
MediaTile and Steve Crescenzo from
Crescenzo Communications. It's important to note that Steve was recently voted #1 speaker for the third year in a row from IABC. I'm thankful that we have all three gentleman helping out the event.
We are less than a month and there are still plenty of seats to be had. If you run a digital signage network that supports internal communications,
sign up today.
Several digital signage gurus have suggested that tickers (or crawls) run on digital signage networks are somehow maming the industry. To raise awareness to this "plague," David Weinfeld from
The Preset Group have suggested that today, July 9, be
Ticker Free Day 2010. Even the folks over at
DailyDOOH are falling in line.
But why you ask (and I do, too)? Apparently, they are hoping to prove that networks can run relevant and engaging content without tickers.
Of course they can. Networks can also be run well without video. They can be run well without Flash. They can be run well without the inclusion of weather. It all comes down to content and the choices made. Who knows? Maybe we'll see No Flashy Flashy Day around the bend. I hear September is kind of slow.
I love Cap'N Crunch cereal. It might be my favorite. So if somebody told me that July 9 was Free the Cap'N Day 2010 and that I shouldn't eat the cereal, I wouldn't go along with it. Why? Because I like Cap'N Crunch cereal. That's great if somebody else doesn't like it, but I do.
I blogged that I recently went on a
mid-pilot visit with one of our clients running a corporate communication network. We sat down with groups of employees to discuss what they liked or disliked about the network and what could be done to make it better.
Take a guess what the most positive feedbak tied to? Information in the ticker. Our client did a nice job of mixing up the ticker content between both internal news as well as external news (like weather, sports scores, etc.). The employees liked it. And if this company participated in the Ticker Free Day 2010, employees would not like it.
Take another guess if they are going to participate Ticker Free Day 2010 by removing their ticker. David does acknowledge in his post that not all tickers are bad and that they can be used the right way.
So I propose that instead of just telling people not to use tickers, let's teach them the right way.
Apparently, I ruffled a few feathers with a
previous post, but I stand by my statement that I do not think enough is being done to help educate corporate communicators running digital signage networks.
Officially today, those running internal networks can sign up for the
Digital Signage for Corporate Communication conference. The cost to attend the event is very nominal, only to cover the expenses of putting on the day-long event. I don't care if you're a MediaTile customer or not. But if you want help and guidance on running your internal digital signage network, you should make every effort to attend.
I want to be clear that this event is
NOT a MediaTile sales pitch. This is entirely about pulling together a network of like-minded corp comm pros who are looking to make digital signage a viable communications vehicle within their organization.
Eli Lilly & Company, who runs one of the largest corporate communication networks in the world, will be the host of the conference. We have outside speakers coming in, like David Trounstine (
MediaTile's Creative Director), David Weinfeld (Principal at
The Preset Group) and top-rated internal communications speaker Steve Crescenzo (
Crescenzo Communications). Let's make
August 10 a great day.
So if you know of other corporate communicators running a digital signage network, please share the information with them.
**
MediaTile customers: please contact your sales rep for a discount code to attend the event. **
Out of personal frustration that the major digital signage events and associations pay very little attention to the growing amount of corporate communication networks, I have decided to do something about it.
With the help of Chris Bias and
Eli Lilly & Company, I will be hosting the Digital Signage for Corporate Communication conference on August 10 at the Lilly Corporate Center in Indianapolis, IN.
The day-long event will provide attendees tips, tricks and techniques for running an internal digital signage network and improving communication. And as an added benefit, I hope the day will provide great networking for those involved. I hear all of the time from clients that they want to know who else is responsible for running an internal network.
And maybe the best news of all for some of you, the event will be
FREE for
MediaTile customers as a thank you. Non-MediaTile customers will also be able to attend at a nominal fee. The event will not be a sales pitch so we'd like for anybody running a corporate communication network will feel comfortable attending.
Lilly runs one of the largest
corporate communication networks so part of the day will include a tour at the Lilly Corporate Center. So whether you've had a network for a while or are just starting one, you'll get to see one of the best in the world.
So block out the date and please stay tuned for registration information. I hope you'll be able to join us in August.
One more thing to potentially plan for is that Steve Crescenzo, an internal communication guru, is running his
Corporate Communications 3.0 workshop the following day in Indy (August 11). It will be a great two days of corp comm learning. As a favor to me, Steve will also swing by our digital signage conference to share some of his wisdom.
It will make for a grew two days in Indianapolis.
I know that
Steve Crescenzo has been preaching this for years, but some people just don't seem to be paying attention. . . including IABC. It was irritating at this year's World Conference that everybody (speakers) seemed to be focused on strategy and tactics and plans and blah, blah blah.
There is nothing wrong with those, but that's what people have been (or should have been) doing for years. What's missing is creativity, which was also missing from the IABC conference.
If corporate communicators ever want to gain the respect they think they all deserve, then you have to plan, be strategic, use the vehicles, report results
AND be creative. Doing things the same way over and over have never worked before and won't work again just by repetition.
When corporate communication was part of my daily life, I used to drive my bosses nuts with the "How about this..." and "What if we did it this way..." Everybody's worried about being fired, but you're not going to lose your job by being creative. You're going to lose your job but not getting results. And a good way to do that is by being boring.
Look at new tools like digital signage. Write your newsletter articles differently. Use video more. Do whatever it takes to improve communication.
Don't be boring. Vent over.
For the next few days, I'm traveling across the New England area with a client of ours who's been piloting
digital signage for the past three months. They looked to MediaTile to help them augment and improve their employee communications efforts.
This is the halfway point of the pilot so it was a good time for me to travel around with the project manager. We'll be traversing by planes, trains and automobiles (one of my favorite movies) to make it all happen. What's particularly cool about the visits is that we are sitting down face-to-face with employee groups to solicit their feedback on what they think of the technology and NOT just walking around looking at the displays.
One of the challenges this company has faced over the years was caused by numerous acquisitions. Employees at these specific sites do not have any specific or noted loyalty or ties to the larger corporate brand. Their hope was communicating dynamically through digital signage would improve their internal branding efforts.
The way the MediaTile approach works is the larger corporate entity can embed their messages on screens everywhere whilte still granting local control to communicators. It's one of the few vehicles that can be corporate, regional and local - all at the same time - each with their own control and input.
We're also going to find out which messages resonate more than others, which messages have a larger impact, and which messages are more engaging. We want to hear what the employees really think. The goal is to to determine if this technology is improving communication to their field force.
If I have any updates or revelationsalong the way, I'll be sure to share them.
"S-A-F-E-T-Y, Safety Dance!"
In my corporate communication experience, I've always enjoyed working with health and safety departments. Depending on where you work, what they do might truly be the most important thing. At many businesses, working safely can be a matter of life or death.
And not every message they send out is that dire, but some are. Yet they struggle with spreading these important messages and getting traction. And if you walk around facilities, 9 times out of 10 they have the outdated posters on the wall. They just don't have a means to delivery dynamic information in an entertaining way.
Enter
digital signage, stage left. Health and safety departments can use digital signage to reinforce the sometimes mundane messages while also bringing attention to the critical ones. This can be done simple static images or snap a quick video using a Flip cam.
Creating videos used to be a pain in the ass, but not anymore. Quick 30 second record, maybe a little editing if needed, upload and done. Messages don't have to be static any longer.
Last year, I highlighted
Continental Airlines, one of our digital signage customers who has had tremendous success with health and safety messaging. If it can work for them (and it has), it can work for you, too.
Later this week,
MediaTile has a cool opportunity to be part an internal event with
Draftfcb this Thursday in Chicago. They invited us, along with 19 other companies, to show off what we do and educate them on how our digital signage solution can help their clients.
This is a great showcase opportunity for Draftfcb employees to see the technologies that impact clients' business for years to come. Our own Roger Sanford and Heather Whalen will be there representing MediaTile and showing off our approach to digital signage so hopefully we come away with some great pictures and feedback.
What's interesting about Draftfcb is that they abide by "The 6.5 Seconds That Matter" mantra, recognizing the brief time marketers have to capture the attention of consumers and then quickly motivate them. Many businesses looking to improve communication with both internal and external audiences could benefit from the same approach.
Be daring. Be inspired. Be there." And we will with Draftfcb.
Why is it that Corporate Communications and Information Technology professionals can never seem to work well together? That was the recurring theme I heard over and over at the
IABC World Conference in Toronto.
It has to stem from the fact that each group may not fully respect what each group is responsible for doing, or, more likely the case, they don't actually show the respect they have for each other. I listened to how corp commers describe their IT departments. Just imagine what IT people say about us.
In talking to attendees about
digital signage for employee communications, every time this communications project became an IT project the communicator lost control. The communicator who is trying to deliver messages is then at the mercy of IT. I can remember feeling this way about past projects in my career. This apparent loss of control is not a good feeling. Communicators need to be in control of their messages.
So with our approach to digital signage and using the existing cellular networks, IT can be left out of the conversation. Not that they necessarily SHOULD be left out, but they can if the two sides aren't playing nice.
Companies who are successful have found an ally inside the IT department who understands what corporate communications is trying to do and "translates" it to the IT pros. Find your ally.
I'd love to hear your success stories of IT and corporate comms working together.
_____________________
Photo credit, Ben Margolin
It's not easy being in two places at once, but we are going to make it happen to help spread the digital signage gospel. . . so to speak.
I'm in Toronto for the
IABC 2010 World Conference, a collection of nearly 1,400 corporate communication, marketing and public relations pros, and Heather Whalen, MediaTile's VP of Sales, is in Las Vegas for the Strategy Institute's
Digital Signage Technology Summit, as well as
InfoComm. Heather's out there on her own but I at least I have the help of
MediaTile Canada.
Whew.
Both are very important events for MediaTile to be a part of so that's what we are going to do. We're each hoping we'll be able to provide some unique perspectives on the events, as well as our own commentary on how we are seeing digital signage impact the marketplace.
Should be fun. . . and a bit hectic. But that's how we love it.
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