Episodes
Tuesday Jul 25, 2023
Shane Vega, Userful
Tuesday Jul 25, 2023
Tuesday Jul 25, 2023
The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED – DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT
Using existing network infrastructure has long been talked up as an efficient way to manage and deliver digital signage solutions in large companies, but the concept has been clouded by concerns - like the cost of additional AV hardware and the impact of all that video on the company network.
But we now live in a world where companies support countless video conferencing sessions with piles of users, with little or no latency. Other technologies have also caught up, and computing just keeps getting more powerful.
Which is why I was interested in chatting with Shane Vega, VP of Marketing for the Silicon Valley software firm Userful, about his company's AV over IP solutions. The company has its roots in Calgary, Alberta and still does a lot of the R&D work there.
Userful first showed up in digital signage circles talking about a different way, using software and endpoints, to drive video walls. But in the last few years it has been much more focused on a broader IP-driven solution that tends to start with control rooms and operations centers, but can also drive things like meeting room displays and digital signage around corporate campuses.
There's been a lot of discussion about AV needs converging with IT interests, but from Vega's perspective, that convergence is already firmly in place.
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TRANSCRIPT
Shane, thank you for joining me. Where are you today?
Shane Vega: I am in sunny Tampa, Florida, where although it's not all that sunny today, we've got some rain, but that's per the norm now.
Now, Userful is in Silicon Valley, but a lot of the developers are in Calgary, right?
Shane Vega: Yeah, that's correct. All of our R&D, engineering team, and the like, they're all up in Calgary, Canada.
So you're missing the Calgary Stampede this week?
Shane Vega: I am missing the Stampede.
But you know what, I believe they deserve a bit of some good time because they spend the majority of the time avoiding the minus 30-degree weather.
Yeah, I spent a number of years in Calgary, and it's an interesting weather city.
Shane Vega: Yeah. You know it's bad when they've developed an entire infrastructure of walkways between buildings to avoid having to go outside.
Yeah, just like Minneapolis.
Shane Vega: Exactly.
All right, so we had a quick chat in the LG booth at Infocomm, and you explained what Userful was up to with its Infinity platform and AV over IP and AV as a Service and so on, and I've seen that. I will wholeheartedly admit I don't totally get it, but how you explained it to me was very interesting, and I thought this would be useful for a lot of people to understand the infrastructure and distribution side of digital signage.
We spend so much time talking about the content and business strategy and all those sorts of things, but behind-the-scenes stuff is awfully important, and maybe we could start out by just explaining what Userful is and does and where you came from because when Userful first came out, it was presented to me as video wall software, and I had a hell of a time wrapping my brain around what it was all about. But I know you guys have evolved quite a bit.
Shane Vega: Yeah. I appreciate that, Dave. To answer your question, Userful has grown exponentially in the last 5+ years. John Marshall, our CEO came on board about 7 years or so ago. My timing might be a little bit off, and when he came into the organization, we were a perpetual software company, so we weren't software as a service, we weren't selling subscriptions. We were selling perpetual software…
You'd buy a license and then get that supported?
Shane Vega: Yeah, you'd buy a license then we support it for the duration of however long you wanted to use it, and the license for the software was pretty siloed, right? It was, “Hey, you can buy this operations center license.” Where, to your point, we were just managing content on a video wall.
And it was mostly control rooms, right?
Shane Vega: Mostly control rooms, almost exclusively for a time, and then we evolved into the digital signage world, and it was cloud-based digital signage exclusively. So what most folks are familiar with is hosting up in AWS, giving you some access to dynamic tools for creating templates and the like.
During Infocom, what we've launched and from the time that I just mentioned until about, maybe two and a half years ago or three years ago, we've pivoted the company from perpetual to subscription-based software as a service, and that's who Userful is. We are a software company, and we've been a software company tailored to the needs of the AV industry.
Most currently, we've just released our newest platform, and that's really been the biggest evolution, which is moving away from application-specific deployments into more of a platform approach for AV over IP and that is really the biggest breakthrough development that we've had here, because in the older version of our software, we were a monolithic code base. Again, we were just selling either the operation center software or we were selling some digital signage. Everything was monolithic. It was difficult for our engineering team to manage updates, firmware, bug fixes, and the like.
We've now moved to a distributed code base that has given us exceptional flexibility with how we develop our software for the various use cases and applications in the AV industry. So if you think about what you've seen in the conversations you and I have had, essentially, and you hit the nail right on the head, this isn't just about fancy software managing content on a video wall. Can we do that? Of course, we've got feature sets for various different use cases, but there's also the infrastructure piece, and this was my “aha moment” through a different lens at Infocomm.
AV over IP has matured through the years from IP addressable matrix switchers where everything was still very much centralized into IP addressable nodes, encoders, decoders, transmitters, receivers, and all the different AV manufacturers out there have now standardized on this proprietary hardware version of AV over IP, and I started to ask myself the question: what is their value proposition in doing that?
And I overheard quite a few folks during this past Infocomm talk about the value of this distributed architecture: enabling flexibility, scalability, augmenting workflows, the total cost of ownership being lower, and I sat there a little bit baffled because these are all the same things that we talk about at Userful and so it really opened up an area where I feel like we do need to evangelize a little bit more about how Userful do AV over IP differently, and that we don't necessitate all of the hardware infrastructure. We truly are a software platform, but because of the IT protocols that currently exist, that's how we developed our software.
So when you think about Userful, I've actually positioned us a little bit more as an IT solution than an AV solution, even though our entire solution is built around the AV industry and its needs. The reason I say that is because we're literally a server, non-proprietary, and an endpoint, and that endpoint is software, so our uClient application.
In between the two is network infrastructure. There are no end encoders, decoders, transmitters, receivers, and the list goes on. Because we are able to transmit content and aggregate content, meaning we can pull in sources of visual information and audio information into a data library or data store that we manage on our server and distribute that information to any destination or any screen and we do that all with IP protocols.
The same IP protocols, by the way, and this is how I usually get people to have the “aha moment.” If we were having this over a Teams meeting, Dave, or a Zoom meeting, we would be transmitting video two ways. In many cases, multiple participants from multiple regions of the world share two-way audio and video. We would be able to share content from our local computers into that meeting, and nobody would have to go out and buy a proprietary encoder and decoder to make that happen. So using that same infrastructure or those IT protocols that are currently at work, IP protocols like WebRTC for instance, we're able to build a solution that leverages those same advancements for the purposes of AV over IP.
It’s a bit of a mouthful, but that's what we're doing.
So you wouldn't have been able to do some of that 10-15 years ago because the network infrastructure is a lot of larger corporations hadn't really caught up with that, so you would flood a network if you were using a lot of video and so on, but things have changed.
Shane Vega: Things have changed substantially, and I would even say it's been not even 10-15 years ago, just 5-10 years ago, and the reason I say that is because there are the laws of engineering and physics like Butter's Law, Kryder’s Law, Moore's Law, which talks about how rapidly the advancements of, let's say, fiber optic networks, which are doubling every nine months, the amount of bandwidth that you can get between the fiber optic cable or the amount of processing speed that you can get out of a CPU and how fast these advancements are happening.
What we're doing and the way that we're doing it is taxing the CPU of that server. It's also taxing the GPU of that server, the graphics card because those are the two major components that we use for our solution. If you think about just two years ago, Dave, our servers that we were deploying in the field were 8 cores of processors. Right now, I have a server that we've certified that's 192 cores of processors, so we're able to do exceptionally and exceedingly more on a single server, which is why we've actually built our solution to be a data center solution by and large, where you take a big beefy server, you put it in your data center, and you're virtualizing all of the traditional hardware that you would need, and you're managing a wide range of AV endpoints, whether it's digital signage, meeting rooms, operations centers, or what have you.
Is there a baseline for what you need in terms of the network infrastructure?
I'm definitely not an IT Architect, but do you need a CAT6E, or can you do this over Wifi, I don't know, and I suspect a lot of people don’t know.
Shane Vega: Yeah, so it's a good question. So again, because we're optimizing for IT protocols, we're able to do a lot, right? From the screen to the switch, we're just really looking for that one-gigabit uplink, which is standard. Most folks are going to have that. From the server to the source to the server and all that infrastructure pulling into the server, we're looking for the 10 gigabit uplink.
So there are some requirements for the network, but nothing that is outside the realms of standard network topology. The real intricacies or the real areas where we get into some deeper discussions are when they have multiple networks that we have to traverse. When you start getting into DOD environments where things have to be air-gapped and there's no internet connectivity and when networks start to get a little bit more complex, that's where we have to begin to get a little bit more intentional about how we design it.
Now that said, we haven't yet met a deployment that we couldn't meet the network requirements for, even though some of those were those complex ones.
There were two things that particularly interested me.
The first was, as you laid out earlier, that you don't need all these encoders and other bits of hardware to layer into a network to make this happen. So you're cutting out conceivably a lot of capital costs and a lot of potential fail points, and I guess the other thing that intrigues me, and you can talk about that next is or after.
The first question would be the idea that you can use this for multiple aspects. I suspect there are control room data dashboards, and software platforms out there, but one of the things you talked about at Infocomm is that you can cascade this out to do all kinds of different things from operation centers to experience centers off of the same platform.
Shane Vega: Yeah, exactly, Dave, and to answer the first question, you hit the nail on the head with one of my areas of confusion when I was at Infocomm, and I heard people talking about the low total cost of ownership, and they were tying it to these encoders and decoders.
We don't require those things. So when I think about the total cost of ownership, I think about the hard work upfront costs that you don't need to have and the additional BTU output from all of that hardware that you would normally need, that's no longer going to be there, which is going to drive your HVAC costs, right? You don't have all the power consumption. So for green initiatives and companies who are looking to do things, and this is a big one moving forward, folks want to be more green, and get green initiatives going like lower carbon emissions, lowering power consumption by not having all that hardware is yet another total cost of ownership benefit for Userful.
Again, our encoding happens at the one server that we require in that Nvidia graphics card. The decoding is done by a piece of software we developed called the uClient application. Now, where that uClient application resides, we give you tons amount of flexibility. We have integrated it into certain endpoints like Web OS or Tizen or Android. And that gives us the flexibility to be able to load that client application in various different environments and use cases, depending on the display type if it's an LCD, if it's a direct view LED, and how we manage that.
In some cases, we do have a small appliance that you might need at the edge, and that would be one additional piece of hardware per display, depending on the display type, and that's an Android box that we load our uClient application onto if the display doesn't have the ability to integrate with our software.
So if it's a smart display that already has a system on a chip on it, conceivably you don't need that Android box?
Shane Vega: Correct. So now what you're left with, as I said, is just a server with software at the edge, and network infrastructure in between.
So ongoing maintenance costs are substantially lower. Initial hardware costs are lower. Your total cost of ownership around all the things I mentioned earlier is going to be lower. Therefore, your refresh costs are going to be lower. Because with hardware, every three to five years, in some cases five to seven years, you're having to do a hardware refresh. It's always tied to CapEx because it's usually proprietary. They have to budget for CapEx renewals of all this hardware.
Because of Userful's deployment model, we can take on an OPEX model for those folks who would benefit from that because your hardware refresh can be built into your standard IT refreshes because you own the hardware. In many cases, as many as we can possibly, push for, we don't provide the server, we want the end user to provide the server, and that way, it gets built into your traditional OPEX refresh, and that way, the only recurring cost is the software.
To your next question about what we spoke about and the benefits of the platform. This is where our software really begins to shine, right? Because our platform is accessible through a web browser, so no proprietary software needs to be downloaded for a user to access it. You access our software through a traditional HTML5 web browser.
Once you access the software through a web browser, the first thing you're going to notice is we have six applications that any user can take advantage of. In most cases, folks aren't trying to eat the elephant hole, right? They'll have a use case like digital signage, or they'll have a use case like meeting rooms or experiential centers or what have you, and that's one of the reasons why we are licensing the server. We're licensing the CPU cores and the number of graphics cards that you need on that server so that if you have a smaller use case, your out-of-pocket costs are gonna be lower because you need a smaller server. But when you log in for the first time, you're gonna see, “Oh, I got this for digital signage, but I didn't know I could run my meeting room here.” or, “I didn't realize that I can do these artistic video walls,” or “I didn't realize I can incorporate these data dashboards from Power BI or Tableau as a native source and share those to any display that Userful is managing.”
The value is seen almost immediately, and so what we do is try to help people understand the peripheral or parallel use cases. So I use digital signage quite a bit, and I gave you this analogy regarding airports at Infocomm, Dave, where at least half a dozen times in the last six to eight months, I've had conversations with various airports, and most of them are pulling us in because they have an operation center. Airport operations center, or security operations center, or what have you, and they'll say, “Hey, we want the Userful software to run the content on these displays and video walls in the operation center,” and when we have these discovery calls, I'll typically ask, “Hey, have you guys thought about the advantages of using our platform to help you with the signage?” And I'm usually shot down rather immediately, and most folks know Airports are convoluted in the way that they deploy their technology. They got various different groups. They're typically siloed, but specifically the airport operations centers, I'll just say, “Hey, look, I get that, but let me just throw this use case out there and see if it lands and hits you as showing value.”
You're in an airport operations center. Wouldn't you want to be able to manage the entire network of screens that are currently being used to show baggage, arrivals, departures, signage, and all your wayfinding screens? Would it not be valuable to be able to manage those as part of your airport operations, also, I've noticed in many cases, they'll incorporate security into their AOC. Some of them have independent security operations centers, but in either event, I would tell them. What happens if you have an incident at the airport? Wouldn't you want to be able to take over those screens from the command center that's responsible for monitoring and sending strategic messages to people, depending on what the situation is? If there's a fire, “evacuate.” If god forbids, there's an active shooter, “take shelter in place,” and be able to send strategic messages to various screens all from within your operation center? Well, you can't currently do that because you've got multiple systems driving all of these different AV endpoints.
If you had a single platform, it doesn't just give you the ability to scale your deployment, it gives you the ability to scale your workflow and become more flexible to augment those workflows where I can send strategic messages to screens, I can manage arrivals and baggage from my AOC, if that's such a thing that I need. In addition, we could help you with your meeting rooms. You can walk into a meeting room, and I can help you cast some content in a meeting room and have an impromptu meeting on a drop of a dime, as just a few use cases of what our platform can do.
Sometimes, when you have these platforms that say they can do, in your case, at least six different things, there can be compromises. In other words, “Yeah, we can do all these things. That's just none of them are particularly deep, or maybe one of them is deep, and the other ones are so so.”
Do you get that question at all?
Shane Vega: Ironically, no. We don't get that question. But it's a question most people should be asking David, and I'll tell you that when that does come up, and it's only come up a handful of times, I'm always very candid about what we can't do as well as what we can do. And there is truth in the fact that we are software as a service, and so there are certain applications that still have roadmap features, candidly, that we're going to continue to augment and build them out.
If you could probably imagine the top three or four of our use cases would be: operations centers, digital signage, meeting rooms, and data dashboards. We do those very well. With experiential environments, we manage those artistic video walls very well. Now when you talk about experiential environments, there are some things that some folks might want to get involved with, but we might have to have some deeper conversations, right?
And that really is around interactivity. Do you want multi-touch video walls, like in a museum for kids or something like that? Where we have some roadmap items to help ensure that multi-touch is what people would expect, where you don't want to have the lag, you don't want to have any of those issues when people are trying to have that fun experience as a child or what have you.
So there are certain features that are still roadmap items, but what I will bookend that with is, before coming over to Userful, I worked with one of the larger AV firms globally, and while I worked there, part of my interaction with customers was, “Man, I wish I could do more of these things with a single solution, I have to farm it out to so many folks.”
But more than that, I would have feature requests for the stuff that was out there, and it was always in one ear, out the other. I don't care which manufacturer it was. If I went to some of these larger manufacturers and I said, hey, you really would benefit if you did this or this. It just didn't go anywhere, and then I had a similar conversation with the Userful back in about 2018 at a trade show, I said, look, your software is good, but it really needs these four or five things to really be a competitor in the space that you're looking to deploy, which at the time it was operation centers.
I'd say if it was six months, it was a long time. So within six months, I got a call from the then VP of Sales who said, “Hey, I want to have a meeting with you, Shane. We've incorporated all of your requests into our software,” and that really pivoted my approach to looking at users as, alright, these guys are the future of AV and, little FYI, we actually got that award at Infocomm, the Future of AV award.
But the reason for that was, look, if we're going to be software as a service, then we have to prioritize feature requests from our customers above our own market research or our own gut check, and so that's part of my role here at Userful as VP of Marketing is that I'm also over Product Marketing, which is over the roadmap, and so I get involved in customer calls quite a bit, and I'll hear some of these features that to your initial question is, “Hey, how do you go deeper with these applications?” I look for that feedback, and then I get to go back to the roadmap and go, “Hey, we need to prioritize this, this, and this feature. Push out the other features to the next release. Let's get these done because it's revenue dependent. We've got customers who would value this. Let’s get it done!”
We take that very seriously here at Userful, and we're at four releases a year, so you'll never have to wait all that long.
So you referenced Airports. I'm curious, in the context of third-party software development, if there's a software company that works in the Airport realm but isn't doing digital signage or some of the things you do, but they want to visualize information on displays, is there an API or something that they could develop to work with Userful or does it have to be Userful development to add that capability on?
Shane Vega: We have an entire program around API. So we do have our own API, currently, it's A REST API, so we can receive tons of different messages and calls to trigger certain reactions within our software.
But additionally, that's got its own roadmap in and of itself. So we have our software application roadmap, and then we have our API roadmap where we're going to be developing even deeper integrations and capabilities including, but not limited to, even wanting to create possible easy configuration tools for customers who can use our API to do whatever they want, onsite.
Are control rooms and operations centers the gateway for the initial point of contact, the thing that gets people interested, and then other things cascade out of that?
Shane Vega: That has been our experience. We call that our land. So we're land and expand through our platform. Let's find the use case. Let's land where it makes sense, and then let's show the power of our expansion, and just because of how the company has evolved, operation centers have been kind of the tip of our spear, and it makes sense because operation centers will use two or three of our applications out of the gate, right?
They'll use the operation center software, they'll use meeting rooms for war rooms or situation rooms. They'll also use our trends for dashboards and Power BI integrations, depending on what type of operation center it is, so they usually get value from several of our use cases and applications out of the gate. And if it's a large enough organization and we're typically targeting LDOs (large distributed organizations), they'll have multiple operations centers, which gives us multiple points of connection and interaction and engagement to open up opportunities to talk about the meeting rooms beyond your war room and situation room, or some operation centers are fishbowls, where they want to bring folks in their data center and they just want to use it as a showpiece to show their customers how well they manage their data, and so they might have welcome screens outside, and we'll let them know, “Hey, we can manage those welcome screens for you as well,” and that evolves into a larger digital signage strategy, corporate communications, so on and so forth.
These large organizations, do they have separate AV and IT departments, or are they pretty much hiving into IT now?
Shane Vega: So more and more, IT is taking over, but what's happening is it used to be that they have AV specialists on staff, and by and large, it was for the meeting rooms, and in some cases, the digital signage where they had AV technicians or AV specialists on-site, and those were the guys were the gatekeepers to decide what technology gets deployed.
Yeah, and get everything working before the meeting starts somehow.
Shane Vega: Exactly. “Who's got HDMI? Who's got DVI?”
So to that point, people keep talking about the convergence of AV and IT, and I don't know why. That convergence happened years ago. People are now starting to realize that because of that convergence, the IT organization or the IT departments within these larger organizations are going to be the ones holding the budget and are going to be the ones responsible for managing any AV resources on the network.
And so, we have intentionally built our product to cater to those IT stakeholders in the organization. When you say things like, “Hey, you can centrally monitor the entire platform from a web browser,” they really get that right. When you say, “We're an IT solution, we're not an AV solution, which means we're not going to put all this IP addressable hardware on your network,” a lot of the walls come down from their security concerns. You then begin to tell them that, look, you can augment your roles-based access control, and integrate with LDAP. Plus, we give you tools that are IT specific to help you monitor things like, what is the impact on my network? What is my current CPU utilization, or what's my current GPU utilization on the server that we're licensing? We give them all of those tools built into our software. So it's not just AV end-user tools that we're giving. We're also giving those IT tools that help the IT stakeholders manage deployments because we recognize these are going to be larger in scale. They're going to be responsible for a lot. Let's make it easy for them.
When you talk about AV as a service, it's a term I've heard for a while, but you guys go at it quite a bit differently from what you're saying.
Shane Vega: Yeah, we do, and Dave, I struggle with that, because we were flirting with the term AV as a service, and we started to use it quite a bit. But I know, coming from the integration world, that AV as a service historically meant we're going to just finance this stuff, right? We're going to get a leasing program, and we're going to build in the hardware, the software, the services, whatever we can into a monthly payment that makes it nice and easy for you guys.
We approach it differently by saying, we are software as a service that's for the AV industry. Therefore, we are AV as a service, meaning, we don't have all that hardware that you have to purchase. You're truly able to deploy all of these AV use cases and manage an entire host of AV applications from within our platform. And we are a software that you pay for based on subscription, typically three-year plans.
That's what we mean when we say AV as a service. It's exactly that. It's a software as a service, which is which is the actual term, which is software as a service for the AV world.
This strikes me as something that probably has a learning curve, as every software platform does, but it is almost something you kind of have to ease your way into?
Shane Vega: Believe it or not, not really, and I think that would be more pertinent if somebody was wanting to say, “Hey, I want to use your entire platform right now.” But as I said earlier, most folks are saying, “Hey, I want this operation center,” and they're familiar with Operation Center softwares. They know what they want. They know they want to be able to build custom layouts. They want to manage big, beautiful video walls. They want to be able to interact with sources with soft KVM functionalities so that they're not just visualizing the sources but they can engage with them because they've got tools, right? They got video management tools, and they've got access control, what have you, and so that software that we're providing isn't going to look and feel a whole lot different than a lot of the other softwares they're used to using.
Now, we do it differently. So the real benefit, rewinding all over to the beginning of this conversation, is, yes, we're giving you all these software applications and features, but it's the infrastructure that really differentiates us.
Along with removing different hardware components from this kind of a network, you're also removing potentially different software applications that you'd also need because you've got this stack of different things you can do?
Shane Vega: Yeah, exactly.
To that point, Dave, when I showed this at Infocomm, when I gave my demos there, typically when you deploy an AV solution, let's call it digital signage, that's the background that you're most familiar with.
In digital signage, let's say, you use it for corporate communications; you'll have screens all over the office. In some cases, they'll want to be able to integrate that digital signage into their meeting rooms as well, and when the screens are in standby mode, they want to be able to have some of those corporate communications as part of the digital signage strategy, managing those meeting rooms. But when you go into the meeting room, they'll typically need some type of infrastructure to support those meetings and local collaboration. Usually, it's a network of AV infrastructure, HDMI cables, or what have you, go into some form of a matrix switch that's going to be some type of tablet controller that can give you the ability to manage what laptop is being viewed on what screen.
With Userful, because the software does so much, the screens that we manage are not tied to any one specific application, and that's really the beauty of it. So I can walk into a room where they're showing corporate communication. I can sit down, open my laptop, and immediately start a meeting by screencasting whatever's on my laptop onto the screen in that room without connecting a single AV cable. I could then open up my operations center software on that same screen and turn it into an impromptu war room or situation room where I'm pulling in multiple sources and building out customized layouts, and navigating through a crisis. So there are a lot of things that we can do, and it's not dependent on the screen, and, to your point, we've reduced not just the hardware need but the software as well.
All right, Shane, that was super interesting. I know much more about this space than I did half an hour ago.
Shane Vega: It's been great talking to you, Dave. I appreciate it.
Wednesday Mar 01, 2023
Mark Ossel, Global Signage Alliance
Wednesday Mar 01, 2023
Wednesday Mar 01, 2023
The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED – DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT
When I was doing my initial recon walk through the many halls of ISE a few weeks back, I went by a stand that was highlighting something called the Global Signage Alliance, which was unfamiliar to me and made me curious.
The stand's occupants weren't there, and I was on the go, so I never got a chance to get filled in at the show. But I asked some questions and made some contacts after the fact. I assumed this was a Euro-centric version of the Digital Signage Federation. There have been 2 or 3 of those, I think, and maybe this was another. But it turns out that's not what the GSA, as it is called for short, is all about. It's a formalized user community for Samsung digital signage software and smart display products.
The cynic in me thought "OK, this is kinda like big pharma and energy companies that form institutes." Imagine me doing air quotes around institutes. But that's not what this is, according to GSA chairman Mark Ossel. He says the organization was initiated out of common needs among companies - starting in the Netherlands - who wanted to share information, ideas and business opportunities ... who were all, also, using Samsung's CMS software MagicINFO, or Samsung's smart signage displays. It's the shared purpose, strength in numbers thing at play here.
However, Ossel did say that Samsung does now provide some financial support. This makes sense, at least to me. A user group has the interest and mission to stay closer to a product and its evolution, as opposed to being disparate end-users that end up with new functions or features just getting dropped on them by a technology company. Which happens.
For Samsung, they can be closer to some key customers and support a user community, without perhaps doing as much heavy lifting to build and nurture that community.
Have a listen.
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TRANSCRIPT
Mark, thank you for joining me. Can you tell me what the Global Signage Alliance is all about?
Mark Ossel: Yeah, my pleasure, thanks for asking. The Global Signage Alliance is a user group, meaning a group of companies, and individuals from the digital signage world, coming from the creative side, coming from the services side, or being an end-user company using digital signage. So it's all kinds of companies who basically come together in the organization. It's a nonprofit organization, on a global scale, to exchange information, and share experiences but at the same time where there are opportunities to work together because these days more and more opportunities cross country boundaries as well as of course cross the own area of specialism. So you want to join forces with other companies to basically be able to fulfill the requirements of a proposal, tender, or procedure where you basically need to combine hardware, software, services, implementation, installation, integration, whatever it is, beyond what your own capabilities are.
So it's working together as well and then last, but not least, joining forces for marketing events or all kinds of exposures, which we jointly do to promote digital signage and the capabilities of the group. Moreover, the group as well secures the quality of what is being delivered by, in fact ensuring training to employees, and staff members, raising the bar in the quality of what is being delivered.
In the future, we want to create a quality stamp to let the market and the buyers know that these are companies that have the right skills to deliver a quality solution.
What's the backstory? Where did this come from?
Mark Ossel: It started in the Netherlands with a few companies in digital signage who basically understood that it makes sense to work together as well as to exchange experience, and information sharing and those companies had in fact an informal network, then it was growing with other companies across Europe, and then basically, yeah, it came to the point that we said it makes sense if we formalize this as a nonprofit organization with the structure of members, have a dedicated staff, have a formal board and comply with all the necessities you want to have as a decent organization.
When I was at ISE two-three weeks ago, I was walking through one of the halls, the digital signage hall, and walked by the Global Signage Alliance stand. Unfortunately, someone must have stepped away for a break or something like that, there wasn't anybody there to chat with, so I'm catching up after the fact.
I assumed when I was walking by that, oh, this is like a European version of the Digital Signage Federation, and there's been a couple of runs at that by different organizations In the past, I'm not quite sure where they're at, but when I'm digging into it a little bit, I actually see this is not necessarily a broad community, it's really focused around Samsung and Magic Info and its platform. Is that accurate? And why is that if so?
Mark Ossel: Well spotted and, no one was there at the time you passed by, but it was interesting because we wanted to raise awareness for the GSA at ISE and ISE basically does recognize that we now start to represent a segment of their target audience and of the market, and they were willing to give us the ability to be there on the stage.
Yeah linked to Samsung platforms, not only Magic Info but any Samsung platform. The reason is, you need to make a choice as a company on what technologies you use, and approximately half of the screens come from Samsung. We do believe in the architecture and the embedded capabilities in the screens. So it made sense that all those companies joined forces using the Samsung platforms and believed that it was a proper way forward. We also get some support from Samsung and that works both ways.
As a user group, we are now recognized by Samsung as well as a proper sounding board for them, providing input on the requirements of the market. So they listen to us, we talk directly to their developers and give direction to the developments and the next generation, based on what we feel we need as a market and with new products, of course, we are the Guinea pigs to test it before it gets to market. So it works both ways. It works quite well to have a loyal dedicated highly skilled group of companies working with Samsung on moving digital signage to the next level
Yeah, I could certainly see the business advantage to companies to stay close to Samsung or some other company that's developing a platform like that, because you can either have the new advances, the new thinking dropped in your lap, and hopefully it makes you happier or you can be contributing to what that development roadmap and product roadmap looks like by being tight with them.
Mark Ossel: Exactly, and now we not only get to know it in the beginning, but we basically drive development as well in the direction, and we have the discussions on next-generation technologies because there might be a time delay of one or two years from development to market release. So we are involved in the early stage but as well with any changes to current products and new requirements or taking with new products as well, the migration path from one to another or the coexistence. It all comes to play, and then, yeah, being able to provide feedback from the market, from real people who work with it on a daily basis. That is to the development team of great value as well.
Did Samsung as a corporate entity approach a loose-knit group in the Netherlands to formalize something? Or was this something that this group formalized and then went to Samsung and said, hey, we wanna do this but in order to make it happen, we need some financial support ‘cause there's just the day-to-day of a nonprofit and you may have a small budget, but you still have costs?
Mark Ossel: Yeah, sure. So it went the first way. So the group of companies coming together created the organization, regardless if Samsung could support it or not. Because we saw the need and the benefit of a group of companies working together, like exchanging information and all the things I said to work together on larger projects and we had seen the benefits already of that. So the drive came from the market and Samsung, they do welcome it.
What happens if you are a digital signage company that works across a number of platforms and not necessarily just Magic Info and Samsung's embedded smart displays? Is there any value in being a member and can you be a member?
Mark Ossel: Good question. Although many of the members we've got today are dedicated to using the Samsung platforms because that's where their skills and knowledge are based upon. So I don't see many of them using other technologies as well. But if there would be a company that has a mix of technologies, yeah, sure, they're welcome as long as they use the Samsung platforms as well. Otherwise, it wouldn't make sense to join. I'm pretty confident that over time, they will use the Samsung platforms more and more because of the added value of focusing on a specific platform and technologies. If you spread your knowledge over a number of platforms and development tracks, your staff becomes too thin, instead of being really deeply focused and trained on a specific technology. I'm in favor of focusing in every respect, that means as well on skills. Knowing a little bit about a lot of platforms does not give you the advantage of knowing some technologies and platforms very deeply.
How many members do you have right now?
Mark Ossel: We started, in fact, just before the Corona. The timing was unfortunate, so we had to put it on hold. There were no events. It was a bit of a strange world. So we held a ceasefire for some time. And in fact, this year we relaunched the organization. We have a few dozen members right now. It's good to see that even during ISE quite some companies basically were interested, and a number of them signed up on the fly immediately. There are some, of course, who have had to request permission internally or approval from their senior management to join.
But most of them, if not all, see the benefit if we talk and explain what we're doing, and the fees are so low that it’s not a showstopper to become a member. We expect during the course of the year, to bypass a hundred companies as members, and then of course grow beyond.
When you have somebody walk by the standard at ISE or elsewhere and they say, okay, give me your elevator pitch. Why should I join? What do you tell them?
Mark Ossel: Ah, good question, and that question of course we answer quite a lot of times. But basically, If you are in digital signage and if you have projects which cross your own area of expertise or cross geography boundaries, you need to act to basically have a partner network of companies you can rely on, data level quality as well. You build a family network. You can work together as well as you can benefit from the experience or the complimentary solutions which the other parts of the family have, then it makes sense for you to join as a member.
If you basically now look at the memberships they're mainly from Europe, but we are now expanding as well. In fact in Africa, and South Africa, we have members in mid-Asia, and Eastern Europe is growing. We get some interest from the United States, so it's getting more global as well.
Is Samsung helping raise awareness?
Mark Ossel: Oh yes, they welcome it in many respects. First of all, this has become a channel to market for them. A way to communicate to the market as well as new products, provide training. We are using doing where Samsung does presentations as well as where if our members do presentations or demonstrate showcases of successes they have implemented, then we see Samsung staff joining those webinars to learn about how their products are being used in the market.
So in that sense, it works and vice versa. They like the success stories, they like to understand how those products are used and see those showcased, and we basically create a portfolio on our portal as well through online sessions, get the messages across on what can be done or what has been with the technology.
So in a lot of ways they're encouraging a user, community, user forums, and user discussion without having to directly manage that themselves and not create the illusion, but have that degree of separation so it doesn't feel entirely like, “Here's our Samsung forum. Come here, and oh, by the way, while you're here, we'll sell you our pots and pans.”
Mark Ossel: Correct. It's to some extent, of course, related to technology and discussions on exchanging information about how they deploy the technology, but it's the other wider discussion on trends as well. Take the trend to the cloud. Not only as storage but also as software in the cloud. The integration of all the social media, the metaverse type of concept, and the impact on digital signage. We spent quite some cycles on security. We did as well security audits on some solutions. Interconnectivity and interactivity as a topic is being discussed, where more and more sensors of any kind, any format are being applied where the interconnection between applications to basically have more data-driven content, use more artificial intelligence in the backend, between the different applications, which through APIs, access data.
The market demands more flexibility, and more real-time interaction with the end user, and the consumer as well. There are so many trends in the markets that can be discussed and discussed between members. If you look at the younger generation, they want experiences in every respect being in a museum or in a retail store. How can you create that experience? How can you create that interaction with the social media platform? It all comes to play. It's as well, regardless of the lower level technology, these are the topics that are of interest to all the members and yeah, if you talk about it, you hear the different ideas, and it triggers your creativity as well.
So once in a while, we have those sessions where it's a bit like sitting with friends at the bar and discussing major things and trends, which basically trigger your creativity to gain some new ideas on how to apply that as well.
For the interest that you've had from North American companies, has there been any kind of pushback or questioning about, “I'm already a member of the Digital Signage Federation, why would I also join this or do I have to choose?”
Mark Ossel: No, I don't think we get the matter of choosing. In most cases, we talk to them and they see the advantage specifically for American companies that they now get access to a network in Europe, and if they have a customer, like a retail chain, which basically has a global presence, it's of great interest to have access to partners network, friends, and family in Europe, which basically in rollouts or in that kind of thing, it's beneficial to basically expand the network, in fact, beyond the United States.
So if there's a let's say an integrator that is using Magic Info for actually, I'm thinking of a school district in Florida that has an integrator that does a ton of stuff like that if they somehow end up getting questions about, could you take this platform to France or to the Netherlands or Belgium or whatever if they're part of your alliance, conceivably would have business ties or at least exposure to companies over there that could maybe do this in tandem with them or in collaboration with them?
Mark Ossel: Exactly. You got it, and of course, if they have built a great solution, why not promote that in Europe? And it might be something that works, as you said in the case of that school district, maybe that is an application that could be a perfect showcase here, and it gives them access to this market through the network of partners here.
One of the things that were happening at ISE, apart from the black-walled fortress that Samsung weirdly had limited access to their whole stand, was discussion around the evolution of Magic Info and how there was a new platform coming called VXT. Is that something that your group has been aware of and has been talking to Samsung about?
Mark Ossel: Oh yeah, sure. Long before ISE, we started discussions with Samsung on that new platform, VXT. So yeah, as said our alliance is not limited to Magic Info, but all the platforms of Samsung, so this will be part of it as well in the future, and we have discussed functionalities as well as coexistence migration between platforms and so on with Samsung.
So would you say there's been a benefit around that in that you somewhat have insider knowledge of what's coming ahead of perhaps some other companies that are just now starting to get exposure to what this thing is?
Mark Ossel: Yeah, absolutely. Before ISE, we had conversations about it already and at ISE we even had a specific session with Samsung and some of the members were present on this topic as well. Yeah, we are at the forefront of that development as a group.
Now, there would be some people who would suggest, it's got some similarities to, let's say, pharmaceutical manufacturers who create institutes and associations and alliances and things like that as a front for their company. It gives them separation by doing it that way.
Are you getting those kinds of questions or even criticisms at all, like this is just a Samsung thing and they've called it an alliance, but it's not really a nonprofit, and so on?
Mark Ossel: No, in fact, I don't get it.
It is truly a non-profit organization and independent. It's our own choice to work closely with Samsung, and we see it as mutually beneficial. We get early insight, we have the ability to give feedback and change direction where we feel it would be required. Samsung sees the advantage of having a loyal group that provides professionals with proper technical knowledge to provide valuable feedback.
It's a win-win. There is no dependency either way. It is beneficial for both sides.
And what's your background on this? How did you get involved in the work that you do in digital signage, what is that?
Mark Ossel: I started a long time back, with a video company that goes back to the early 80s.I have been in the IT industry as well since the early 80s. So the combination of audio, video, and digit digitization has been my path. Been on the board of a signage company for 30 years.
Oh wow. Which one was that?
Mark Ossel: It’s DVC, a Dutch company, pretty significant. One in digital signage and in traditional signage. But yeah, I have some other activities well in the energy sector, and it's funny to see that all those things now perfectly come together. Energy and sustainability have become even big things in digital signage. It's one of the major topics and concerns of many customers, ranging from, how much energy a screen use? Or how can I manage the energy consumption or sustain it?
In a broader sense basically reflects everything from packaging to your total CO2 footprint which now becomes a topic in many discussions as well. So that's one we see as well in the development conversations of hardware and what you can drive and manage through software in this sense on this hot topic.
Yeah, that's such an interesting area now that people in North America, like me, have looked at Europe and thought, okay that's a different circumstance. Few people in North America seem to be asking questions about energy consumption for computing devices and displays and so on, and then Ukraine happened and everything else has happened around it and now you're even hearing people in the United States and Canada asking the questions around, how much power is this consuming and how do we limit that?
Mark Ossel: Exactly. It's simple things like, what's your standby power? How can you control the energy? How can you measure it? And I'm assuming it goes a step further. Even if you look at content, some content can be created to use less power than others.
You use all white it's blinding and it's really sucking it up. If you use black backgrounds, it's not using power.
Mark Ossel: Yeah. Those simple things start to make a difference. But then as well, if there's nobody walking nearby can you dim it, can you have the sensors checking and dims if there's nobody it's the area, why would you have streetlights on if there's nobody in that area at all, huh? And so more sophisticated solutions to address this topic are hot right now as well.
So if people want to find out more about the Global Signage Alliance, where do they go? What do they need to do?
Mark Ossel: First of all, look at the website, gs-alliance.org.
That's where they basically have the initial information and the contact details to our staff who basically then provide them with anything they want and then we'll take it from there and welcome them as a member.
And it's just one tier of memberships, right?
Mark Ossel: Yeah, it’s simple.
EUR 250 and you're in, as long as you qualify, right?
Mark Ossel: Exactly EUR 250, then you're in and you start making money if you really use take advantage and use the network.
Thank you very much for spending some time with me.
Mark Ossel: Thanks, Dave, for asking the right questions and giving the opportunity to get the GSA across to your audience as well Thanks for that opportunity, and continue with your great programs.
Thursday Dec 01, 2022
DSE 2022 Mixer Panel: Mergers and Acquisitions in Digital Signage
Thursday Dec 01, 2022
Thursday Dec 01, 2022
The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED – DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT
Ahead of the networking mixer that Sixteen:Nine pulls together during DSE week in Las Vegas, we tried a panel discussion in the hour before the actual mixer started.
I zeroed in on mergers and acquisitions as the topic, as I am aware of numerous companies either selling or buying. To get a sense of what's going on out there, and what companies are looking for, three CEOs of top software and solutions companies kindly volunteered some of their limited time to sit and field questions.
We had Kevin Carbone of Scala, Tamara Bebb of Spectrio and Rick Mills of Creative Realities.
My initial thought was that I'd be moderator, but I quickly realized that I was needed in 15 different places in the hour before the formal mixer started - talking to my check-in team and to staff at the venue. So I drafted Christian Armstrong of Spectrio, who has lived this both by looking for potential acquisitions when at Industry Weapon, to experiencing the transition after that company was acquired by Spectrio.
I didn't do a transcript for this as there are four people speaking, and it would take a bunch of time to assign names to comments from an audio file.
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Wednesday Oct 12, 2022
Marian Sandberg & David Drain, Digital Signage Experience
Wednesday Oct 12, 2022
Wednesday Oct 12, 2022
The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED – DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT
Digital Signage Experience is coming up in four weeks and I suspect a lot of people are very curious about how the long-running show will be rebooted by its new owners Questex.
I certainly am, as I had long thought the old DSE was a dead trade show walking, and that something different was needed.
Is this it? I dunno, and I guess the industry will find out in a few weeks in Las Vegas.
I asked Marian Sandberg, who runs several shows for Questex, and David Drain, who was brought on by Questex to build the programming side of the event, to join me for a chat about what people can expect from a new and different DSE.
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TRANSCRIPT
Hello, thank you for joining me. Maybe the first thing to do is: Marion and David, explain what your roles are at Questex and DSE.
Marian Sandberg: Sure. Thanks so much for having us, Dave. It's really an honor to be with you and your audience and to have an opportunity to talk about this.
I'm Marian. I am the Vice President and market leader for Questex. I oversee the DSE show, which we acquired last year, and we have not presented yet. It'll be presented in November, which is what we're gonna talk about, and I also oversee a show called LDI, which I know you'll have questions about.
And market leaders tend at Questex tend to have two or three or whatever number of shows that they have under their portfolio?
Marian Sandberg: Sure, yeah, that's exactly right, and tend to be in verticals that make sense together, if you will. So I oversee a couple of brands that have to do in some way with technology. We have verticals in hospitality, bars and restaurants so they're clumped together.
Okay, and David?
David Drain: David Drain. I'm the director of event programs for DSE. So DSE is my sole focus at Questex.
And a lot of industry people would know you from your dark past with Net World Alliance and The Digital Signage Association?
David Drain: Yeah, it changed the name to Digital Screen Media Association for a while.
So you've been around the industry forever?
David Drain: Yeah, I have. I attended the first DSE in 2007.
Yeah, that's early. I think the first one was in 2005 or something like that or maybe in 2004.
David Drain: 2004, but I wasn't there.
Yeah. I started in 2005, so I've been going even longer than you.
David Drain: Yeah, you win!
Marian Sandberg: I can beat you both, but not in the digital signage area with our LDI show. I've been with that brand since 2004, so a little one-upsmanship there.
There you go. You must be so proud. Alright. So how is planning going? As we're speaking, it's about four and a half weeks out.
Marian Sandberg: It's going great. We're super excited and when we get to this part of the year, frankly, because this has been more than a year in the making we're just ready to get out there and produce the show. We definitely have in the weeks rolling up still sales to do, and still registrations to bring in. But in terms of producing the show and the things that we know we're gonna offer that's mostly set, right? So we have all these great networking experiences we're excited to put forth, and as we're right across the hall from our LDI show, we're really excited to see the synergies there.
When we acquired this brand, we did a lot of due diligence. We spoke to tons of customers and tons of attendees, so those customers as well, to see what we should keep from the old show and what we should bring back, and I think the number one thing that we heard from people was maintaining the sense of community for the digital signage industry, that it's a dedicated show and that people still wanna come together in that community that maybe isn't addressed by other events. So that's been our number one focus, and we're in the home stretch now.
Yeah, I'd certainly got that impression as well when DSE went down. I thought that it was a show that for many years was in trouble. You could see it in the diminishing numbers and diminishing enthusiasm in a lot of ways. But the overarching thing I heard after it went down was a disappointment because there needed to be some sort of an annual event, at least in North America that really pulled together the industry, so to speak, and was the only thing people were talking about that week versus like an Infocomm or ISE or those kinds of shows, which certainly have digital signage as a component, but it's one component among many endings.
You could bump into people in elevators and see they were going to the same show and realize we have nothing in common other than we're both generally in AV.
Marian Sandberg: Yeah, and I think that was obviously one of our main focuses from the beginning in acquiring the brand is we immediately saw the value we knew of the show and of the market, although no one on our team back then had worked directly in it, and then bringing professionals on who were very much veterans of the market, like Brad Gleason, who joined us very early on, and David, of course, who has been running a curating and will be running a fantastic education and content program.
People have been really supportive of that effort and from the beginning saying, we absolutely want there to be a show in this market, specific to this market and there's a need for it.
Because the old show has had its hair, so to speak, there are things that people loved about it, things they didn't like about it.
I've been referring to this as a DSE reboot that maybe isn't all that fair, but it's what I'm going with, and I'm curious what you think in terms of how would you position the show? Is this DSE 2 or should people go with the idea of don't expect what you saw before?
Marian Sandberg: Yeah, and I think that's a great question because I think we would be really remiss if we did not acknowledge that we are bringing DSE back in a sense, right? We're not gonna abandon everything that DSE was and that we want it to be, and people have asked us for it to be. So we have no intention of reinventing the wheel in that case.
However, from our experience, and again from a lot of the outreach that we did, I think our intention is to put a new spin on it. Now, when you say, reboot, I absolutely agree, and I think that's gonna be maybe a little bit of a challenge for people to get their heads around.
David has said it quite eloquently, we wanna really hold onto the things that people liked and maybe not the things that they didn't. So some of the new things, for example, which I guess we consider new. We know that networking opportunities have always been super important. So now that we're right across the hall from the LDI show, we are really trying to leverage those two audiences without cannibalizing, and I don't think there's a lot of potential to cannibalize those two audiences anyway. We hope to bring in some new people and some new buyers, and we're tracking our registrations very closely, of course, and the kind of demographics that we have. And to date, I checked them just yesterday in preparation for this, of course, half of our registrations have never been to DSE before. Now I'm not talking about LDI people, I'm talking about people registered directly for DSE and as event people, as event producers. That number is super encouraging to us.
Now it could be in the last three years that we've just gotten more people in the industry. We all know that during the pandemic, on both sides of our business, people have left the industry, and people have come into the industry. It's just a natural ebb and flow when you haven't had a show in three years. But that number, even if you expect a lot of new people it is a great statistic for us that there are that many new faces. So we really hope that people coming to the network are gonna meet new people, but like-minded people like your reference before about having that sense of community and people who do similar things. But also that, of course, we want our exhibitors to meet new customers. So that's a really important thing for us.
For the people who don't know LDI, can you explain what it is? I've never actually been myself, even though I've certainly heard of it.
Marian Sandberg: LDI is a 30+ year organization and brand. It is a trade and show conference that addresses what we affectionately refer to as entertainment technology. So that would be basically everything in and around a stage except the performance. So concerts, touring, theatre, even clubs, venues, lighting, sound, staging all that kind of technology that goes around a performance or in a venue, and so a typical exhibitor at LDI would be moving light company, intelligent lighting as it's referred to in that in that sector or consoles. if you were at a concert and you wanna go up to the console guy or gal, ask for the set list, that stuff that's behind that in that pit is stuff that you would see at LDI.
So there's technology and creativity factor there that I think sits well along DSE so maybe there are people who do similar, are somewhat like-minded, but do different things. So I think it'll be interesting to see, who crosses over and comes together,
Yeah, I guess the crossover as you say, more than anything would probably be the backdrop displays that you increasingly see with touring acts and the technology that drives those displays like LED backdrops and transparent or semi-transparent, LED backdrops, all that sort of thing.
Marian Sandberg: Yeah, absolutely, and the sort of persona who would attend LDI could be anything from very creative type, Let's say a creative director for a show, a lighting designer, and then, someone those folks usually tend to be creative and technical, and then we'll have very technical people who are like tech technical directors at a theatre or production manager for a concert tour.
And just like the way that AV and IT are worlds that are converging. The live events world and digital signage are converging to some degree because I spoke on a podcast a few months ago with the guy who does the wow factor stuff at the new arena in Seattle for the NHL team there and he was talking about programming at building not just what you see at the pre-show. It's the whole darn building that's coming together. I suspect that plays into how live events will increasingly be done.
Marian Sandberg: Yeah, it’s interesting, we use the term, experiential, right? And immersive experiences and the thing that I think is so interesting, having come from that LDI world and that entertainment technology world is that, if you go to a theatre it, okay maybe immersive isn't the word, that kind of means something different. But experiential is what entertainment already is, right? You go to the theatre to experience something, you go to a musical or a concert tour, to be in this experience, and over the last few years, the way people are buying materials left and wanting to relish experiences. It's interesting how areas like retail and venue design and even museums are taking a cue from entertainment and that's what experiential really is, right? It's about being entertained more.
So in a way that sort of LDI world has been informing a lot of other businesses in our spaces. So exactly what you're saying is if you're walking down the street and all of a sudden you're seeing all this fabulous screen, that content is trying to draw you in. Cuz it's being paid attention to, cuz you have to work harder to get people's eyeballs these days.
Can we talk a little bit about where you're at in terms of numbers and how they would compare to the old DSE that we know?
Marian Sandberg: Yeah, absolutely, and I'm glad you brought up the reboot. We are thinking of it exactly the same way. So we don't have any intentions of trying to compete with the last 2019 DSE. We've had shows in our portfolio that was a record year and of course, the pandemic happening, we're cautiously optimistic about kind, trying to get back to those numbers. So especially with DSE that hasn't happened in three years, we don't think we're gonna replicate that in any way, and that's fine. Our goal for this show is to be between 4,000 and 5,000 registrations. We're absolutely on pace to hit those numbers. We're really pleased with the way registration has been picking up and people registering for content.
The new certification that Bron Consulting is running for us. It's not new, we've newly added it let me be clear. It's the same certification you all know and love. So yeah, the numbers are really encouraging to us and I think what we're gonna see, I think is gonna be surprising for people in the next four weeks is how much our registration picks up, right before the show, traditionally the last six, to eight weeks of the show or when Red registration really hits, and we saw that from the numbers in 2019 also, right? So when we acquired the brand that's just the way the show paces we're absolutely on pace to hit that 4,000 to 5,000 number.
Is that number unique registrations or is that roll up people from LDI who have opted to come over or whatever?
Marian Sandberg: Nope, that's absolutely DSE distinct registration. For the LDI show in 2019, we had 16,000 people registered for LDI. But like an average for LDI would be 12,000 to 13,000. So the numbers for DSE are unique.
So Potentially you could have a couple thousand or more people drifting over from the other show hall to wandering into DSE, cuz I think you have reciprocity, you can get into one or the other.
Marian Sandberg: Yes, your badge for DSE or LDI can get you into either one or the other as well as there are some great offers and discounts for the conference on either side, which are obviously, paid conferences. But also some of the networking events that are being offered on both sides I think is gonna be really nice benefits. Just an example. LDI has always had great after-hours nightlife offers. With your badge, you can get into a different club each night, and if you don't know, the clubs in Vegas are very expensive, right? It's not like your $10 cover charge to go see a band at your local club. They're very expensive. We have great deals with LDI that we've been able to extend to the DSE audience to go to a club, for example. Your badge gets you into the club, for free, which can save in some cases 70 to 100 dollars a night, and then we have some networking events. There's an on-floor party if you will, a networking reception for LDI that DSE guests will be invited to, and vice versa, LDI people will be invited to the DSE opening reception, and we were really careful, obviously, to not have them overlap or compete with each other.
Cause we want these two to come across the aisle, as it were. So I think that's gonna be interesting to see, and the LDI community, they're curious. They have that tech curiosity and that creative curiosity. So I think it is absolutely reasonable to think we might get a thousand or so people coming across.
So you're at parity or maybe even ahead of, ultimately ahead of what past DSE have done in terms of headcount, and with the spillover from LDI, almost certainly, where I sense that it's not going as swimmingly would be on the exhibitor signup side?
Marian Sandberg: Yeah, we are where we've expected to be. I know that you love to look at the show floor as you should, and when we were in South Hall, when the show was in Southall, before my time, obviously, the show floor looked different. But I think that our expectations for relaunching the show were exactly where we wanted to be.
We had expectations that were in line with, we have amazing exhibitors presenting, and we have over 90 varieties of exhibitor sponsors, people who are gonna be partners and presenting in some way, and I'm not talking about speakers, I'm talking about people on the show floor, and then I think probably in the next few weeks we're gonna see that number go over a hundred. So that's perfectly respectable, and we're proud of those numbers.
Yeah, in certain respects that's a reboot and it's a startup again cuz you're having to win the confidence of vendors who have had a rough couple of years anyways and when DSE went down, I don't know if all of 'em were left whole after that. That's somebody else's story in argument, but yeah it, you couldn't, I would imagine just expect that, hey, all you guys who used to do this, come on back.
Marian Sandberg: Yeah. There's so much more of a story to tell there too, isn't there?
We have to regain some trust. We have to have people, who really loved that event and kind of look at us and say, Who the heck are you guys? Which is all stuff we expected. Early on when one of the first things we did was form an advisory board, and I know that you've reported on that, now.
Probably everybody on our advisory board and really we wanted that input and that help, and that was just kind of part of the research we did from the beginning. What was good, what do we wanna change? And I just think that journey has also included spending a lot of time with customers and there's absolutely our sales team talking to people, 3, 4, 5 times. It's not a slam dunk and that's okay. We didn't expect it to be, We never came in here with. Some kind of ego that we're event producers. So we could just walk into a new industry and take over a brand and do it without thinking about it with our eyes closed.
We're good at producing events. We have a lot of leverage across our company with other verticals that we can look at to draw other buyers that maybe didn't come in from the acquisition, from our regular DSE lists, but we're really excited about presenting to those people. That kind of is where those first-time attendees are coming from.
I'm also curious, you've mentioned the community a number of times and the appetite and aspiration for the industry to get together. If you build an event around attendees, particularly if you're offering a lot of free passes to get into the show proper, then you really have to lean heavily on the exhibitor dollars and sponsor dollars and all that to do it.
So does that become a challenge long term, that you've gotta build up that trade show side of it for this thing to work? Or can it work the way it's positioned right now?
Marian Sandberg: We intend to grow the show? There's no question, and David can talk a little bit about the conference program also but, of course, we need to have a viable business here.
There's no question, and I think also, bringing in the right people and making sure that the audience is there was absolutely paramount for us, especially the first year. If you have the right people in the room and you have the right buyers in the room, the exhibitor's gonna be happy and they're gonna come back.
And I think it's a two-sided coin. You have to keep feeding both of them, right? To make everyone happy. The attendees wanna see certain exhibitors, the exhibitors wanna see more of, X, Y, and Z types of attendees. Yeah, our long-term plan is absolutely to keep growing. And we'll see how that goes. We have some plans we won't I won't reveal yet for next year, but I'm sure we'll wanna talk after the show.
That was one other question I wanted to ask you, Marian, just before we jump over to David on programming and so on: for 2023, is it in November in Las Vegas?
Marian Sandberg: Yes, and I bet you're gonna ask about the Formula One race.
It will be in November, we are gonna move it about a week early. Yeah, we looked at that and thank goodness, being in production, we were hearing from all kinds of production folks about that kind of thing before it was even officially announced.
We were talking to the LVCC about doing it earlier and, we could try to produce something during Formula One, which would just be crazy. But even just for our exhibitors and visitors, we don't want to position the show to make it cost-prohibitive for people even to stay in hotels or have hotels sold out. So just moving it about a week or so earlier is just gonna be the solution.
Yeah, that's gonna be like a CES week or something. Just insane pricing for everything and impossible to get around.
Marian Sandberg: Yeah, exactly.
Good move!
Marian Sandberg: Yeah, thanks.
David, tell me, you're somebody who has been to DSE many times, very familiar with it.
So if people are coming up to you knowing that you're involved now and they're asking, okay, what's different, particularly on the programming and education side, what are you gonna tell them?
David Drain: When I first joined Questex, really my first job was to think about the program and to focus on the conference and the education and the speakers. And so wanted to do that first, and that's, I would say, how we built the program and ort of the exhibitors came later, right? They needed to see what it is you guys are gonna do? What's your plan? And working with Brad and with Marian we looked at the flow of the event and so I think it's got a slightly different flow. There used to be a lot of conference programming before the show happened, and so what you're gonna see this year there is some programming in the morning, just before the show opens. Some, a bit of uninterrupted time during the show floor hours with some on-floor sessions and then ending the day with more sessions.
Really we have three keynotes. I don't know if DSE has done that before. So I think that's different. We will have one each morning. We're very excited about those, of course, Rafiq and Jason Cothern from SoFi Stadium talking about that 5 billion mixed-use development with the stadium and the retail and all that. Having everything from wayfinding to digital menu boards to of course the huge halo infinity screen by Samsung. So I think there's gonna be something there for everybody, and then, Nveen from Google, who you also interviewed for this podcast.
We've got a great lineup and the program came together in three ways. There were things that I developed. There were things that are Association partners like DSF and DPAA and OAAA developed, and then we got session proposals from folks, so we really tried to curate the best agenda that we could and so I think that people will see an increased focus and concentration on the content and the programming, and building on what Marion said earlier, I think just the number of networking events throughout the week and then the crossover with LDI, I think that's what's gonna feel different.
I heard there's a mixer on Wednesday night.
Marian Sandberg: Mixer. I'm so pleased that you're bringing it to our show. So we can't wait to attend and we're registered, so we're showing up.
Good. I'll make the bouncer aware.
One of the things as the education programming curator, person, organizer, whatever you wanna call it, is you, I suspect, have to walk a bit of a tightrope at times, because you have paying sponsors who perhaps have expectations, realistic or unrealistic around what they can say and do on the stage, and you have to balance those needs with the needs of the audience because God knows, maybe not in the most recent versions of DSE, but earlier year versions of it, one hell of a lot of the presentations were just like product pitches by sponsors, and I would sit down, listen for two minutes and I would go and leave, and that's a tough one to manage, isn't it?
David Drain: Yeah, and I've been managing these types of events for a number of years and so I certainly know about how important it is to make sure that it's got an education focused and so when I was building the program, really sponsorship had nothing to do with it. When I was building the conference program, what we determined as the best topics and the best speakers, and the program really came in process of building this show before the exhibitors that there really wasn't that kind of impact. We do have the on-floor sessions, and those are sponsored. We make that clear on the program.
Those are kinda product demos and things, right?
David Drain: They are product demos and even encouraging those speakers, those sponsors to have an education focus so they teach rather than pitch.
Yeah, I always tell people, look, if you just get up there and pitch, people are gonna leave. If you say smart things, you will leave the impression that this guy and or this woman and this company seem to know what they're talking about, so maybe I should have a chat with them after.
David Drain: Yeah, be a thought leader or present a case study, and then people will understand. You'll have an opportunity to tell them what your company does. You don't need to spend all that time going through the features and benefits of your product.
Without trying to put you on the spot, are there one or two sessions that you know that aren't keynotes but are ones that you think are gonna be particularly kick ass and ones that people should have a look at?
Marian Sandberg: You're asking to choose a favorite child. You're asking him to choose a favorite child, Dave.
David Drain: Yeah. There are just a number of great sessions and if you go to our agenda, there is a way to filter by type. So if you're into digital out of home, you can see the programming aimed at that, and I'm excited you know about the session you're moderating and I'm really not blowing smoke here.
Denny Levine came to me and proposed that session, and of course, he put together an all-star panel and people are very interested, obviously with these Vangogh experiences, immersive experiences that have popped up and been very successful around the world. So I think that will be similar, there's another session with Moment Factory and Dimensional Innovations on transforming lobbies into experiences, that's pretty exciting.
Yeah, you got some good people like Jackie Walker who was just like, when I talk to her, I just, I always hang up thinking, that's a smart person. She knows her stuff.
David Drain: Yes, and I listened to her podcast that she did with you and so certainly when she wanted to do a presentation, I'm like, yeah, I will just give you the room. You're gonna do great, and people will walk away with a lot of great information.
All right, so wrapping this up. This has been a great chat. If people are undecided and are on the fence, but hearing this and think, oh, maybe I will go, what do they need to do? Where do they go to find out more about DSE?
Marian Sandberg: Yeah, they can go to digitalsignageexperience.com. As we rebranded also, so it's digitalsignageexperience.com, or if you have any questions, you can certainly just email me, I'd be happy to answer, and my email is msandberg@questex.com. I would love to have your feedback,
I suspect it's ddrain@questex.com, right? I'm smart that way, it had to be something. All right. Thank you so much for spending half an hour with me. That was terrific.
Marian Sandberg: Thanks for having us. We're honored.
David Drain: Thank you, Dave.
Wednesday Aug 17, 2022
Tom Goddard, World Out Of Home Organization (WOO)
Wednesday Aug 17, 2022
Wednesday Aug 17, 2022
The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED – DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT
The World Out Of Home Organization has been around for decades, but under a French acronym that didn't mean a lot to much of the world. The non-profit changed its name from FEPE International to its new handle a few years ago, and has never looked back.
It now has members from all over the globe - with outdoor advertising companies of all sizes and stripes signing on to benefit from lobbying, networking, policy discussions, standardization, research and education.
The organization also does a heavily attended global conference each year, as well as at least a couple of regional versions in APAC and the Middle East.
I had a great chat with out of home media veteran Tom Goddard, a London-based Irishman who gives his time and experience as the organization's President and Executive Chairman.
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TRANSCRIPT
Tom, thank you for joining me. Where are you today?
Tom Goddard: Yeah, nice to be here, David. I'm in sunny London. We're having a Mediterranean type of summer, which is a hit and miss here, but we're having a lovely summer at the moment and I'm right in Hyde Park, so I'm looking into the park and all the joggers. So it's a lovely spot, it's about 28 degrees, so pretty cool.
Hopefully you have air conditioning!
Tom Goddard: Yeah, but I hate using it. I've had to use it a bit lately, but yes, I do.
So you are the head of the World Out of Home Organization? Can you give me the background on yourself and what that organization is all about?
Tom Goddard: Yeah, of course, David. For my sins, I'm President of the World Out of Home Organization, it's an honorary reposition and the World Out of Home Organization is a not-for-profit body and its purpose is the same now as it was when it was set up 63 years ago. It's really to drive sector growth.
When the organization was set up in 1959 by Jacques Dauphin who was one of the pioneers of French outdoor media alongside JCDecaux, it was originally called FEPE which is short in French for Federation European Publicite Exterieur, and in later years, it expanded outside that footprint and became a truly global organization. So in 2018, we decided to rebrand as the World Out of Home Organization, which we launched the following year at our Dubai Congress, which happened just before the pandemic, and so we're now the World Out of Home Organization, but we are 63 years old.
Yeah, I have known a few people who would make reference to FEPE all the time, like Sheldon Silverman when I was in meetings with him, and I didn't know what he was going on about, but when the name was changed, I was like, “Oh, now I get it!” It’s a more universal name.
Tom Goddard: Yeah. It's very plain and it says what it does.
With regards to your background, are you a media owner guy or an agency guy or something else?
Tom Goddard: Yeah, I'm a media owner guy. I come from the media owner side and I've had a long career on the media owner side, all the way from a small company started in Ireland to running the International division of CBS Outdoors, as it was then called. More recently I was the chairman of Ocean Outdoor in the UK, which is one of the leading digital out-of-home companies in the premium sector.
Are you still active, or are you still working?
Tom Goddard: Yeah, I'm still pretty active. I just stepped down from Ocean, just about a year and a half ago, but but I have also got a business called, Out of Home Capital, which I've set up with with eight other very experienced out-of-home professionals, and it's a global advisory business that helps all sectors of the out-of-home ecosystem to achieve their strategic plans. So I'm busy with that alongside my active work in the World Out of Home Organization.
Out of Home Capital, is that also a funding entity or purely advisory?
Tom Goddard: It's mainly advisory, but we do have access to capital sources, and we do advise, for example, out-of-home media owners who are perhaps getting ready for a sale or getting ready for an IPO, we do advise them on how to go about preparing for that and also we have sources that we can recommend in terms of of capital investment.
Is that a going concern that keeps you busy or is it one of those things that's a little little bit of peaks and valleys, where a project comes up and you're all busy and then there's not much going on and you can relax and then something else comes up.?
Tom Goddard: We set it up a couple of years ago and within two weeks we had our first project, which was a New York Bank making an investment, needing a due diligence report, and since then we've been steadily busy, including working for a large private equity operator who were examining the potential sale of Clear Channel’s European assets, and we have three European city projects at the moment where we're advising European cities on their out-of-home strategy and on their smart city strategy.
So it's really getting traction now, David, and when we set it up, we wondered how it would go, but everybody seems to tell us that there was a gap in the market, there was a need for this global advisory business and that seems to be the case.
I did a lot of consulting for a bunch of years now. Now, I'm just focused on Sixteen:Nine, but I would get emails and phone calls from people asking about whether I could do advisory on digital out-of-home and I would just flat out tell them that there are other people out there who know a hell of a lot more about that particular side of the business than I do, and I would point them that way, because it's just not my thing.
And we’ll talk about it later, but I’m eternally confused by the whole programmatic business. I understand it at a macro level, but boy, it's complicated.
Tom Goddard: Absolutely, but if you get any more referrals, just send them my way.
But interestingly there are not a lot of advisory units out there who really have the depth of experience needed. For example, we're just in the process of advising a large Asian media player who wants to get a tall hold in Times Square in New York, so you can get things like that along with major retailers who are looking to maximize their digital assets in their supermall.
So there aren't many companies that have the ability to assess the audience value and also know about the aesthetics and the environment.
So how global is the World Out of Home Organization at this point, are you covering every continent and how many members do you have?
Tom Goddard: Yeah, it's really taken off in the last few years, particularly since we rebranded, David, it's amazing what that has done, but we now have over 150 members worldwide. That's mainly large out-of-home media owners like Lamar, OUTFRONT in the US, and then JCDecaux in Europe, Out of Home media in Australia, Phoenix Metropolitan in China, and we also have lots of national out-of-home trade bodies, like the OAAA in the US and FAW in Germany, Outsmart in the UK and the Outdoor Trade Association in Japan.
The other good thing about our organization is we also admit service providers in the out-of-home sector like Daktronics and BroadSign in the US are members and most of the ad tech providers like View and Hivestack and Vista are members, and of course all the major BD buying agencies as well, Kinetic Talent and Rapport. So we totally embraced the entire 37 billion out-of-home ecosystem.
So if you want to be a member or you're considering being a member, it's not really the case where you go, do I join World Out of Home, or do OAAA or whatever, you can be a member of all of them, and it's not a conflict, and you're not choosing sides?
Tom Goddard: No, in fact the World Out of Home Organization is an international global body whereas the trade associations like Outsmart in the UK and the OAAA in the US are mainly national associations, and what we do is we connect with them and help to amplify the work they're doing and also help them to develop standards and best practices. So it's an entirely complimentary thing that you would join.
And also you would join it to be a part of a sort of a sharing and learning platform and to get access to our extensive database and active networking forum, and of course you get favorable discount rates to all our events. Somebody said to me recently that our annual Congress is really now a must attend event.
Is that the big thing, the resources and the conferences and so on? Are those kinds of the main motivators for joining?
Tom Goddard: They used to be, David. We used to very heavily rely on our annual Congress which is highly attended by the senior people in out-of-home. But we are now doing our annual event, we had one recently in Toronto and next year's is in Lisbon in June, but we're doing two fairly major regional events. We've got one coming up actually in October in Southeast Asia for APAC and that's based in Kuala Lumpur, and we've got one coming up in February in Dubai covering the MENA region.
So the events are a big attraction, but there's a lot more to the organization now, including monthly global Zoom calls with members, webinars and lots of other stuff that's going on throughout the year.
Is it a case where you have media companies, particularly those who cover multiple companies competing in many respects, but this is a forum where they can collaborate and share ideas and the competition goes away for at least a little bit?
Tom Goddard: That's a very astute question, David, and that's the tightrope all trade associations walk and what we do is we try to focus as hard as possible on sector growth and all the things that contribute to sector growth. And what you get is fierce competition locally at national level, between out-of-home media operators, both at the media owner and the media agency level. But there are lots of areas where it makes sense to collaborate and cooperate at association level to drive the sector because there is hard evidence now that a 1% sector growth is five times more valuable to your bottom line than a 1% growth within the silo.
So when you talk about the sector, are you talking at a macro level about out-of-home or digital out-of-home?
Tom Goddard: I'm talking about out-of-home at a macro level, and don't forget that, 63% of global revenues still come through the classic out-of-home channel or static, as I think you call it in the US, but that is obviously tipping year by year in favor of digital.
Some markets are at 80% digital and other markets are a lot less than that. I never foresee a situation where the market will be all digital. But I think the majority will be digital, but there will still be great work to be done with classic billboards, doing directional work for the likes of McDonald's and other big retail operators.
Yeah, there's any number of instances where I've seen digital in play and thought that wasn't necessary, it was almost like they did it because it's digital, that makes it shinier and newer and more attractive and a poster, a printed stock would've been just fine.
Tom Goddard: Yeah. I guess because of the capital investment required, out-of-home media owners are pretty cany when it comes to the ones that need to be digitized. It's usually a very high value site. Sean Reilly at Lamar has a statistic that shows something like 4% of his inventory produced 27% of his revenues. Forgive me if I haven't got the numbers right, but we are moving into an era now where less is more. So I think you'll see a rationalization of out-of-home inventory around the world, but it will be higher value and more digital.
Yeah, I'm curious if your organization has a role in mentoring a lot of the startups that come along? These are the companies that want to put screens on everything, I just wrote last week about a company in London that's putting them on delivery scooters, and I tend to roll my eyes on a lot of these new kinds of efforts, but I thought that one was actually pretty spot on given the way London works and everything else, but there are so many dreamers out there that think they can put a screen anywhere and it's the road to riches route for them.
Tom Goddard: Yeah, as we would say in Ireland, David, “God bless them!”
We would say, “Fill your boots!”
Tom Goddard: The simple fact is you put multiple screens where there is a huge audience, and on the back of delivery bikers is not exactly the place to get a return on that investment. But I think that there's always gonna be left field entrepreneurs coming into the industry.
Where you see the big changes is with the high value sites around the world, and of course, lots of advertisers are cleverly using trophies or marquee digital sites on their social media as well. Most people who buy space in Times Square or Piccadilly Circus in London get wonderfully extended coverage and amplification on social media. So I think, in terms of dynamic content, in terms of the fact that involving memory and encoding digital motion really scores very high in those areas.
So is that part of the reason why you're seeing like lights, particularly in Asia, you're seeing a lot of these, anamorphic collusion types of creative that they are hoping will also get picked in social media and so on, so it's extending the reach?
Tom Goddard: Absolutely, David, this is a really very exciting new innovation and Ocean calls it deep screen, and there are various sorts of versions of it.
What we're finding, which is very exciting in our sector is that there's two levels of creativity, the traditional great ideas that the great creatives come up with as well, and then there's the great creative technical applications, and what you've just described, that is a great example of the attention getting the ability of these deep screen ads and they just go viral on social media.
Yeah, I've found that there's only been a few campaigns that have somehow rather threaded the needle between really interesting visuals but actually an effective ad. There have been ones where I'm trying to figure out okay, who is even the brand for this, but once in a while you see the ones where they've managed to achieve both.
Tom Goddard: Yeah, the people who invest in these types of locations also use them as part of their annual reports in their own collateral material, they use them in their websites. They get tremendous mileage out of them.
Most of the great creative directors of our times always say, if you can get it right on a poster, on an outdoor ad, you get it right on all media, that's as true today as it ever was.
Because it's short and sweet and to the point, right?
Tom Goddard: Yeah, you've gotta get the message across swiftly and you've gotta be entertaining.
Yeah, I try to emphasize in my past life with consulting clients, that this is not a storytelling medium, it's a glance medium. You've gotta get your message across really quickly and somehow resonate with them.
Tom Goddard: Yeah, you're dead right.
One of the challenges through the years, particularly in the early years of digital out-of-home was getting acceptance from media planners and buyers, that they would understand the medium, that the level of measurement was good enough to mirror what was happening online and elsewhere, and it wasn't just guesswork about audiences. Is that a hurdle that's now being cleared?
Tom Goddard: Yeah, very much, and of course the research is very robust now, in terms of the work that digital out-of-home does.
At a broader level, David, we are now in a global media market that's all about screens, and of all the legacy media, out-of-home has converged best with the digital era, and is regarded really as text friends, so I think we now are an integral part of the digital screen world and there's a terrific amount of research to back that up.
We recently spent a year updating and distributing the audience measurement guidelines, because it didn't include digital in the previous version, and it now fully includes the digital part of our medium, so we're well covered there.
Is it possible to have global standards or is there just too many differences region to region or even country by country?
Tom Goddard: No, it absolutely is possible to have global standards, and that document, which is a 100+ page document put together by Neil Eddleston and Gideon Adey, two of the accepted global gurus on audience measurement, that has received tremendous endorsement from organizations who are all consulted in the process.
You can have a model that fits most markets that is adjustable for the physical state of the local market and the level of maturity in that market. But yes, the important thing is to try and have an accepted level of research across all the markets so that the CMOs are talking the same language when they're buying out-of-home.
I know you're not a hardcore technology guy, but I have to ask about LED just from the lens of LED has opened up the opportunity to get beyond standardized billboard shapes and standardized kinds of locations, so you're now seeing the sides of entire buildings, including the Burj in Dubai being lined with LE lighting that at a great distance can look like an ad.
Are we heading to a time where it's going to be like a few of the movies out there, like Children of Men or Blade Runner, where there are billboards on the sides of buildings and blimps and everything else?
Tom Goddard: I think we're there now, David, certainly in China. If you go to Shanghai, it will blow your mind, and what's great is that there was a time when out-of-home media owners didn't have the greatest relationship with municipalities in cities, but cities now and out-of-home media owners are working collaboratively to integrate great digital treatments in the fabric of the cities and to connect with the smart city technology.
I think most mayors in the world now would regard large format, digital media and small format, on street furniture units to make a statement that this is a progressive city, this is a city that's moving fast in the digital age, so I think we're there. I think you can do nonstandard formats, particularly on super premium, as we see, and even now, we see some incredible treatments, with groups of drones being brought in for special occasions, so digital out-of-home is really, as I said, of all the legacy media, it has embraced technology best, and I think is really well equipped. Because when we started this organization, when our forebears started this organization, it was for the same reason which was to drive sector growth. But then, the big tech guys came in with television and later color television and now out-of-home is competing against the tech giants that are preeminent in digital marketing and in digital media.
So we have to move along with that, and that's what we're doing, and this is why digital out-of-home is the second fastest growth medium in all of media .
Is it part of your organization's charge to demystify or simplify some of the enabling technology, because I'm somebody who's been involved in the industry at various levels for more than 20 years and I struggle mightily to understand everything going on with programmatic, and if I'm having trouble, I suspect a lot of other people are.
Tom Goddard: Yeah, you’re dead right. I've been banging on about this at various conferences. I think what we have is that programmatic is really simply computer-to-computer trading between SSPs (supply side platforms) and DSPs (demand side platforms) and it's gotten a bit complicated in out-of-home because we've added multiple layers on top of that, such as data stacks, real-time bidding capability, dynamic content, etc, and all these additions are meant to enhance the process and make it even more targeted and precise, but you're right, they also increase the complexity as well.
We often have programmatic panels at our conferences and I appeal to the panelists to speak English and stop talking in all their tech language and we are getting better, but I would have to admit, David, I think it's unnecessarily complicated, or we make it unnecessary complicated, and certainly that's something we need to work on.
Yeah, I wonder if some of it simply has to do with all the different vendors, almost inventing terms so that they can differentiate themselves from a bunch of other companies that are doing roughly the same thing?
Tom Goddard: Yes,. I think this gets back to my overriding point: our real competitors are not the other outdoor companies, our real competitor is at sector-level. So the more standards we have, the less complicated it is for media planners and CMOs to look at the medium and buy the medium, the faster the sector will grow.
You and I are absolutely aligned on that, and it's something that we work on constantly.
In terms of the overall organization, if you had to identify what your main sort of challenge or thing that you wanna accomplish in the next couple of years, what would that be?
Tom Goddard: Yeah, fortunately, David, in out-of-home, there are way more opportunities than challenges at the moment, but the ones that are in my mind that need more attention are audience measurement and sustainability.
We still have huge deserts, huge markets, and regions around the world that either lack or have suboptimal audience measurement systems, such as China, India, Southeast Asia, Latin America, and again, getting back to my point that if we can all get up to speed in terms of industry standard and languages, you know, I was down at the WFA, the world Federation of Advertisers Congress in Athens a couple of months ago, and listening to the brilliant CMOs talking on the platform there, and they look at things globally and they move around a lot, so it's very important for us to get all those markets that don't have audience measured, and we're introducing ourselves an initiative following our 100+ page guideline book called “Measure the World” to encourage those markets, to put the investment in through their national associations.
And then of course, the second thing is sustainability, which is a big challenge for every company and every citizen.
Yes, and I guess the other one that is steadily coming up is security and network security and locking down your billboards and your digital posters.
Tom Goddard: How do you mean?
In terms of not getting hacked!
Tom Goddard: To be honest with you, David, it's a very rare occurrence, but it does get a lot of publicity when it happens and it's usually from a novelty point of view. I saw something a couple of days ago that was rather amusing, but it's very rare and our security levels are very high and that's why it's very rare. So I don't see that as an issue.
Yeah, I think the mainstream media companies certainly understand it. It's the smaller kind of entrepreneurial operators who are trying to cut corners and then they discover, “oh, we shouldn't have cut that corner.”
Tom Goddard: That's right.
So if I'm an organization that is listening to this and thinking, I wanna know more, I perhaps want to join the World Out of Home Organization. How do they find you?
Tom Goddard: As I said, the World Out of Home Organization is a not-for-profit organization. Our board of directors, which is like a who's who from the out-of-home media owners association, all give their time voluntarily to the organization. Its only function is to improve and promote out-of-home globally, and to drive sector growth.
The membership fees are pretty nominal and the value that you get from the association makes it a no brainer. So you just log on to our website and there's a place there where you fill out the application form and join, and we are enjoying a very steady growth of new members at the moment. But it's not just about getting membership fees to cover the basic cost of running the organization, it's about learning and sharing, and everybody, as I said in Toronto, at the Congress, whether you are big or small and you have a story to tell, we do a weekly newsletter and everybody has a chance to tell their story in that.
So from my point of view, but of course I would say this anyway, David, it's a no brainer to join the World Out of Home Organization. You are doing only good.
It's worldooh.org, correct?
Tom Goddard: Correct!
All right, that was terrific. Thank you for spending some time with me.
Tom Goddard: It was a great pleasure and I hope this nice weather continues, and let’s chat again sometime to see how much progress we've made.
Absolutely.
Wednesday Mar 23, 2022
Fred D’Alessandro & Eric Hutto, Diversified
Wednesday Mar 23, 2022
Wednesday Mar 23, 2022
The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED – DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT
New Jersey-based Diversified has grown into one of the world's largest AV integration companies, and certainly among the most active in digital signage.
The company was started almost 30 years ago by Fred D'Alessandro, who just recently announced he was shifting his role in Diversified to make way for a new CEO. He's still going to be very much involved, but says former Unisys executive Eric Hutto is now very much in charge of the company.
The two of them kindly set aside some time recently to talk about that big news, and what's ahead for Diversified. Among many things, we get into the steady convergence of AV and IT.
Fred also relates a story I'd not heard before, about how and why Diversified got started, which funnily traces to a job he didn't want at the Home Shopping Network.
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TRANSCRIPT
Fred and Eric, thank you for joining me. Fred, congratulations on your decision to slow down and Eric, welcome to pro AV!
Eric Hutto: Thank you.
Fred D'Alessandro: Thank you. I don't know about slowing down, but thank you.
Is this a transition that's about to happen or it's been underway for a while and you're now just talking about it?
Fred D'Alessandro: No, it's been under way and it has happened. So yeah, Eric is the new Diversified CEO and I couldn't be happier to have him on the team. Absolutely great move by us, and I'll say it by myself as well.
You finally did something right!
Fred D'Alessandro: Exactly, only took 29 years.
So why now?
Fred D'Alessandro: A lot of good reasons. I've been blessed to start Diversified in 1993, really as a startup, it's a garage story and to have the opportunity to lead it for 29 years, create a $1 billion organization, I think the first ever in our industry, which is, absolutely exciting and just a real honor, we have an army of industry expertise in the organization. But what the organization doesn't have is somebody with Eric's leadership at this level, when you're trying to build an organization that has a clear path to being a multi-billion dollar organization. So from,the strategy, from the vision, from the operations, how to, I would say, continue to exceed our client's expectations and our employees development, it's the right time and it’s the right team and the right place. So yeah, thrilled.
Coming out of COVID, we're financially sound. So now's the time.
So this is not just you deciding, you know what, I want to go down to Boca Raton and lawn bowling?
Fred D'Alessandro: No, I'm a young 63 year old, so I have a lot of energy. But you know what I feel why my value at this point in time for the organization can be used in other areas. I think strategic accounts and clients that I've known for years, employee mentorship, development, things that, again, I know that I'm really good at and I know Eric's really good at taking a financially sound organization, and I've said this in the past it's not so much about how big we are, it's just really continuing to be the best as we get bigger, and that's really important.
To me, as a founder, again it's about being unselfish and doing what's right for our customers, doing what's right for our employees, and Eric is the right guy to do that for us. So I'm excited.
So sometimes when a company is founded by a particular person who's still there and when they maybe not step aside, but step back into another role, it could be a bit of a balancing act to say, “No, you need to go talk to Eric about that.” How are you going to work that out?
Fred D'Alessandro: Yeah look, there's no ego in this organization.
I've met people there.
Fred D'Alessandro: There's no ego at the leadership level, let’s say that and I will be the first to say that, I am here in a different role, I've made that very clear over the past week to all the employees and that Eric is going to make the decisions on the strategy, the operating model, so the vision is going forward. I'm going to help him as a chairman of our Diversified board of directors. So from that perspective, I'll listen to Eric, I'll challenge him. But at the end of the day, he's going to make those decisions. And if somebody comes to me, I'm pointing them to Eric.
I said this again and again last week, I am very content with the role and making the decision to do this, and really to bring Eric on. We're fortunate to just think sometimes you need luck, and hard work brings that, but yeah, Eric's are going to be great for this role and I really feel he's going to take us to the next level and take our clients to the next level.
Was there somebody you knew or was this kind of a headhunter thing?
Fred D'Alessandro: So we did a search. Fortunately, the timing worked out so it happened rather quickly. I've spent the last month with Eric, spending a couple of days here and there just to get to know the person and to see how Eric would fit in the organization, and like I said, in many ways, I felt like his skills and tone were similar to mine, but his expertise and where he's been through his career, it's hard to beat. Like I said, it was a pretty easy decision on my part at the end of the day, after spending, like I said, the last month with Eric.
It's interesting. The pro AV community, particularly people like Gary Kayye, have been going on and on for some time now about how pro AV and IT are converging and pro AV people need to be thinking about this. So to bring somebody on as CEO who comes from pure IT services seems a really sharp move and something that had to be done in a lot of ways.
Fred D'Alessandro: I would agree with you. I think it is converging. It's been converging, it is more an IT managed services play in a lot of ways. And again, Eric’s expertise is spot on, and we have, like I said, we have an army of AV knowledge and expertise. There's no shortage of that at Diversified. Now it's just bringing that all together with everything else that's happening and training.
Eric, you come from Unisys IT services and consulting and so on. I'm curious from your background, were you hearing the same thing, but on the flip side that IT people need to be more aware of video delivery and AV in general, in terms of their overall practice?
Eric Hutto: Yeah, I think, the pandemic simply heightened it. We all got sent home. So if you think about the audio video, quality of calls and the ability to keep things running right, it is a bit different now and I think that forced people to get more educated, appreciate more of the components that go into it versus just servers and storage in clouds and I think it has merged the IT industry over 30 years and has just been completely collapsing all the stacks of technology, and now its technology product gets out and it gets software updated and it lasts for lot longer than it used to because it can be updated.
And I think that's where we're headed with this, I think of it as experiential experiences that we're going to be having in these environments. We're going to have to come together. The morning show can't be broadcast in the afternoon because you went down because of your cloud or your server or you were hacked. So I do think it is the natural progression to take all the sophistication that Fred and team have built around how to create a great experience in a stadium. But now we move just beyond that, to what's coming into the stadium, and how do we keep that under control? Because bandwidth and those things affect the quality of the experience.
I think of Diversified in deployment integration, traditional pro AV roles, but I know you also do services. Do you see Diversified getting more and more into the services and consulting side of the business?
Eric Hutto: Absolutely. Where we're headed with this digital world, It's all about design thinking. Now I do think that one thing that is core to Diversified that I've seen already is the ability to sit down and really design and layout to an outcome. Where we do that is in big, large, complex things. Not to say that we don't do that in Google Rooms and so forth. Now that's going to have to get a bit more sophisticated, right? As we bring cloud, bring security, bring software-defined networks into the conversation.
I think I was reading the other day just to get up to speed on what's happening in the business. They say that by 2030, there'll be another $10 billion invested in stadiums. So they're not standing still. It's not a place of slowness. It's speeding up, but it's going to speed up in a software platform as a service model, and people are going to be able to really track and see what's happening almost at the seat level, if you can imagine that at, in a stadium, when they're having a concert of what and how they move sound around. I think it's going to be all software and it is going to be really important.
I come at this from the angle of digital signage. So that's always what I'm thinking about and less so about some of the more traditional sides of IT and AV collaboration and that sort of thing. I've always thought of Diversified in the sense of the last decade or so as among the big integrators, the one that by far was paying the most attention to and most active in digital signage.
Fred, do you still see it that way or the other guy is coming on and realizing, “Hey, we need to do more in this area”?
Fred D'Alessandro: No, I would agree. I think, look, it's still a key business unit for us that drives a lot of value to our customers, and I think continuing to innovate. That is most important, especially in these kinds of markets.
So large network deployments, content creation is an experiential piece to what that digital signage is going to do for the eyeballs that are looking at it. So it continues to really be a focus for us and it is growing. Coming out of the pandemic, we have large opportunities to grow even bigger in that area.
One of your main competitors now has an experience design group for, big, wow factor, corporate office, campuses and things like that. You guys have always worked with the Gensler's and the ESI Design, that sort of thing, and stayed in your lane. Is it important to do what you're good at, but let the experienced people do what they're good at as opposed to compete with them?
Fred D'Alessandro: Look, that's always been my philosophy. Best in class, usually at the end of the day wins the day. When you're trying to create that total solution and you don't quite have the best people on your staff, it's usually not a good outcome for the client and that's what it's really about.
What is what's best for the client? I think our approach is the best.
The IT services business, and I guess to some degree, the AV services business has grown because you have enterprise level customers of all different stripes and sizes. I gather, saying, “We want to do what we're good at. So can you guys take this other stuff on for us?”
Are you seeing that and seeing growth in that area of being turnkey for a lot of these kinds of projects?
Fred D'Alessandro: It usually goes in cycles, but I do think that clients are realizing, especially on a global scale to have a single partner that could provide various solution sets that we have, and I think Diversified is the only company in the world, honestly, that has the portfolio of offerings, and then it's managing for the clients, all these different technology platforms and services and we've seen a tremendous uptick in that requirement and the ask of clients, the technology, even though a user base often feels easier to use, the behind the scenes, the back end and all that stuff, it's complicated, and so many customers don't have the staff that can actually operate or maintain the technology. So that's a big growth area for us, for sure.
Eric Hutto: One of the things that I've learned over 16 years in IT services is that it is a relationship, and that relationship is trusted and you don't get to be a trusted partner advisor if you’re making decisions that are oriented towards yourself, and I think Fred's right, it's always been outcome-based, and I do think that it gets hard to be the best at every single component of the solution, because it's so complicated these days. There's so many things that you have to consider.
I absolutely would and I have always leveraged specialty partnerships where they bring it. Even Apple doesn't necessarily do all their own gooey work for their applications and what we interface with because they're very good at what they do, and I do think that's exactly how we'll look at this going forward. Will we need to have some knowledge, onsite with us that understand cloud or security? Absolutely, you always want that, but we'll use strong partnerships in areas where people are really specialized to get the best outcome for the client.
Yeah. It would be difficult for you guys to hire on the level of creative to compete with the guys who you instead partner with?
Eric Hutto: Right, and that talent wants a place to grow, and we're not a creative company by core, even though it's something that we can do.
Yeah, you go into the kitchen to have your lunch and you end up talking to somebody who's a sales engineer and you can talk about football or baseball or whatever, but not so much about the core discipline.
Fred D'Alessandro: Yeah, and we're a company of scale. So again, you can't have one person that understands it and believe that you have an end to end solution, which is quite the story in many cases.
Eric Hutto: Yeah, and just the IT industry skills are going to evolve in our company. If you go back 15 years, you had storage people and server people and network people. You don't really have that as much anymore. They're still out there, but it's all converged and so integrated that we all have different types of enterprise, and I would imagine it will evolve as this stuff converges, as things merge, as we get more platform oriented software that helps us extend our services and capabilities of the people who will need, will grow into a different skill set.
Security has been obviously a huge component of IT services. Fred, have you started to see that becoming a demand on the AV side as well?
Fred D'Alessandro: It absolutely is a demand. As all the AV equipment, digital signage players have touched the network, it is absolutely a vulnerable point for IT. So yes, the bottom line is it's been going on and it's just every day gets more and more.y scrutinized and restricted. So you have to have that skill.
French. You mentioned that 29 years ago, this was a garage story. I don't think I've ever heard that, how the company got started?
Fred D'Alessandro: I'm a broadcast engineer by trade. I was working in the New York, New Jersey area for the station I worked for, I was blessed to be able to work in many different departments. So I got a well-rounded education for my first seven years of employment there and the home shopping network purchased our TV station when they started up, and it was a decision between going to work for the home shopping network and I'd taken a shot at going out there in the world and doing it on your own, and that's literally what happened.
I was like, “Let's go. Let's try to make something happen,” and yeah, and so again, we went everywhere up to 300 television towers, replacing antennas to studios. So yeah, absolutely whatever dirty work we could get, we did.
Wow, I had not heard of the home shopping network thing. I was like, do I want to spend the next 10 years sticking an ice pick in my eyes or move on?
Fred D'Alessandro: So that's why I say, things happen for a reason. I'm a true believer in that.
So today what's the scale of the company? You're much more than just a US company now and there's a lot of bodies, much more so even than 10 years ago.
Fred D'Alessandro: Now, our revenue is around a billion dollars. We have around 2,700+ employees worldwide. We have 52 offices, 35 of those are in the US, the rest are overseas. All our offices are sales, integration, and service. So they're not just sales offices. We build and service out of those locations, and about 80% of our revenue is out of the US and about 20% is currently overseas and growing and our latest international operation opened up in Bangalore, India and it is really exciting.
That's a big road trip!
Fred D'Alessandro: Yes, it is. But when I look at all the players in the industry, what I'll say is by far Diversified has invested the most internally to be a global organization. We use partners but our goal is really to be our own entity and work through the rest of the world, and provide our customers with a consistent and standard experience.
Have you been going to other countries because you see North America as somewhat capped out or crowded in terms of competition versus other markets, or is it just that there's a lot of growth potential in India?
Fred D'Alessandro: The view of this and the strategy has always been to be where our customers are. So it really had nothing to do with North America being saturated and there's no more business. There's a lot of business here going forward, but those customers that we work with and touch our global customers.
So if you want to service them the right way and the best you need to be where they are and so that's been our strategy today.
Is that a demand, when you're working, as you say, with a global customer, like a Fortune 100 kind of company where they want to roll in multiple countries and in the old days, you'd have to say we can do it here, and we'll see who we can find to do this in France and see if we can find to do this in Japan and so on?
Fred D'Alessandro: Yeah we want to make it easy for them to do business Diversified. So that's a saying that we've had in a company a long time: make it easy for our customers to do business with us, and so being able to work and have established entities in these various countries, you're able to buy in the country, you're able to transact in the country for them, and you just avoid a lot of the inefficiencies that you get when you're trying to do things from just the US.
Eric Hutto: Just like a lot of companies in IT, you get taken to places by clients, right? So you have to be able to operate where their clients took you. Over time, I think as Fred alluded to, we're going to have our competencies and our direct associates, if you will, but there'll be markets that we're choosing to be in because we see the growth in versus we got taken there by client, but we will always have the ability through partnerships and other relationships to service a client wherever they need to be.
I think that's the balance of, direct labor, indirect labor, having more of a variable bottle. It allows you to stay extremely nimble and flexible, but at the same time where you have decided to be in a market, that is where your associates are.
Has most of the growth that you've seen both domestically and internationally being through acquisition, or are you going into some markets and just opening up as Diversified and starting to hire and do sales?
Fred D'Alessandro: I would say all our expansion has been strategic. We've absolutely never just gone in and said, we hope there's business there and that we're going to sell. So I think Eric's point is very true, you look at what opportunities are in the country, and who our global clients are and where they are. So when you put those two together, you have a really large opportunity.
Eric Hutto: In my initial, what solid 14 days, Fred, what I have seen in talking with, and I've talked to surprisingly, quite a few people. That's just how I work and learn, I start at the frontline and work backwards. We are growing a lot and mainly from relationships we have because we're tried and true, and we've always done great quality work.
So I see a lot of organic growth really in this year, Fred, I would say because we've learned how to, really get in with a client and understand the problems and solve them and they continue to consume more from us, and as our portfolio expands and we're able to do other things besides just to your point earlier about integration and putting things in, we just continue to create a stickiness with our clients and create the value.
Where do you guys see the opportunity over the next couple of years as we get out of this mess with COVID?
Fred D'Alessandro: What I'll say is, I see a tremendous amount of opportunity with, like you said, returning to work is one, which obviously is the collaboration and that piece of it. I think when you look at how digital signage, how media, how IT are all stitching together these disparate technologies into one experience, for, I think our customers, their employees, their customers, is what is really exciting and the opportunity that I think with the pandemic brought a lot of new thinking into our organization about how we can help our customers, not just during a pandemic, but long after and make what we design, what we create, what we install and maintain more valuable than it was in the past. So there's a big opportunity in all these stitching together.
Did you learn things out of the pandemic as well?
I saw a lot of investments, a lot of marketing of products that were pandemic-specific like thermal sensors, temperature scanners, alternatives to touch screens and so on, and while there was a lot of noise around it, I didn't see a lot of commercial take-up of them.
Fred D'Alessandro: Yeah, I would agree. I think that at the end of the day, some of those were needed at the time, but, I don't think there's a future for a lot of these products. As I said, when you think to the core of what companies need to do, their employees need to collaborate. Those types of tools I think, we'll continue to add value.
When you think about streaming and media and virtual events, those will, I think, continue. So there are a number of things that I think the new workplace and a workforce will embrace, and I think it will add efficiency and it will be a better outcome for all.
Eric Hutto: It also gives us a chance to help companies rethink their work environment. Because even when I was at Unisys, we didn't have everybody coming back to the office yet, but as they start to come back, what kind of office is it, right? And really what people need is collaborative spaces where they can come, engage, connect, get things done, and then move on.
But I think that's a huge opportunity for us to, again, help them think through the design of what it is they want to achieve with their associate base when they do come back.
A lot of what I've seen around the workplace has been so focused on the front of house, so to speak, the white collar areas, the offices, and not that much about the production floors, the warehouses and all those sorts of things. Have you seen more understanding of that as an opportunity and a need?
Fred D'Alessandro: We see a lot of digital signage, IP TV opportunities in the warehouse workplaces, because corporate communications is key. I mean we have Rachel on the phone here with us, but I think that's one of the things that you learned, especially during a pandemic of how important communication is. So I think companies going forward will need to step up their game, to make sure that everybody is connected because everybody is now always in the office or in the warehouse these days.
So it's important, but that's where I see digital signage, corporate communications, IP TV really being the leader and that's what we do really well. That's an area we've been doing extremely well in.
So just the last question, what's been the reception around the industry to the news that you're taking on a different role and Eric stepping in?
Fred D'Alessandro: Well, from my perspective I'll say, look, everybody's congratulated me.
Are they saying, “Oh, thank God”?
Fred D'Alessandro: Exactly, to some degree. People are happy that I'm not going anywhere that I'm still around. But again, as I've made clear, Eric has the football now and I'm here to support him and I'm here to support the organization and our clients. So yeah, it's been really positive, very rewarding. I'm humbled by a lot of the emails and phone calls.
Well, congratulations to both of you and a pleasure chatting with you.
Eric Hutto: Thanks, I appreciate it.
Fred D'Alessandro: Thank you.
Wednesday Nov 10, 2021
Florian Rotberg, Invidis
Wednesday Nov 10, 2021
Wednesday Nov 10, 2021
The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED – DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT
The Munich-based digital signage consultancy invidis has been doing an annual yearbook publication for the past decade that is something of an industry bible for the European and Middle Eastern markets, and with each annual edition it gets a little more detailed and broader in its scope.
The company does a German version and another one in English to service the rest of the region. There are many, many industry reports out there purporting to have a real understanding and data about the digital signage industry, but most of those reports are expensive and frankly not worth the money.
The invidis yearbook, in contrast, is rich in detail, and full of insights from people who know the business at an expert level.
And the best part, it's a free download - with the report bankrolled by sponsor advertisers.
I caught up with Florian Rotberg, one of the principals at invidis, to talk about this year's insights, and why the focal point for 2021 was on what they call green signage.
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TRANSCRIPT
Florian. Thank you for joining me. You're just back from Dubai!
Florian Rotberg: Thanks for having me. Yeah, it was very exciting in Dubai at Expo 2020, and we spent a few days there. It was still very hot, but it's fascinating to see how immersive signage can be in today's show.
Yeah. There's digital signage all through the Expo site, right?.
Florian Rotberg: It's fascinating. It’s LED with a lot of projections. During normal times, you don't see that much projection, but in this special country pavilion, there were 180 of them, it's fascinating to see. It's also great to see what works and what doesn't because some of the countries run out of money or never really had a good plan and you feel it immediately. So you enter the room and go, “oh, that's crap, I’m leaving,” and unfortunately, sometimes you have to wait two to three hours at some of the very popular pavilions. So then it's not a good experience, but in general, it's fascinating to see what's the coolest thing.
It's not only LED and projection, but it's also how that's really integrated in architecture and not only how it integrated into the room, but also a lot of mirrors. So one of my favorite things, and I've talked about it many times before, it's really how you combine signage, how you combine LED or projection with mirror. You can do fantastic things and you see some really cool pavilions.
Yeah. There was a new observatory that just opened up in New York, overlooking Madison Avenue in Midtown and it's got a big LED wall, but it's also three levels of mirrored ceilings and floors and walls and everything else and reflects like crazy. I was trying to wrap my head around it, but it's that kind of thing where it becomes just an infinite space.
Florian Rotberg: Exactly, and it feels immersive and it can create great experiences there, and we took 1400 photos and 70 hours of video, so we’ll put everything together in the next week we would publish it on Invidis Meets World on YouTube where you can watch it and we will show a lot of other stuff also obviously.
What is invidisXworld?
Florian Rotberg: So invidisXworld is something we started before the pandemic, and we decided because signage is so much about content, so much about the whole room, it's not only the digital canvas, but how people move in front of the screen and what a brand or the vendors really want to achieve.
And so we decided, we have to travel. We have to go there. We have to talk with the people who designed it, and we have to just experience ourselves and then to tell the audience how it really feels. So we just hired the camera team, and we went off to Sweden and to Berlin which is still both in Europe, so it was easier to reach, and we spent a week there and talked with dozens of experts and visited museums. Some of the museums just opened for us because they were all closed because of a lockdown, and we went to Volvo, to H&M, to different places, to headquarters and talk with the guys who are responsible for that. It's a fascinating show and people like it and we get quite good feedback.
So we're working in a visual medium, and you're actually using video?
Florian Rotberg: Yes!
How clever.
Florian Rotberg: To be honest, I always thought photos are so cool, it's so easy, but unfortunately video is so much better, but it's very expensive. It's not just you spending a week somewhere, you have a whole camera team, and almost like a broadcast team, we have a video guy, sound guy, a producer, and you have to feed them and that is sometimes difficult. So you have to manage them almost like kids, but at the end of the day, you get some really good footage afterwards and it’s worth the trouble.
For people who haven't been to Dubai, as you say, it's fascinating. I find it extremely weird, but the degree of digital signage there, all these projects, and a lot of them are big budget projects, are they instructive or are they one-offs where you look at them and go, that's really cool, but, that's not something that's ever going to scale?
Florian Rotberg: It's changing. In the past, it was just about the “wow of the moment” and afterwards, they all forgot about it. Nobody cared about maintenance, and after a year it just looked horrible, because nobody invested in content and nobody cared about it, and to be honest, even till today, the majority of the digital touchpoints are still not really connected to any backend systems or so and there are various reasons for that.
One is when they open something and then they forget about it. People change jobs really fast. So even the person who is responsible for that leaves a job after a year or so, and so nobody has ownership anymore, and last but not least, these countries are relatively small, so reaching scale is very difficult, even for big chains, maybe maybe 40 stores or so getting scale is difficult.
And they're interested in the “wow” and unfortunately not so much until four to five or seven year long contracts.
But you said it's changing?
Florian Rotberg: Yep. It's changing, getting smarter, getting more connected. To be honest, the region is the most digitally advanced region with a very young population.
They have two-three mobile phones, and they're very open to all of this stuff. So it is changing, and we talked, while we were there, to one of the biggest telecommunication companies there, and we were at one of their flagship stores and they now have 170 stores and they have really good connections, and they really think in customer journeys.
We also visited a smart hospital, which was really cool. You identify yourself when you enter the hospital with your ID card and then it takes a photo of you and then you walk through the hospital and it detects you and makes sure that you're in the right room, that the right person is there and everything. So very smart and they’re really starting to think about journeys and to improve processes. So at the smart hospital, the process before was three days with all the examinations until you got to stand for your visa renewal, and now it's down to 30 minutes, which is incredible, and this is only possible with digital.
So I wanted to chat for a number of reasons, but the principal one was the yearbook that Invidis puts out. Could you explain what that is and how it works?
Florian Rotberg: Some people call it the Bible of the industry. I'm not sure if I would call it that, but yeah, it's an annual book we have been publishing for 11 year now and it's free to download on Invidis.com and it basically gives a yearly update about the latest trends. We have lots of rankings there, especially this year since it was quite interesting. You know, like the largest CMS providers worldwide, and which verticals are most important for digital signage, etc.
We just give an analysis of the market, what has happened and also an outlook on what trends are coming up and what to understand, and the main topic this year is Green Signage. I know many of your listeners are based in North America, but over here in Europe, it's a huge topic. During the pandemic, the interest in more sustainable solutions has improved dramatically, and so more and more brands are looking to also operate their signage networks more sustainably, and what's most interesting when we did all the research is that 80% of the carbon footprint of a digital signage project is during operations. So for five-six years, the whole thing is operating. It's not so much the production, it's not so much the shipping. Yes, it's still 10-20%, but 80%, that's the biggest lever, and so it's not only about buying a more sustainable, more conscious signage solution, but it's really about how to improve existing installations.
And there are so many things you can improve and you can reduce power consumption with the right content. Turning it off at night, it's so unfortunate that the majority of the signage runs 24/7 even if there are no people around. Kiosks systems, they all run 24.7. There's no reason if a kiosk system is somewhere on a factory floor and the floor is closed or in the evening, or at night, it's still running. In the beginning, especially with LEDs, obviously they consume a lot of power. So there are a lot of levers and ways to be more conscious and more sustainable.
Do you think part of that is simply the early days of the legacy of digital signage software and hardware is that you were afraid to kind of power it down cause it would come back?
Florian Rotberg: Exactly. Yeah, that's the main thing, at least that’s what the technical integrators always say. Some, especially on some more recent screens, turn off the sensors, the light sensors and everything because the marketing department wanted the red as close as possible to their official red and obviously that doesn't work if you change the brightness of the screen but things are changing really fast.
And what's most interesting now with the pandemic and about sustainability is that signage has become a CEO topic for the first time. In the past years, they never really cared about digital signage, but now they really have to report it to their shareholders: how they could improve operations, where they could reduce the carbon footprint and digital signage plays an important role.
Interesting. The yearbook is primarily focused on Europe and the Middle East, right?
Florian Rotberg: Yes. That's how we started. We started this in Germany and then we extended it and now it's more or less all over Europe and every year we add a few more countries. Last big thing was the Nordics, and currently we're working on France, Spain and UK, so next year, we will also have rankings for these countries, and yeah, especially in Europe most markets were quite national markets and now some bigger international players are really growing and Europe is seen as one market, and so it's important to have all of them and that includes the UK.
Yeah, despite Brexit. Is what happens in Europe indicative of what is happening globally or is it its own thing?
Florian Rotberg: The whole green stuff is probably the most advanced in Europe.
Yeah, you don’t hear about it in North America. Honestly, I've never heard anybody bring it up.
Florian Rotberg: Yeah, but over here, especially in the Nordics, it's very important, and just for example, electricity is 10 times more expensive in Germany compared to Korea, for example. Even the designers and the engineers who create new solutions, they're not aware of how important power consumption is and life is changing, and I think this whole climate debate we are currently having, I think it will become more important, not only in Europe, but also in the US.
I know that Europe and the Middle East primarily, I've heard other people talk about the real action these days being in China and in India and I wonder how hard it must be, particularly with China, to try to wrap your arms around who the major players are, what activities are going on, any of those things?.
Florian Rotberg: Yeah, China is a very difficult market. There's a lot of potential but it’s very difficult as an analyst, really, to look at the market and it's so different.
Interestingly enough, there are a few bigger digital signage integrators based in Europe and North America who also have offices in China and they’re pretty much doing this stuff for all the big luxury brands and so. So there's some European and then North American guys who really are trying to do stuff in Shanghai and the big cities, but the general market is just huge, and you probably talked to Chris Regal or so, because he's very successful in India and in China, but he's targeting more of the mid market and the European players, they're just looking at how to bring Italian and French brands to China.
And those European brands and other brands, would they rather bring familiar companies into the country to do that for them, as opposed to hiring local firms?
Florian Rotberg: At the end of the day, that's the case, but that's also with North America, that's the success of the media to be honest. Media’s strength in Europe is that they represent America, the American customers here.
So what is happening in terms of the yearbook? Obviously we're hopefully coming out of a rather rough couple of years. I noticed in the report that the countries in Europe, at least that had a particularly rough time were France and the UK versus some of the other countries that were down, but not to the same level. Why did that happen?
Florian Rotberg: Because of the lockdown. We had different levels and different lengths of lockdown, and just looking at Australia, they had a three months lockdown. Now that obviously has a huge impact because the stores were closed, and even if it's a brand that’s willing to spend money and to upgrade the stores, they couldn't because technicians weren't allowed to enter the stores.
I know, in past discussions around this, that Europe's an interesting market in that dominant players in many respects are dominant by country, as opposed to across the continent?
Florian Rotberg: That has been the case, absolutely. But this is currently changing. So we have, we call them the Top 3, they are the three largest pure play digital signage integrators, and they've all been acquired more or less by private equity and now they're buying competitors in the big markets. All three of them really try to grow into a pan-European or international player.
But in relative terms to the North American guys, AVI, SPL, Diversified and Stratacache, they're tiny, right?
Florian Rotberg: They are tiny. They hope to change that but they are very small. But to be honest if you look at AVI, SPL or even Diversified, they're not pure digital signage, they do a lot of Pro AV, IT stuff, so you should compare apples with apples, but still X times larger than the biggest in Europe.
AVI, SPL just announced, I think, it's called the Experience Technology Group. So they seem to be recognizing that they need to get more serious about signage and venue based displays.
Florian Rotberg: Oh, yeah, and I love what they do. They're really smart in creating this platform to manage different AV solutions and everything. So I think that it's a smart approach, and also now looking out to create more immersive experiences because if you have expertise there, you can really export it throughout the world. So that works quite well.
But in Europe, we still have the problem of 25 different languages and really creating concepts, which you need to understand the culture and yes, there's a big difference between Sweden and Spain or Italy and Ireland also. So really to understand that, and that was a reason why there were large local players and still, if you look how these big three or at least three for European sizes and how they're growing, they all built up little local creative teams and sales teams in each countries because you need to have this local expertise, you need to speak the language of the client, and you need to understand what they really want to achieve.
You've done a ranking of the Top 10 Global CMS software platforms, and I'm making some assumptions that there are some CMS platforms in China that you and I probably have never even heard of and that they are probably huge as well. But were you surprised by who showed up on this list?
Florian Rotberg: Some surprises, yes. I mean there's a small asterisk next to it. So it's just the best of our knowledge, obviously. I'm sure there are many but one big problem is always Samsung. They never report anything, and it's really difficult.
So the largest one is Stratacache. It's a little bit more than 3 million active licenses, and one of the surprises was that the top three players were Navori. I'm not sure if many of your listeners have heard about Navori. They're based in Switzerland.
They're pretty big in North America actually.
Florian Rotberg: Yeah, not so much in Europe, funnily enough, even though they came out of Europe and yes, they have more than 1 million active subscribers. So that's quite cool, and then you see some more vertical ones who are growing through acquisitions a lot and socialists like BroadSign, it's great to see. We have followed BroadSign for more than 15 years now, and it's great to see how they have become the standard in the digital out-of-home industry. It’s quite impressive.
Yeah, they've risen to a level where they pretty much own that vertical and I always try to coach software companies that you really don't want to be a generalist. You want to have a focus on something and they probably more than anybody have done that in digital out-of-home.
Florian Rotberg: Yeah, but the same with Four Winds etc., they all are specialists, or at least they are focusing more and more on certain verticals.
Yeah, Four Winds barely calls itself a digital signage company now. They're talking about the workplace and the same with Ops Space.
Florian Rotberg: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I think there was just an announcement in that space today.
So what are you seeing in terms of trends in the industry? As you mentioned, the shift to, or the interest in green signage is one thing. What else are you seeing happening out there?
Florian Rotberg: The biggest challenge currently across the world is to manage the supply chain shortage. Unfortunately, that won't go away in 2022. If you read the Financial Times, if you talk to all the people, you just read it every day and most people expect that to last at least until the end of next year.
And that's pretty bad news because the order books are as full as they were before. There's a lot of demand for signage at the end of the pandemic, and unfortunately 2022 will still be a difficult year. Secondly, we have a shortage of talents and whoever you talk to, I'm sure you also get calls about companies saying, we're desperately looking for a new manager and I get them every day and that's a huge issue and then shortage in diversity, shortages of women, of everything. It's still a very male dominated thing, and today InfoComm opened and I'm sure the majority of them are men, as always, and so we see these three shortages: supply chain, talent and diversity.
When I get asked to organize panels particularly with an organization like the AVIXA, which has diversity initiatives and everything else, they really encourage me to make sure that I'm finding women and people of color and so on, and I'm completely supportive of that, but it's hard.
Florian Rotberg: It is hard, yeah. It's not easy. I fully understand, but alsowhen you look more in the new work, in the hybrid world, it's all about hybrid and that's very challenging for everyone. It's easy to have everyone at home. It's easy to have everyone on location, but managing these hybrid workspaces is very difficult. How can you create meetings where everything feels included and often you communicate with eyes and with every single one that's very difficult to do when alf of the people are somewhere at home or so. So you need lots of creativity and innovative solutions to manage that. So that's also something which will definitely remain.
And we're seeing gimmicks coming up there, like this idea of the metaverse and using quasi holograms, so that it feels like you're sitting across from a real person when it's not obviously, do you see any potential for that stuff?
Florian Rotberg: To be honest, it's a one way road because it's nice for the guys who are in the office, but for the guys who are sitting at home in front of this small screen, it doesn't help them at all, and you need to have both sides and you need to empower both sides, and so I think at the end of the day, it's difficult to solve and we haven't seen any solution.
I think the cool part is teleportation stuff, and last week in Dubai, there was also an IT show. It was just the biggest and it was unbelievable how full it was like before the pandemic, and they had these cool mirrors and everything. So it looked like somebody was in the room, when obviously he wasn't. And so it's great to see, but it doesn't help people at home, and so that still remains a challenge.
And I wanted to go to that show. I've seen some videos of some booths from some companies, and it looked insane.
Florian Rotberg: It was, and a lot of booth people were waiting an hour more. Can you imagine that? Just to enter the booth because it was so full, it was unbelievable. We all had to wear a mask, no question about it, but we waited more than an hour just to get in. So yeah, it was amazing, and we produced lots of videos and we will publish that in the next couple of days.
It's really cool stuff, especially in regards to retail technology, all the cool stuff, all the fancy things were robots and solar, but also AI and how it really works, and then some simpler solutions in all of these checkout carts and everything, and also these devices which measure you so you don't have to find the right size without using camera technology, because obviously that's something which most people don't like. And it's interesting to see what kind of solutions there are. Much of the stuff, it's really something where you're thinking, oh, it'd be great. If they would roll that out in the future, the majority of them are still in the prototype phase, but hopefully we will see lots of this coming up.
Your report coined a term, “Deep Signage” which I had not seen before, but I understand it and this idea of integrating back office systems with other business systems within a company. It sounds like that, particularly in Dubai, is really coming into play.
Florian Rotberg: Yeah, we try to form this term, deep signage, because for us, it's important that you connect as much as possible, as long as digital is just a layout on something existing. It won't really offer the experiences everyone needs and the benefits. So you have to connect it to the back office, and especially when we talk about moving away from just digital signage CMS, all the way to a digital experience platform, then you need to mix everything and then really connect. So deep signage is something we believe is one step towards digital experience.
Yeah, and how do you define digital experience platforms?
Florian Rotberg: Oh, that's difficult. Yeah, when you download our book, we have a little picture there, and it's four stages. We start with a digital poster, which is the most simple one. Then we have digital signage, then we have a digital signage experience platform, and then the ultimate is digital experience platform, because there's a totally different approach to it, and when we talk about DXP, it’s not digital signage or mobile or online, which is in focus, but it's really the data, it's the experience which is in focus regardless on which channel you play it out, and it's really orchestration of all of the different channels and different stories and media platforms, and that's what digital experience platform is about.
But then many customers ask us who does it and who's good at it, and it's very difficult. There are only very few companies and most of them are totally vertically organized players like Zara,, I'm sure you know them, because they do everything, they own the factory, they own the warehouse, they own the shops, and they own the data and for them, it doesn't matter if you go into a store, try something out and decide to buy it online, because they own the whole value chain and this is one of the few companies who really are able to deliver a DXP and make the most of it, but more will come definitely.
If you're a smaller company, is it something you can even contemplate at a different kind of scale?
Florian Rotberg: No, it's not worth it. I think you need to be very large, to be honest, and to really put up a DXP project, you probably need a few million just for setting it up.
You mentioned private equity companies and some of the integrators in Europe, or are you seeing a lot of private equity activity?
Florian Rotberg: Yes, it’s unbelievable. So much money in the market. That's the reason that conservation is speeding up so fast, it's unbelievable.
Why do you think that is right now? Is it distressed companies?
Florian Rotberg: No. We were surprised not at all, but maybe that's also a European thing because the governments took care of that and so most of them kept their employees, which is a good thing now, because they didn't have to retrain new people so it's not about that.
It's more about that the crisis wasn't really an economic crisis. It was more of a human crisis, and so most companies still have a lot of money, except if you are a Chinese real estate company, then maybe you don’t. But in general, they have a lot of money. The private equity companies, they're looking for new ways of spending it, and they all buy into the digitization of stationary retail. They fully understand that times have changed and you can only survive if you're fully digital, and so that's probably why they like it.
And then there are also some of the trends like we have the first valuation of more than a hundred million in Europe for an integrator, and this is one of the thresholds where, you know, private equity likes to come into the market. Zeta Display, they were almost at a hundred million valuation and it's not much compared to the top three in the US but for Europe, that's quite big, and that that made it really interesting for many others.
You also, in the report, talk about changing roles of the different companies in the ecosystem and how there are dinosaurs, disruptors and discovers. What do you mean by that?
Florian Rotberg: Ah, that's quite interesting, especially when you look at software companies, some of them are reinventing themselves, and in the past,, there was the value chain and there were clearly defined roles. There was an integrator, the integrator usually owns the lead with the customer and he chose certain software and certain hardware and that was it basically, and then you did some stuff in the back and, but I think Chris Regal was the first one, when he quit Scala, he said “oh, I'm sick of just having 3-5% of the project, I want to have more”, and so he decided to build around software this whole end to end solution.
And then other companies, software companies from Sweden and other parts of Europe, they're really also trying to change the way the value chain works. So they really want to be ISV+. So they want to do everything except hardware . Obviously the investors love that because that's every single sale which would have recurring revenue and nobody wants to touch hardware, and Chris Regal always tells us that you need to also to understand how to learn, to manage it. Otherwise the service you mentioned will be really expensive. So it's interesting to see if this ISV+ model will work out for them.
So that sounds like the dinosaurs are those who refused to adjust and adapt, and the disruptors are those that are doing things differently?
Florian Rotberg: Yup. We have some smaller, more aggressive players coming into the market and also players like Spector, many people hadn't heard about them and now they have become really relevant
And there are also companies that, in some cases, are very large companies that can come into the market from outside, like consulting companies like Deloitte and so on and disrupt things as well, right?
Florian Rotberg: Absolutely. On a different level, but yes, Accenture, Deloitte, all of these guys and they are really close to the big enterprise. So usually they do at least double digits, sometimes triple digit contracts with blue chip companies every year and they're trusted names. So it's an easy one for BMW, Adidas, Nike, or whatever to hire one of them and to ask them to create a new digital concept. Unfortunately, most of them don't know how digital signage works.
Yeah. So they always invent this great stuff. It looks fantastic on PowerPoint and everything, but then at the end of the day, they need to subcontract it to the signage contractor to solve the whole thing and make it work, and we have also seen the big four have failed as a digital signage company, and so it's interesting, but eventually they will buy some digital signage companies I think.
Or hire smart people, you know? Over here in North America, I think about Gensler and Publicis Sapient, and they have some super smart people working for them now who really get this space and get the technology and everything else. So they're getting there, but it's a very small percentage of people within very large companies..
Florian Rotberg: You mentioned Gensler, it's fascinating, and I'm sure we talked to the same people there and it's really fascinating how with new projects now, they make more money with digital stuff rather than the traditional architectural stuff. So that's fascinating. Not revenue wise, but from the bottom line, and that's interesting to see because if you do digital consulting, obviously your margin is higher than with your standard architectural work. So it's fascinating to see how architectural companies like this are really getting into the digital space and if you don't see it as just a layer really integrated, you need to plan it from day one.
Last question: Is there a piece of technology or an emerging technology that gets you particularly excited?
Florian Rotberg: We are both not the youngest anymore. We have seen many technologies come and go, and I know one thing that never works is 3D.
So we were a little bit surprised to see how 3D in this false perspective on this LED wall worked, but I still think it's a hype, to be honest.
Analytics, sensors, and IOT will make a difference, no question about it. But it’s not one technology, it's more, I think a mindset of connecting everything and measuring everything and adapting to the audience in the milliseconds. I think that's something we're changing. It's probably a whole range of different technologies.
Yeah, I'm of the same mindset. I tell people that the stuff that excites me would probably bore the pants off of them, and just in terms of its the operational stuff is being able to affect messaging based on what the data is telling you, and it may be really boring saying, go this way instead of that way, because that's too busy over there or whatever, but that's fabulous stuff and it makes a difference or whatever venue it is works.
Florian Rotberg: Exactly. It's more the stuff under the hood, which really gets me excited and that's also where you can really improve processes where you can really add value, and so that's what we are mostly working on, and obviously customers want to pay for the glittery stuff on top of the rest. But no, but that's where we see the biggest changes happening in the future.
So if people want to read the 2021 year book, how do they get it?
Florian Rotberg: It's free to download at invidis.com and I think you also published an article, so you can also find it on your website a link to that, but it's free to download, it's 200 pages and not only this year's edition, but if you also want to read some auditions, please come to our website a and download it there.
And you're able to produce it for free because you get advertising sponsors to support it, right?
Florian Rotberg: Yes, but it's still more work than we get from advertisements, I can tell you that
It was a pleasure catching up with you as always.
Florian Rotberg: Thanks for having me.
Wednesday Sep 22, 2021
David Labuskes, AVIXA
Wednesday Sep 22, 2021
Wednesday Sep 22, 2021
The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED – DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT
There is a whole pile of back seat driving happening lately in the pro AV and digital signage communities about how to run a trade show in the COVID-19 era, and much of the focus has squarely been on Dave Labuskes, the CEO of AVIXA, which runs InfoComm and co-owns the even larger trade show ISE.
The show is happening in about a month in Orlando, and with other big trade shows saying never mind for 2021, there are endless questions and suggestions about the prospects of the show even happening.
It will, says Labuskes, unless there are measures like government-mandated closures. Given that the show is in Florida, that's probably not going to happen.
Labuskes has done some frank interviews lately that went into deep detail about InfoComm and COVID, and the business. I spoke with Labuskes late last week and did not see the value in rehashing and revisiting a lot of what he said, so in our chat we talk a little about how things will come off and why. But we spend a lot more time on bigger picture stuff about how trade shows fit, and whether a niche industry like digital signage can find a well-defined home and community at big, omni AV shows like Infocomm and ISE.
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TRANSCRIPT
Mr Labuskes, thank you for joining me. I wanted to get into a number of things, but I also didn't want to just rehash some recent conversations you had in an hour long interview last week with Tim Albright from AVnation that went into a lot of frank discussion about where InfoComm is at and everything associated with that, but I can’t cCompletely ignore that, and I just wanted to ask, where are things now , has anything changed in the last week since I watched that interview?
Dave Labuskes: Mr. Haynes, it's good to be here. There have been a couple of other events that have announced cancellations, but there's been nothing that's changed in AVIXA's policy with regards to InfoComm. We still see a runway to a fantastic event with fantastic people conducting fantastic business.
It's been described as being the last trade show standing this fall, but that's not really true. There's all kinds of events going on here, there, and everywhere.
Dave Labuskes: Yeah. There's a lot that's described that isn't necessarily really true, David. But yeah there's events and trade shows happening every day, all around the world, and I'm actually a little confused. For an industry that is really based on overcoming challenges and doing the impossible and making things happen that nobody believed could actually happen, there is that sort of a sentiment that trade shows can't take place right now and that just simply is not true. They're taking place every day.
So I have mixed opinions personally. I was supposed to be doing a mixer down at InfoComm and decided not to do that, and that wasn't really so much about I don't think InfoComm should even happen or anything else, it was just as simply a fact of, I didn't quite see how a cocktail party, where everybody was wearing a mask and being asked to stand six feet apart would work terribly well and the optics were weird.
It's one of those things where I could see a trade show happening, but I didn't see that happening well, and we don't need to get into all of that. I'm curious more about whether or not you're enjoying all the armchair opinions from people who say what you should be doing, but have never actually run a tradeshow?
Dave Labuskes: Before I had this job, I was a partner at a large architectural engineering firm, and one of the gentlemen that was on the search committee that was interviewing me for this job, James Ford, owner of Ford AV and I'll never forget where he was sitting in the boardroom, he leaned forward and said, “Dave, you've got a really good gig, like why would you want this job?” And I'm like that's a great question, and I try to answer it, and he's like, “But Dave, here's the thing: You're running one of the largest consulting practices in the world and if you have a management meeting and you decide to go liveleft, then everybody's going to leave that meeting and they're going to go left, and the jobs that you're interviewing for you and your team are going to decide to go left, and then 50,000 people are going to tell you, you should go right!”
I actually celebrate varied opinions. I do think a lot of people express an expertise that is perhaps inflated in their own perception. Trade shows, they're a complicated industry. I've been doing this now for eight years and I have people on my team that have forgotten twice what I'll ever know. The interplay between the various different constraints, the challenges that people throw out there as though they're simple challenges. Yeah, they're a little frustrating, but I signed up for it. Nobody made me do this job. I was forewarned, so maybe I'm the one that has an exaggerated impression of my expertise.
Is part of the problem just simply that it's Florida and Florida is this eternally weird place at the best of times, but it's got a particular problem and people all the way up to the governor of the state who don't seem to recognize that, “Hey, maybe there's a bit of a problem happening here.”?
Dave Labuskes: Yeah. I think I'll be a little more politically correct than that, and it was nice for you to try it, but it isn't my first rodeo here.
(Laughter) I wasn't trying to bait you. I just think that's a big part of it and the people, the armchair opinion makers who say why don't you just move it or why didn't you just do it in another city? There's a little bit of baggage associated with doing that but just simply speaking, it's a part of the country that has a particular exacerbated problem, but doesn't seem to want to recognize that it has an exacerbated problem.
Dave Labuskes: It all comes from the jurisdictions and it all comes down to point of reference, right? You can also just say, is it the problem that the event is in the United States, right? Because if you look at the United States and compare the United States to other countries, we're not necessarily getting a straight-A report card.
What I have said, and I know we don't want to have the same conversation I've had already with others, is that I don't think the brush that should be used in making that decision is Florida. I think the brush that we should use in painting that picture is Orange County. There's parts of California that may or may not be behaving in the same fashion you or I would do.
So I think you have to look at where are you going to fly into, where you're going to be, where are you going to have dinner, where are you going to sleep? Those types of things, and when you get to that stage orange county this morning had 79.4% of their population over the age 18 having had one shot of the vaccine. They've got a mask order that was issued by the mayor strongly recommending that masks be worn inside any public space. They've got plummeting hospitalization rates, death rates, positivity rates at 12.4%, I believe.
So, I think, unfortunately the world and this country and all of the states have this polarization thing going on, and yeah, would it be more comfortable for people to attend an event somewhere else that are looking from afar and don't take time to do all that research? Probably. The headline, the abbreviated picture, is challenging, but I do think that there are people that are going to make a decision that attending a trade show weighed against other factors just isn't for them this year, and I think they'd make that decision regardless of where it is.
Yeah. I guess that's the other thing that you didn't know you were signing up for was having an extensive ability to talk in genealogical terms.
Dave Labuskes: This is a true story, David. Last year, I came home from the office, and at dinner I said to my wife and son I spent an hour today reading a scientific study about the efficacy of washing your hands with cold water versus hot water, and that is not something I ever anticipated taking place in my career, I will admit that. (Laughter)
By the way, it is just as good. You just don't tend to wash them as long because it's less comfortable, but...
I'm just impressed I was able to say epidemiology.
Dave Labuskes: Happy with that. These are words that were not part of our vocabulary two years ago, right?
Just drafting off of some of that: CEDIA which AVIXA has a relationship with because you co-own ISC had their event last week or the week before in Indianapolis and I won't go into how that went business-wise or anything else, but I'm curious if you had AVIXA folks there and did they see how things were done? I know they had signage and kind of cues on whether you are comfortable with people coming close and all that sort of stuff. Did those things work?
Were there things that you learned from that you can take away and apply to InfoComm?
Dave Labuskes: First part of the question: No, we didn't have anybody from AVIXA at that event that I'm aware of. Not that I know of, but I'm sure there were people there that were AVIXA members. We do have a close relationship with CEDIA. Obviously we have a partnership over a very large joint venture that owns and operates ISC and ISR and DSS. The show itself is owned by Emerald Expositions, and we have our conversational talking relationship with Emerald as well. In fact I have a call next week with Emerald to talk through lessons learned.
I was in Louisville, Kentucky a couple of weeks ago at a SISO conference, which is the Society of Independent Show Operators. So it's Emerald, Informa, and mostly the for-profit trade show organizers and AVIXA was invited to attend. The industry of trade show organizers and meeting planners and event planners, we've joined arms and we recognize that this is a problem for all of us that we have to share best practices with, we have to share learnings with, we have to talk about what works and doesn't work.
It's kinda like the AV industry and as I'm learning more about it, the digital signage industry where people compete, but they also have a comradery where a rising tide lifts all ships kind of a thing, and so I think all trade show operators are working through this, associations as well are famously collaborating with regards to sharing information and learning and helping each other. So that's a good part of the pandemic.
I would imagine one of the things that all these organizations collectively learned, if they didn't already know it, is that the whole virtual trade show thing just really doesn't work. Does it?
Dave Labuskes: It certainly didn't work in v1.0 of 2020. I think v1.5, and we're starting to get closer to 2.0, I think there's hope for it. The best visual I saw over the last 18 months is talking about books versus movies, and you don't convert a book to a movie by putting it on a podium and filming somebody turning the pages. And I think that probably is a closely apt description of what we all did with our first version of the virtual events. But I think you can tell a story, very effectively in print or in film, leveraging and celebrating the differences of the media.
Where I am at now and where AVIXA is driving towards, and you'll see more developments about this in the next couple months is more about how AVIXA delivers on its mission, leveraging physical events and digital platforms, and how do they interface and interact with each other? How do they mutually benefit each other? What's good in one, that's not good in the other?
Not a lot of good, special effects when you're reading a book, but a lot of great imagination when you're reading a book. Not a lot of ability to be character development through introspection in a movie, but it's really easy to do that when you're reading.
I think if you look at education, you look at delivery of information from provider to consumer, that can be done pretty effectively digitally. I think about human interaction and the break time during class is almost impossible to create digitally. That doesn't mean it is impossible. So I see a lot of assumptions that we made in order to achieve X, we needed to convene people face-to-face being challenged. But I also think that all of the pundits that got online in March and April of last year and said, this is the end of face-to-face, and we're going to be digital for the rest of our lives, have seen that they were probably not right with that either.
I think the one thing that I took away, or what I have enjoyed about these virtual events is the ability to attend round tables panels presentations on demand. So I don't need to be somewhere or sit at a certain place, set aside things then at 10:00 AM, I'm going to watch this.
Just the simple fact that I got stuff going on. I can't do this today or right now, that I could click on it and see. Yeah, somebody from Brand X explaining this to me on my terms, and if I'm bored, I just click out, I don't have to stand up and walk out of the room and embarrass the presenter or anything like that. That part I like.
Dave Labuskes: I do too, and that's the irony of it is. If one of the things that all of us like is the absence of time and geography constraints, right? So it doesn't matter if that panel discussions take place in London or Nova Scotia or Orlando, you can still receive the outcome of that panel.
Why are we saying that they should be organized and delivered between 9:00 AM and 4:00 PM Eastern time on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week? That's where I get to this. I think it's more about a digital presence and digital community, a place where people interact when it's appropriate for them to interact, where they can organize their interaction times.
I'm old enough to have been in chat rooms on Prodigy and AOL and you remember you would organize with people like I'm going to be on at eight o'clock tonight for an hour, because you can only afford an hour. Because we were charged by the minute, and then I think that's what we have to recognize. So in that regard, I'm really excited about the fact that I'm not a trade show organizer, instead I’m an association that is committed to an industry and an industry community, and what I can do is build that community both digitally and physically.
What do you think of the suggestion that the days of the big macro show are cloudy and that regionalized events make more sense, so an InfoComm Southwest, an ISE UK, that sort of thing? And granted that was tried a little bit in the past year, but that was out of necessity as opposed to design.
Dave Labuskes: Yeah, I'm intrigued by it. But I think the loudest proponents of it are the attendees, not the exhibitors and the attendees don't pay. Doing ten small shows only costs a little less than doing one big show or less than doing then ten times doing one big show. The cost of doing a show has a fixed amount. Even in the smallest show, you're going to pay an X and then get to the big show, you may only be paying 2X where if you're doing a regional show, like 10 times, you are close to 10X, and your ROI on each of those events is smaller because your audience is small.
Now that's using all the old rules. So if we go back to the last question, if I can segment an audience for an exhibitor and say, I'm going to bring people that have spending authority over half a million dollars that have a project next three months, it's going to require a high-end audio system. That's going to change that algebra, and so I don't think you throw it out the window, but economics has a factor in these things and it's easy to say I would rather go to a small event in Nashville, but the problem is I have to find somebody to pay for it, and even if you say I'm happier to go to a small event in Nashville, I bet you don't want to spend $195 for a ticket to go to that event?
I get the hunger for it. I get the desire for it, but I don't see a business model around it right now. We've never been successful at small events being profitable. There have been good strategies like, before ISE launched. We did small roadshow events from country to country, it was before my time, but I hear stories from the old timers about the amazing sort of experience of going from hotel room or hotel conference to hotel conference across from Warsaw to Budapest to Rome type thing. And we've done them in advance of launching our Bangkok show. We did it in advance of launching our Mumbai show, but those become feeders to a larger event that has a more sustainable business model. We did a lot of what we used to call round tables, for example, we did the AVIXA round table in Baltimore where you'd have 15, 20, maybe 30 people come to them, and so you were spending a lot of money on an event that served 15, 20 or 30 people, and we just felt like there were better ways of spending the industry's money than that.
The demise of Digital Signage Expo certainly raised the eyebrows at AVIXA and got you guys thinking, although you've always had digital signage as a component, you've had pavilions for many years, but there was an opportunity and a sense that something needed to fill that void. Granted, it's been refilled to some degree since then, but the show hasn't happened yet so we'll see how that comes off.
How do you build up the digital signage affinity for InfoComm? Cause I've gone for many years, but I go to have a look at the gear. I'm not a gear head, but I write about it and everything else, but I don't really see it as an end-user show where a big retailer, those kinds of people are going to come to that they maybe they send their gearheads, but more likely it's the integrators that sell into big retail and so on are there are there, so how do you make all that kind of come together over the next couple of years?
Dave Labuskes: Boy, there's so much in that question, David. We should talk more often, I enjoy this.
Yes, it is an unfortunate demise and it didn't get folks in the AVIXA thinking. Yes, we've been looking at the digital signage industry for a long time. I do think it's a community within the larger industry that needs to be celebrated, and that's that other point with regards to small regional shows versus big shows. I think we see lots more shows within shows taking place, and I think that's probably the right solution, and I'm biased. I think AVIXA has the right place to build a home within a home for the digital signage community.
First of all: there was this interesting dynamic between the association and the show operator, right? From an association perspective AVIXA has been having conversations with DSF, with DS-LATAM, with digital signage of Asia, and the various different entities in Europe. When you move from our association to association, one of the ways I think I actually described it to Rich Ventura, he and I were talking probably years ago and it's like you and I, David, are best friends, but our dads owns the competing gas stations on the corner, and so we can go to school and everything and be friends there but when we came home there's limits.
That was kinda how I felt like it was and I felt like there's a window there to not have that dynamic. Now, some of that's changed and I respect Questex. I respect Paul and don't know him well, but I know him and I've had conversations with him and he's a smart guy and I believe he's committed to delivering a successful event. I think it's being honest, looking at what does an organization want, what is the community best one? And making honest agreements and commitments to each other, and then keeping them. There are advantages to working together, and I think the end goal is that “home within a home” and “a community within a community.”
I think the challenge and opportunity for digital signage and InfoComm is the scale of the InfoComm show and the specificity and the heart and relationship with the digital signage community, and I think if we work together, we can build that home within a home. I think it can be more than a guest room. It can be an in-law apartment. It can be a place where it's identified and that's, yeah, I'm disappointed that you're not going to be there, and I know the mixture is just one manifestation of that home within a home, and we look forward to being able to do it in the future.
Absolutely. One of the logistical problems or mechanical problems, so to speak, with a big show like an InfoComm is: yes, you've created these pavilions through the years of digital signage pavilion and some of the vendors have been in that, designated zone, so to speak, but the biggest players are the display manufacturers, and they've always had their spots, their Primo spots, and they're serving a whole bunch of audiences at InfoComm, not just the digital signage people. So how do you figure out a way to create a show within a show when you've got Sony in the front row, Samsung's got a giant booth in the middle of the hall and so on. You're never going to be able to herd them all into one hall, so to speak?
Dave Labuskes: Yeah, so what do you do then? I think what you have to do and we're down to the details of tactics, right? But I think you start to curate attendees' journeys. You use content as the honey to attract and people will come where content is and content can be delivered where people are, and that's the challenge of starting a trade show, but we've done that. We know how to form a trade show and it takes time and it takes continual feeding until it becomes a self-feeding cycle, and then you have to create a journey that is guided a bit so the attendees that are coming from retail or the attendees that are coming from the advertising agencies can get to where they will be able to extract value and some of that will require tour guides, not maps and serendipity, because it's too big to just let somebody lose, but we have that problem now with end users in general at the show, you described as gearheads, but about 40% of the attendees at a typical InfoComm are end user buyers. It's part of what makes that show so valuable to exhibitors.
A lot of them are brought there by channel members. The consultants are bringing their customers, the integrators are bringing their customers. But a lot of them are brought there by us too, with promoting them and developing conference content that would be of interest to them, creating a nucleus of community. It's all very explicit, but it doesn't happen by chance. There are hosted buyers that are brought in to shows around the world. There are groups that are sponsored. There are other associations that are partnered with. Richard runs our Asian subsidiary. He's a genius at identifying influential associations within the geographies and partnering with them to offer programs. Organizations like the Indian Architects Association are partnered with our InfoComm Mumbai event, and they are holding content conferences for architects in conjunction with our event. All of our channels want architects at it. Those types of strategies are part of the town and the team that works on these.
Last question, looking ahead a few months to ISE and it's hard to do the crystal ball thing, but I gather things are calmer in Spain. I don't hear very many people at all saying, hell no, we're not going to Barcelona or anything else, maybe that'll bubble up, who knows? But is ISC in Barcelona going to be normal-ish?
Dave Labuskes: Yes, I think so. Again, like you said, the crystal balls are not crystal clear and now, after the last series of conversations, I think I'm going to put the crystal ball into the same place where I put “pivot” and “agile” and “unprecedented” but yeah, the biggest indicator that you would have about and event like ISC at this stage five months out is sold show floor space, right?
I don't think we've even opened registration for attendees yet, and show floor sales are, I think they're probably about 8% off of 2020. I guess there's no such thing as quoting me because we're recording this, but it's within that ballpark of the size of the last event at the Rye, which is, really the last event to compare it to. So if it's 90% of that size, 80% of that size, I think that's, that absolutely fits into your technical definition of normal.
And there were lots of people who said, because you're going to Barcelona, as awesome a place as it is, it may mean you see a slight drop because people who might go to ISC in Amsterdam, because they can drive there, maybe would not go all the way to Barcelona?
Dave Labuskes: Yeah, but there's other people that are going to drive to Barcelona that wouldn't have driven to Amsterdam. And yeah not a hundred percent a repeat audience, but…
Well, I’m not driving to Barcelona.
Dave Labuskes: Yeah, me neither. (Laughter)
That's those armchair spectators that you talked about earlier, right? We did the homework to make a determination about that, and we love the Rye. We would love to have stayed at the Rye, but the Rye isn’t big enough to hold the show as it was moving forward in the future and it was starting to have a negative impact on attendee experience and you start to have those different factors impact a show and reach the value of the show.
I'll just be happy if I can find my way around.
Dave Labuskes: Yeah, it's a beautiful city. I'll tell you what it's like. It's the opposite of the Rye. It was one of the things I joked with Mike about. Finally I figured out how to get through the Eye without getting lost, and now we've decided to move the show.
Yeah, me too.
All right. I appreciate you taking some time with me. I suspect you're a busy fellow these days.
Dave Labuskes: Never too busy for you, sir. Congratulations on your recent deal. I'm really happy for you.
Thank you!
Wednesday Jun 23, 2021
Paul Miller, Questex
Wednesday Jun 23, 2021
Wednesday Jun 23, 2021
The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED – DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT
When news broke back in March that the live events and publishing firm Questex had bought the assets of Digital Signage Expo, there was, understandably, a lot of interest and speculation about whether that might mean the defunct trade show and conference would be revived.
It will be, likely around the same timeframe as the past, and back in Las Vegas. It is also likely it will have the same name - though it might just be called DSE.
What's also clear is that it will not be a simple re-boot of the old show - which makes perfect sense, since the Digital Signage Expo that ran for 15+ years would politely be described as spinning its wheels - with attendance flatlined and exhibitor counts shrinking.
I contacted Questex when news first broke of the DSE assets being acquired at auction, and have had a few conversations since then with the company, including its CEO Paul Miller.
I wasn't sure how much he could tell me, but we had a terrific, very open chat about what went down, and his company's thinking around a new and different DSE in 2022.
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TRANSCRIPT
David: Paul. Thank you for joining me. Who is Questex?
Paul Miller: Hi, Dave, thanks for having me first and foremost. Questex is a media and information services business that produces events alongside its media sites. We have been in existence as a company for about 15 years, just over. We are a company that focuses on really five or six markets, that is the life sciences and healthcare markets, the technology markets, and then we also focus on the areas of travel hospitality & wellness, and all of that is wrapped up around a focus on the experience economy. That's who we are and we do events, we do media websites, we do all kinds of connecting of buyers and sellers in those areas.
David: So of those properties that you have in the context of the Pro AV world, what would people who are listening to this most likely know, LDI or the Nightclub & Bar Show?
Paul Miller: Yeah. They would probably know our Nightclub & Bar Show in Las Vegas, mainly because that would have been in history. Some cases would collaborate with DSE and in some cases would just sit alongside so they would know that.
They probably would know the Lighting Dimension Show, the LDI show that you mentioned. Yeah, that's also one that is quite well known in this space. I would say outside of that, there are events that I think are relevant in the hotel area, in the spa area, in the gym area where we’re connecting owners of hotels & operators of hotels and gyms and spas with various people that want to sell into those spaces. So of course digital signage is a huge area for all of those end users. So they may not know those, but certainly, I think they're areas that we think are very relevant.
David: We'll get into acquiring assets of DSE, but I was curious when that happened, so I looked up Questex to see who they are and how they work and I get a sense that your typical approach is you have publishing wing as a foundational thing that kind of sets the content for that particular vertical market, and then you grow and market the live event off of that. Is that a fair assessment?
Paul Miller: Yeah, I think that's a good assessment, Dave.
We believe that we should be engaged with communities 365 days through the year because people don't always wait for an event before they make their decision. So we want to help them through that buying process through content that attracts them to our websites. As they interact with that content, we like to use that data to produce what we would consider a very relevant show. So when you come to the show, it's content that's been popular throughout the year, probably speakers that have been writing content that you can come and meet live. So we see a full connection between how people in the B2B world look for content, and how they go through that buying process, and the event is part of that.
In many cases, it's an exciting part of it, because people come to actually buy. In some cases, they come to network. In some cases, they come to get educated, and in some cases, all three. So, that idea that we would just do an event, and then see you next year is not really in our DNA. We're more, “Hey, we want to serve you throughout the year, and we'd love to see you live at the event if relevant.”
David: And I also get a sense that that the events look different depending on the vertical. So you don't necessarily do a full trade show with exhibits for a certain vertical because it really doesn't fit, whereas, for other verticals, it may.
Paul Miller: That actually is a really astute comment. I think sometimes in our world, not the digital signage world. This is our world at Questex. We sometimes talk about events a little bit like somebody saying, “I'm going on vacation to Africa,” and your first question is what country you're going to because you’re going to have a different experience depending on where you're going.
In the events world too, there are various flavors. In some events, it truly is sort of a cash and carry. You bring in your goods, you set up your store and people come in and they buy your goods, and there's nothing wrong with that at all. By the way, I do not think that applies to digital signage, certainly on the whole, but that there is a flavor of event that we do that sort of emulates that, that is very much you come in to buy stuff and the exhibitors are there to sell stuff and success is how much did I sell, frankly?
And then there are the educational type events which sort of surround large conferences. I think you'd be familiar with these: great speakers, good education, and some really good networking off-piece at the hotel bar afterward, et cetera, and then you can get into some really specific events which are matchmaking buyers with sellers. This particular buyer is looking for this solution and we're going to put you in a room with this seller. They tend to be more intimate, very VIP, in some cases, we will host those buyers. So we tend to be, and I think your comment is right on. We tend to look for what fits what element of the market at the right time.
I think where it gets exciting, Dave, and this probably leads us into sort of our thoughts around the Digital Signage Expo is that in many cases you can do all three. You can have a great conference, you can have a great show, trade show floor, and you can do great matchmaking, and it doesn't work all the time. We have a feeling that it is relevant to DSE from what we've been hearing from the market, but you're absolutely right on the money. We don't really have a one size fits all approach as a company, and I think given the communities we serve, that would be very difficult for us to shoehorn in certain templates if you will.
David: Right. So back in, I think you said it was April, but you acquired the assets of Exponation. What did you actually acquire?
Paul Miller: We acquired the assets of Digital Signage Expo which would have included the trademarks, the websites, the database, the customer database. I think that was about it. A few other URLs, websites that sort of surrounded the industry a little bit. But everything that Exponation had that was DSE-related is what we acquired.
David: And how did that happen? Was there like a Broker who came to you and said, “Hey, we have this”, or do you have people who just pay attention to this sort of thing?
Paul Miller: No, it was strange, to be honest. The last year has been strange in many ways. Firstly, we’re very aware at Questex of DSC. We had, as mentioned at the start, we had seen the show, we had visited the show. I wandered over to the show while at our Nightclub & Bar event.
David: Just to sober up? (Laughter)
Paul Miller: Yeah, actually, just to see what it's like at a B2B show that isn't serving alcohol, which is a different field, and actually we had been impressed for many years with the show. We certainly didn't really know the understories and what was really going on, but from a very shallow view, I would say, the show looked very professional. There were great companies, and there was good buzz, and we always said to each other that, that looks like a great event, and that was about it, just for the record.
Then I forget the actual timing, but sometime in the fall of last year, we obviously saw the story that Exponation had filed for Chapter 7, and that sort of alerted us about that a lot of us that are in the events business, the pandemic has been devastating. It wasn't that it was a surprise, but to be honest as having that sort of very narrow and shallow knowledge of the show, we were like, wow that's a shame that, that was a good looking event and we're probably going to see more of this was our initial reaction. Then what happened, Dave is that we got a notice from, I think it was the bankruptcy court. I can't remember who it was, but anyway, we got a notice that the assets were going to be auctioned to help raise funds, for those people that the debt was owed to if you will.
So we said, okay we like these assets and we've got some things that we could bring to the event, or this was before we knew, by the way, that might be relevant. So we entered into an auction process and it was the first time in my career that I've ever been through such a process and it truly was a person on the phone, basically banging the gavel and saying, “Yep, sold to the people at the back,” and that ended up being us. We obviously then did a lot of homework before we went into the auction. We got our hands around a little bit. What was the size of the show? What was the target audience for the show? What do we think we could bring to the show? And it checked a lot of boxes for us. Yeah, we went into the auction seriously and we won that auction, and then, of course, you find what actually have we acquired? And that was a fascinating sort of few weeks of research.
David: I've spoken with you in the past, I've spoken with someone else from your company and a consultant, Brent Gleason, who you've engaged to help out with this.
I'm curious, as you've done your kind of due diligence and exploration of the industry, what have you been hearing about the industry, your impressions on that, but also, we can go from there to what are you going to do?
Paul Miller: Sure. So firstly I have to say, and I think you know this that there wasn't a lot of ho-hum type of commentary in the research when we went to the industry. People were very passionate about space, very passionate about this product. Not all of it positive. I think there've been some negative experiences for certain people, but what we did find, Dave, was that this is an industry that is going through terrific growth and that growth looks to be sustainable, certainly, through the next half a decade if not beyond in our opinion, so great sort of 7.5% CAGR growth rates, touches a lot of verticals, and I know that people listening and yourself would know this, but this was our learning, touching verticals as diverse as healthcare, through to retail, through to hotels, houses of worship, hotels. So that was really interesting for us.
We also found and heard that the industry actually wanted a place to gather. They do see this as an industry that has its unique personality. It's not all about one thing or another thing, and there are definitely some trends that are coming in, the digital out of home space for instance, that in my opinion, is akin to what happened between print and the internet, back in the late nineties, a lot of data starts to be kicked off and a lot of backend technology starts to get into play. With digital signage becoming the forefront of that, it's where people first interact. So we got very excited very quickly. Some of the comments frankly, were hard to swallow or people saying, “Hey, the event was not what it used to be.” “It was starting to lose a little bit of its luster.”
Obviously when the show was canceled last year. Some people were really quite upset about the lack of refunds and what went on there, and I fully understand that. We had to cancel a lot of events last year as well. It was a very tough scenario for everybody, but the industry we felt as we got into it had an opinion, and it was a strong opinion and people wanted to talk. We had incoming people calling us saying, “I want to talk to you about what you've bought here and let you know what you've got.”
And actually Brad was one of those, by the way, Brad said, look, I have a lot of history with the show, and I'd love to help reinvent it along the lines that I feel, and I think what the industry feels it should have been going in any way. So look, we have the ability to “start again” in many ways. I don't think the Exponation had that ability. They had a product, they had to try to grow that product. We've acquired a set of assets, but we have a real strong ability to listen to the community and try to create a new experience for the community that they're telling us they want. And that's unique. So, we purposely were have been extremely patient. We just said, let's listen, and the more we listen, the more we're finding that the industry wants an event, it wants a place to gather, but it doesn't really want your grandmother's DSC.
I think the event has reached its limit, if you will, in terms of value and people wanted to do something else going forward, without losing some of the great things about the event, seems like it was a fantastic place for the industry to network and meet once a year. We don't want to lose that. That's a super reason for having an event. So, it's been a real experience. I mean, this is a very good acquisition from my experience, acquired through auction had gone into Chapter 7 through the pandemic and it has a set of stakeholders that really want to have a say. I mean, nobody said, sorry, I don't want to talk about it, or, I don't really have a comment. Everybody had something to say and I think that's great. That shows some passion. It shows some engagement. It’s just that not all of the comments were positive, I have to be honest.
David: Oh, for sure. When we chatted in the past, I said, I don't think there's enough to do at a trade show with a whole bunch of exhibit stands and everything, the way it was done in the past. There's a diminishing number of companies that want to spend those kinds of dollars, and I just didn't see it. Is that what you’re hearing more broadly?
Paul Miller: Not really, no. I get your point, and we actually gave people the ability to tell us what they really want. Now, I will say that the number one thing that's coming back is that we want to meet people that are going to buy our product. So we want to meet, we don't really want to just get together and talk to each other. But it's a very expensive meeting to just talk to other people in the industry. So there's been a lot of questions to us like, do you reach people in the hotel industry? Do you reach people in the restaurant space? Do you reach people in other areas where digital signage is needed and can be engaged with?
And when we've explained, as I did up top, that these are the markets we're in, people have gone, if you can get those folks to attend an event, we absolutely will bring a booth and we absolutely will exhibit, but you gotta bring buyers. You're not going to get away with putting up an exhibit and meeting without competitors across the aisle, that’s not enough.
David: Right. I know with Exponation, they worked their butts off trying to get brands to show up, to a level that they were putting them on advisory boards and things like that, just to make them feel like they should be there.
Paul Miller: Yeah. Look, I've been in the events space for sort of 25 years. It is not easy, particularly when, and this is where it comes back to the strategy of Questex, I think compared with Exponation, we're a huge believer in content.
I think I've said this to you before content is still king or queen, but the kingdom is data. Once you have people and you've attracted them, around content, it's really about understanding what their needs are, what they're looking for, engaging with them, and I think if you're a pure-play event company, what you do is you put on an event once a year, you're sort of reliant on a lot of partners to produce that content for you, and not in your environment. So you don't get the data as much, and I think that makes it very difficult in complete deference to what Exponation was trying to do.
I think they were trying to do the right thing, but when you don't have that daily engagement with the community, it's quite hard to hit it out of the park on every single thing. You're going to find your content probably gets a bit tired, sometimes the loudest voice gets to be the speaker, as opposed to the one that everybody wants to hear. There are certain things that data takes out of the room. It takes that emotion out of the room and it says like this audience is engaging with this type of content, that's what they want to see live. That I think gives you a little bit more data-driven decision-making around what the industry wants, as opposed to my gut feel or what somebody just told me at the bar last week at the show.
David: So, based on everything you've been hearing, everything your team has been doing, do you have the bones of an idea of what we’re going to see?
Paul Miller: Yeah we do. I think that's a good description. I'm not sure we're fully fleshed out, but I can certainly tell you a few things that we're going to do.
Number one, we are going to relaunch the show. Just to be clear from the top, we are going to relaunch the show. We do think that the show has to be repositioned somewhat to be a broader show to bring in those customers, as I mentioned, We're looking at experiences around a broad-based agenda of life and business and mid the re-emergence of society and the global economy. So this is more about where does digital signage fit in the “roaring 20S”? So we are looking to bring back the event. We're looking at next Spring and we are looking at Las Vegas. I can't go much further than that at this point in time, because we are obviously trying to secure venues and we're trying to secure dates, and that by the way, is easier said than done in a post-pandemic environment and everybody wants dates.
But we do have our Nightclub & Bar rebranded as our Bar & Restaurant event in Las Vegas next spring. There's the possibility of bringing that together again if you will. We will have an exhibit floor but also adding things like show floor experiences, very inclusive. You know, “let's demonstrate some applications, do some showcases, have some themed presentation stages.” So a lot of buzz on the show floor, but at the same time, a really engaging conference program, lots of curated presentations, tracks based on innovative applications, why do this, what are the outcomes, what you should be looking for?
And last but not least we are hoping to have multiple layers of networking at the event. That's one thing that this community told us is, “Please don't lose the networking!”
As I think, you know more than I know, great parties, great places for the industry to come together and celebrate, learn to buy, to sell. So yeah, we were even looking at guides around Las Vegas itself, tours of installations so people can learn, form real-life applications, not just what somebody might tell you what could happen. Let's curate some tours, and we do that by the way, for our Bar & Restaurant event, we take people behind the scenes at a Nightclub behind the scenes of a Vegas restaurant, so they can see everything from point of sale applications through to what's going on in the kitchen, and how does the food come out? We think that the audience, the community is telling us it wants more, hands-on more, show me what works, more education, more demos and bring it all together as an event that is an experience beyond just, ”I walk the show floor and I meet a couple of friends at the bar.”
David: Yeah. I've certainly heard many times and when I did a little survey asking about, where should a trade show go? The comment that's stuck in my head was, I know when I go to something like DSE, I'm landing, and that's what I'm doing that week, or for the next two, three days, that's my subject matter versus an ISE or an InfoComm, which are great shows, but they're Omni shows covering a whole bunch of different vertical industries and technologies and everything else and you don't have this aggregate of people who are just there for digital signage. Now you could go to a party and talk to 20 people, and they're all doing things that have nothing to do with digital signage, but they're in AV.
Paul Miller: Yeah, by the way, I think both are relevant. A lot of respect for ISE and InfoComm and the AVIXA Association in general, I think they do great stuff by the way.
And I think there is relevance in attending a show that is broader than just the sort of industry that you're in. I think that's where you do see adjacencies and ideas that might be applicable. But what was loud and clear from this community was we wanted our own place. There's enough going on in the digital signage space for us to need to focus on our industry, our solutions, our ecosystem for us to want our own place, and that, by the way, was one of the key learnings over the last 8 to 10 weeks of listening to people.
There wasn't one person who said, I don't think the industry needs its own place. There are a few people who said can I afford the time to go to all of these events? And I think that's a relevant comment and that's all about saying, well, we have to win your respect to get your time, and we have to have a program that you walk away after two or three days or a week, and you go, “Wow, I'm going to recommend this to my friends because these guys really put something on that it creates a fear of missing out if I'm not there, and I think more importantly than all of that actually creates business interactions. People actually do write orders and they do write RFPs at the event.” That's what we're here for at the end of the day.
So yeah, I think the need for an event that's focused on this particular community is clear: that's actually a box that was checked very clearly. it wasn't a 50-50 decision.
David: There will be people who listen to this and think that's great that you're doing a show, but spring in Las Vegas or just spring in general in the trade show industry is very crowded. There's a lot going on and you're putting this in between ISC and InfoComm, which are AV shows, there's NAB, all these other ones that happening around then there, I've heard many people say it would be lovely if an event like this was in the fall instead.
Paul Miller: Yeah. Unfortunately, the fall is also busy. It's got its own interesting issues and particularly around the pandemic where shows have been moved around, and they're off cycles. The feedback that we got, Dave, was again, you're right, “It's crowded. Please don't put it over the top of another show because we don't want to be forced into a decision. Do we go to this or this?”
The feedback we got was, “We liked where it was before,” which was, around that April timeframe, spring timeframe. So we've taken that into account and we didn't have any huge set of people saying, “Hey, move it to November or get it out of the way.” The other option we had by the way was to think about, do we put it alongside our lighting show, which is in the fall, October, November.
The more we get into it, the more it becomes clear to us that actually, the lighting show is not as relevant as an audience, they tend to be lighting designers, people that are doing the rigging of lighting, et cetera. A better audience would be people that are buying stuff for their restaurant for us. So yeah, we're never going to get a date that's going to satisfy everybody, unfortunately. Our feeling is we have the best chance to bring the right set of buyers to this event in the spring of next year.
David: And if you do it somewhat in tandem with an existing show like your Bar & Restaurant show, I imagine there's some efficiency around Ops people, like, you don't have to bring double the staff. You may bring more than you would for one show, but not of double compliment.
Paul Miller: Yeah, the efficiencies come with, obviously the show place itself. So if we do go to the Las Vegas convention center, obviously you get efficiency. If you do two in one, if you will.
From our team perspective, maybe Dave, in terms of we could send seven people rather than two sets of five, for instance, which is where I think you're going. But I'm not sure, I think what we're looking at for this event is and also by the way, for the Bar & Restaurant event, as you can imagine, the experiences there are pretty high end. You've got people launching new dreams. You've got people launching new bar and restaurant concepts. So I think that it would be the same as at a reinvigorated DSE. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm not looking for cost efficiencies, let me put it that way. That wouldn't be the reason for doing it.
David: When do you think you'll have a launch or an announcement saying we're going to do this?
Paul Miller: We're in the midst of recruiting an advisory board. We're getting some great traction there, by the way. I can give you a few names if that helps. I would say we are a matter of weeks away from a full announcement and maybe not many weeks.
David: Yeah, and I guess you really have to be because planning cycles are long, right? People are already budgeting for 2022.
Paul Miller: We gotta get moving, yeah.
It's not just the budgeting aspect of this. It's the sales team that has to be implemented. You've got to have your content team in place. Your advisory board needs to meet so we can start to get around the sort of flavor of the show. So no, we gotta get our skates on, no doubt about it.
David: So who are some of your advisors that you can say?
Paul Miller: Some that I can say, and by the way, there are a number of others that we think are going to be really exciting for the community to hear about, but we've got Rich Ventura, B2B Business line manager at Sony, I think previously the chairman of the DSF. We've got Rick Robinson, Chief Strategy Officer for Billups, leading voice in the out-of-home industry, and by the way, a play on the advisory board, just for the record is these four quadrants, there's the industry veterans, those people that really know this space, the new voices, and the new faces. We said we're going to reinvigorate, let's get some new voices. So Jackie Walker, digital signage subject matter expert at Publicis Sapient is one of those.
We've got a number of others. Laura Davis Taylor retail & reality, we've got some people here that I think are going to bring some really great new voices and faces alongside the veterans, also strategic partners that we're looking at, and of course, people like yourself in the media. We'd like to have a balance of all of the above and if we're going to deliver on our promise of a reinvigorated show, I think the definition of insanity is doing something the same way and then expecting a different outcome, so we've got to make some changes here and reinvigorate the advisory board, get new names and voices and faces involved, but don't throw away the baby with the bathwater either, make sure you've still got the people that know what they're talking about.
David: The last question I suppose is will it be called Digital Signage Expo or it'd be something else, or is that TBD?
Paul Miller: Yeah, that's a great question. We have, interestingly, sometimes for how things happen without doing more sort of fundamental research, but internally we're using the DSE acronym quite a lot. I don't know is it Digital Signage Expo? Is it Digital Signage Experience? Is it DSE? At the moment where we're sticking with brand equity. Words and all that come with digital signage expo, but it's interesting internally, and we do refer a lot to it as DSE, and sometimes that just turned into the experience as opposed to the expo. So a little bit more about the industry, a little bit less about the product itself.
I would say a personal front, from what I've heard from customers, Digital Signage Expo is fine. People are calling it DSE anyway, and I don't know if I want to go through a massive rebranding exercise at the same time we're doing a relaunch of the event.
David: Yeah. It's more of the communications and the people you bring on board and everything else.
Paul Miller: I think so, yeah. At the end of the day, I think it is: have we delivered a product that people go to and say you know what, these guys are on the path to creating a must-go-to event, we did some business, it was great to meet the community again, and I learned a lot. If we can check those boxes, I think we can then start to think about, okay, what now? And at the moment, we're just fully focused on producing something that people walk away from Vegas going, “These guys nailed it, they listened and we've got an event that's a must go for our industry, and they want to listen to some more on how we can make improvements from stage one.”
So I think at the end of the day, that's what really matters. Yes, people have a lot of opinions. Yes, there's a lot of baggage. Yes, there's a lot of words that we're using right now that I hope resonate with the industry. But at the end of the day, it's did we deliver?
David: All right, Paul, thank you. I appreciate your time.
Paul Miller: Dave, it's a pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Wednesday Apr 28, 2021
ACE Roundtable: Personalization In DOOH And Digital Signage
Wednesday Apr 28, 2021
Wednesday Apr 28, 2021
The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED – DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT
As vaccination rates climb and we can seriously look at getting back to some normals in our daily lives, there's a lot of discussion happening around what consumers will expect, and accept, in terms of personalized digital marketing.
Things like appointment-based shopping and personalization grew more prevalent because of lockdowns and necessary pivots by brands, and consumers are now somewhat conditioned to services that are more tuned to their needs.
But at the same time, there are still lots of concerns about things like being tracked in some way by technologies.
We talked about all this on a recent roundtable panel organized by Advocates for Connected Experiences, an umbrella organization that involves numerous industry associations and bodies that touch on advertising, retail, marketing and design.
I moderated the session, and noted how great it was that the gender balance was completely off, with one guy and a bunch of super-smart women.
My panelists included:
- Kim Sarubbi, who chairs ACE
- Debbie Haus, Retail Touchpoints
- Kym Frank, Geopath
- Cybelle Jones, SEGD
- Beth Warren, CRI
- Laura Davis-Taylor, InReality
- Stephanie Gutnik, Verizon Media
This is a special edition of the podcast.
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Wednesday Mar 17, 2021
Chris Chinnock, 8K Association
Wednesday Mar 17, 2021
Wednesday Mar 17, 2021
The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED – DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT
There was a lot of skepticism and debate in the digital signage community when 4K commercial displays started coming on the market, with industry observers openly wondering if visual messaging applications needed that high level of resolution.
Several years later, 4K is perhaps not common, but certainly being used in many projects, and both accepted and supported.
And as 4K bedded in, the industry started seeing some of the bigger display manufacturers showing 8K displays at trade shows, and the debate about the demand and the challenges for super high resolution displays started all over again.
One of the ways an industry builds awareness, acceptance, support and standards for a new technology is to have working groups or organizations of stakeholders. There's an 8K Association now, and the companies that got it going asked display industry veteran Chis Chinnock to step in and run it. An industry observer, writer, analyst and consultant, Chris has been around displays forever and seen the evolution. He understands what the engineers are going on about, but has the skills to explain it in terms mere mortals can understand.
He explained to me where 8K is at on the adoption curve (it's still early) and we get into the implications of 8K on infrastructure. He also explain who will want and use 8K, and why.
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TRANSCRIPT
Hey, Chris. Thanks for joining me. Can you tell me what the 8K Association is all about?
Chris Chinnock: Sure. Thanks for having me on your podcast, appreciate that.
The 8K Association was formed at CES in 2019, so about a little over two years ago, and it was formed with panel makers and TV makers primarily and that's when 8K TVs were starting to come into the market and we had some initial goals which was to promote those 8K TVs, to develop a certification program for those 8K TVs, to begin gathering 8K content for our member use, and to begin education of the professional community, because we're going to need a full 8K ecosystem from content creation, through distribution and display for this to become mainstream.
Is this the sort of thing that wouldn’t necessarily just happen organically?
Chris Chinnock: It would happen organically. We just wanted to form the organization to try and help facilitate communication and maybe move the ecosystem a little bit faster than it would've done organically. That's all.
And is this something that manufacturers do? I think of some of the other certifications and reference designs out there?
Chris Chinnock: Oh, yeah and there's tons of these organizations out there with different marketing goals or ecosystem development goals, so we're not reading any new ground here. We're, this is a tried and true kind of approach.
For example, in the 4K transition, the UHD Alliance came up to do a promotion and development of UHD or 4K content, mostly aimed at consumers and then the UHD Forum was originated not long afterwards, which was focused more on trying to educate and develop the 4K ecosystem and the professional community and they developed a bunch of guidelines and whatnot to help broadcasters and filmmakers implement 4K workflows. In many senses, we're following that model and learning from what they did and trying to leverage that going forward.
Yeah. It's an interesting thing. You have lots of people saying, “8K: is that something we're ever really going to need?” “There's no content for our…” blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. These are all the things that were said about 4K and lots of questions as to whether 4K whatever take route at all and it certainly has, is it the same argument or is this a little more nuanced because 8K is like super duper high resolution?
Chris Chinnock: It is the same argument. We had naysayers six, seven years ago for 4K. We've got naysayers for 8K now. Absolutely, it's a different environment now, but there's also a lot of things that are similar to what was happening in 4K six, seven, eight years for sure.
With 8K, you're talking about super high resolution. In the context of digital signage, where would 8K be particularly useful and applicable?
Chris Chinnock: From what I'm gathering, we've actually been poking around in the proAV space, trying to understand what the needs are for 8K, to tell you the truth and what we're learning is the big need is really in distribution and transport. So the canvases are clearly getting bigger and larger in digital signage. An 8K digital signage is not uncommon, I don't think nowadays. But it's not necessarily in a standard 16:9 format. They come in all kinds of aspects, ratios and configurations.
But what we're starting to see is, these big canvases, you want to start with a higher resolution source of master file, so that you can have a piece of that 8K master going out to various parts of this display. So if you letterbox it or clip a PC in there, you want to start with a high resolution piece and not have to do upscaling at the display itself, if you can avoid that, because there are some issues with that.
So the main argument is interesting, with the 8K Association and the website, you even have on the navigation bar, just straight out, “Why 8K” and I go through things and some of those objections, so to speak are: you can't see the resolution, that the human eye can't even raise, can't even resolve 8K now.
I don't think that's quite accurate, is it?
Chris Chinnock: No, it's not and people make that argument based on simple acuity, that is the Snellen chart and it's literally based on geometry and that is a big part of vision. There's no doubt about that. But human vision's far more complex. There are higher order things going on, they call it hyper acuity, so that allows you to see, for example, the differences between parallel lines and slightly unparalleled lines. It allows you to see stars in the night sky that simple acuity says you can't see and perhaps more importantly, we form images in the brain, the retina and the eye is part of it, but the brain puts those signals together to create an image. So we sometimes and often do fill in details in our brain to create that image of the world.
So if you have an 8K image versus a 4K image, it has less artifacts, it has more texture and detail. So it creates a higher sense of realism. It's subtle and the hyper acuity may say you can't see that difference, but all these other factors reinforce that it's more real, it's more present.
Do you have to be within a certain kind of viewing cone or proximity in order to appreciate that difference between 4K and 8K?
Chris Chinnock: Yeah, certainly the closer you sit, you will see more detail and sharpness and texture, and that's for sure, because that's part of the simple acuity part. But also remember, we're talking HDR signals for the most part with 8K content now. So it's high dynamic range, it's white color gamut. All these things make a big difference.
Yeah, if you're using high dynamic range, then you can see an incredible amount of detail that isn't otherwise revealed.
Chris Chinnock: Exactly.
From your point of view, are there certain kinds of applications for signage that make more sense than others?
Like from my point of view if it's at a museum or something where you're going to get people who are going to be walking up close, that's when it starts to make some sense.
I just don't know that anybody's ever going to need a 8K digital menu board in a QSR.
Chris Chinnock: I agree with that, absolutely and museums are one perfect example. I know I've seen in some trade show demonstrations, they'll have an artifact that can be either a video capture, a 3D video capture of an artifact, or it could be a very high resolution computer generated image.
But now you can go up to the screen, you can really look at this artifact. You can zoom in on it. You can rotate it and you don't see any discrepancies in that image. You've got lots and lots of resolution to play with here, so it's much closer to lifelike
In terms of math, what's the difference? And I hope I'm not putting you on the spot here, but just generally the difference between a full HD file and an 8K file, in terms of size and what are the implications in terms of the equipment, graphics cards and everything you need to play it out.
Chris Chinnock: File size is going to depend on the compression that you use. Maybe a better way to look at it is what's the bandwidth you would need, the uncompressed bandwidth you need for various files.
So I think full HD is somewhere around three gigabits as I recall. But now if you want to do 8K, I think the highest reasonable level that you want to do is 8K at 60 frames per second, 10 bit and now the difference comes with color subsampling. If it's video, you're going to do four to zero color subsampling, that's about 30 gigabits per second. So ten times full HD, right? If you want to do broadcast quality, that's four to two color sampling. That's 40 gigabits. You want to do four-four,-four for high resolution graphics in proAV, 60 gigabits per second.
Woah!
Chris Chinnock: Yeah, so here's the problem: it's a distribution challenge, right? So there are solutions out there. If you want to do proAV, you can use HDMI 2.1. You may have to use two connectors if you want to do four-four,-four. That's a real challenge, just to sync those and it's going to be short distance, right? So your player's gotta be right by, probably a standalone 8K display of some sort.
The other side of the coin is IP distribution, right? That's a huge trend in the whole proAV space. So there's a lot of solutions that are out there to do that now. A lot of them are focused on one gigabit networks and that's just not gonna cut it for 8K, right? So we're starting to see, there’s at least two organizations that I know about that are trying to develop some standards in this. One is the Software Defined Video Over Ethernet (SDVOE) and that's focused on using a 10 gigabit network to support it.
10 gigabits is okay if you use some kind of a mezzanine codec, like JPEG XS. That's supposed to be a lossless codec that you can compress up to fifteen to one. So you can get all those signals onto a 10 gigabit network easily with JPEG XS and then the other organizations I'm aware of is the AIMS Alliance organization, and they're developing what's called the IPMX standard. What they're doing is borrowing video over IP standard from the SMT organization from broadcast and that standard is called ST2110 and it has all kinds of high-end features in it for broadcast, including redundant distribution. So you have two Ethernet channels So if one fails the other one's always there. It's got high-end timing and grand master clocks.
We don't need that for proAV for the most part. So the AIMS Alliance is specifically trying to take that broadcast standard, strip out what you don’t need, add in some things that you do need for proAV and develop a new standard.
So if I'm somebody who runs a facility operations for a Fortune 500 company and at their main headquarters office campus, the CEO has bought an 8K TV for his home and says, “I love 8K. I want my whole digital signage network converted over to 8Kx8K displays. It can replace the 4K's or the 2Ks that are hanging up on mounts and all that.”
What are the infrastructure implications if you want to be moving files around on the wide area network and everything else? I suspect you're thinking about even the cabling, certainly have a lot of the hardware that's moving data around everything else.
Chris Chinnock: Absolutely and that's why you have to have a network that can support this. If your corporate network is based on a one gig ethernet structure, you're going to have to upgrade that. I know some of the new Intel motherboards support both 1 gig and now 2.5 gig ethernet outputs over, I think that's probably over Cat 5 cables and that may be sufficient if you're using a video and can compress that enough to get on a 2.5 gig network. It's pushing it a little bit but it's possible. It, again, depends on the client here, if they're really sensitive to having pixel accurate images or if it just has to look pretty good, I should say really good, but...
If you want to go to a 10 gig network or a 5 gig network, these are all much better because you can use less compression. But they come at a cost: all your network switches and maybe the cabling have to be upgraded to support this as well.
Yeah.So like a regular Cat 5 may not support it and then you're pulling hundreds of meters of new cabling?
Chris Chinnock: Potentially. Yeah, absolutely. Or, maybe just go to a fiber network to be future-proofing who knows?
Wow and so I would imagine some new builds are future-proof like crazy, but there would be probably 90% of the built environment out there would probably need to be tweaked in some way, right?
Chris Chinnock: Yeah, I think so.
One of the other arguments about 8K is that there's no content available. Is that true?
Chris Chinnock: It is true. There is very limited content out there. The interesting part of that is that actually a lot of content is shot on 8K cameras and there are now 12K cameras out there. Black magic design is a 12K camera. So it's being captured in 8K or higher, but it's not being finished in 8K or distributed in 8K yet.
Is that because there's no market for it?
Chris Chinnock: Yeah, partly. You gotta have a certain critical mass of 8K TVs out there before you start streaming to it and I think streaming is going to be the first way that we see 8K content coming to consumers and you need good codecs out there to distribute it too.
NHK has been broadcasting 8K content for over two years now but they're broadcasting at 80 to a 100 megabits per second with high compression ratios, and that's just too high. Netflix is 15 to maybe 25 megabits per second, that's where most of the streamers are coming in right now for 4K content. That's where you need to get, maybe you could start at 40 or 50 for a premium 8K streaming service, but you quickly got to get down to that 25 area, I think in my opinion.
Is there a likelihood that there will be more content produced that is in the right format? What changes that?
Chris Chinnock: Yeah, I think again, you need that critical mass of TVs out there. You need a cost-effective distribution system and when that arrives, especially with these new codecs that are coming like VDC, I think you'll see major streamers jumping in with an 8K service.
Another argument is that production costs are also high. Is that primarily the costs of cameras that are like Black Magic Design and RED cameras that can shoot in that? Or, are there a whole bunch of things?
Chris Chinnock: Yeah, there's a bunch of things there and those were exactly the same arguments for 4K adoption, six, seven years ago. It's more memory, it's more bandwidth. The camera costs are a little bit higher. The storage costs are a little bit higher. That's all true but I think we're also in a very different era now. So with this pandemic, we've seen a big acceleration of production workflows to the cloud. There's no doubt about that, with all the remote production that had to go on. We're also, I think, going to see an evolution of that. So more and more production will go to the cloud and I think that actually favors 8K production as well, because what we're seeing and a company, FrameIO just demonstrating this, they have a camera to cloud service now. So you can be on set shooting with 8K cameras and as soon as you finish that take, it goes right up to the cloud. The original camera files are in the cloud and then from the cloud, you can do proxy editing proxy color grading. You can do everything and have dailies right back on the set the next morning.
This is going to revolutionize, I think, the way movies and TV shows are produced,
When you’re talking about compression. I think in terms of compression somewhat clobbering the file, does it have any noticeable impact on quality as opposed to the native file?
Chris Chinnock: Sure and that just depends on the compression ratio.
JPEG XS up to 15:1, that's supposed to be a lossless thing. So visually lossless, if you're at that kind of compression ratio, but if you get into a distribution, that's called a Mezzanine Kodak. If you get into a distribution Kodak, one goes to consumers, Amazon or Netflix is using, HEVC and is going to be hundreds to one in compression and so you can potentially see our artifacts that way.
Especially now, when you put us on a very large screen, that's tens of meters wide, you'll definitely see things on that size screen that you wouldn't see on an 80-inch screen.
Is 8K best suited for flat panel displays as opposed to LED?
Chris Chinnock: Not necessarily. With LED again, because it's a bigger screen, it's less forgiving, because any artifact is just more visible.
What about the timelines on all this? You mentioned how six, seven years ago that the fuss that was out there was around 4K and nobody's ever going to use it or anything else… What do you see are the timelines to a time when 8K is a shoulder shrug?
Chris Chinnock: Well, there's a graphic that we one of the market research companies put together that showed that the resolution transitions and now we're talking about displays here. So when a display of a new resolution was introduced to the time it was selling at 50% of retail sales.
So SD to Full HD, Full HD to 4K, and now 4K to 8K, that cycle is seven years and consistently seven years. So you could argue that we're a year, maybe two years into the 8K cycle at this point. The pandemic probably added a year to that. So if in seven years 50% of sales are now 8K TVs, we saw how fast 4K TVs were adopted and how fast 4K streaming came onboard.
Will history repeat? Probably.
Is this primarily a consumer driven product or do you envision a lot of commercial adoption of 8K displays?
Chris Chinnock: I think the push today and certainly the focus of the 8K Association has been on consumer entertainment, production and the entertainment production value chain. But as we have already discussed, there are clear needs in the proAV space here as well, particularly for all these larger canvases for rental and staging, for corporate environments, for pop-up events. We talked about museums, there's medical imaging that's an important area as well, that's coming on board.
How about 8K VR? That's starting to happen as well. So there are a range of different applications here, including broadcast as well. It's happening in broadcast too. So yeah, it's happening in a lot of different areas, even security cameras. There's 8K security cameras now.
Is some of that just a function of end users and integrators and everybody else wanting to have the latest and greatest and say, “We're doing 8K, we're doing AI, we're doing machine learning.”? Or, they're just jumping on the latest?
Chris Chinnock: Yeah, and I think, that's what companies do, and they always have to make the next product a little bit better than the previous one. So 8K is a natural next step and I'm glad you brought up this idea of AI as well, because that's also very different from where we were during the 4K transition.
Upscaling in the 8K TV, AI based or machine learning based and neural network based now is a completely different technology from when we had upscaling and 4K TVs. AI is being used in the encoding space as well to help reduce those bit rates and do seen optimized encoding now. So we're just at the very beginning of this AI capability and the cloud capability. So the combination of these I think is going to be very powerful.
If you're using display technology that has AI based upscaling and it's that good, do you really even need to produce at native 8K or are you in a lot of situations and are going to be just fine with 4K upscaled?
Chris Chinnock: Yeah, today that's a very acceptable solution. In fact, it has to be the solution because that's what we have out there.
But one of the scenarios that we're trying to standardize in the 8K Association is, we don't really have a good name for this yet, let's call it Smart Streaming just for purposes. But the idea here is that you encourage those 8K camera original files to now be mastered in 8K, so you create a naked finished movie or piece of content.
You now smartly downscale that to 4K with some metadata about how you did that. You now use conventional encoding techniques, HEVC, or AV1 to distribute that content the way streamers are doing that now and if you have an 8K TV, you can now read this metadata smartly, upscale that back to 8K and theoretically, that gets pretty close to a native 8K distribution scheme in terms of image quality.
If we're talking about four to five to six years before 8K is really settled in, companies that are thinking right now about a refresh of their display technology and the supporting infrastructure for the digital signage network they're running across whatever environment it may be in, do they need to be future-proof now?
Or they're fine with what they have at the moment and they can just have in their heads that the next refresh cycle, we'll be looking at 8K?
Chris Chinnock: I think it depends on the number of pixels they want to put up there. If it's a big canvas with a fairly tight pixel pitch, which means it's a lot of pixels then absolutely, I would be thinking of a higher network structure for that. If it's a smaller display with a bigger pixel pitch, then maybe you don't necessarily need it.
And we're talking 8K, but I have seen the stories for 12K and I believe even 16K. Are those things that will exist beyond labs?
Chris Chinnock: I would not underestimate that capability, yes. I believe that will probably happen and we'll go through this whole cycle again. “No one could see it. We don't need it. It's too expensive.”
I read something saying 16K is pretty much perfection, that's like 20/20 equivalent, perfect eyesight. You're seeing everything!
Chris Chinnock: That depends on the screen size.
Ah, okay. This is all over my head.
Chris, how did you get involved with the association?
Chris Chinnock: I was actually asked by the TV manufacturers to help form it. So I said, yes.
And is this a full-time gig or among the many things you do?
Chris Chinnock: No, it's one of several things that I do, yeah.
Just for the listeners, what kind of work do you do?
Chris Chinnock: I've been in the display industry for close to a thousand years now. (Laughter)
I've done all kinds of things. We published newsletters for quite a while. We did market research reports, consulting services. I've run a bunch of events on this. I do white papers for clients, et cetera, et cetera. So my focus has always been on the cutting edge of display related technology. So 8K is one of them.
I'm also very active in the light field and holographic displays, AR and VR are key areas for me and micro-LED and mini-LED is also an exciting technology for me as well.
Yeah, and the fun thing is everything you're looking at is ever evolving and always interesting.
Chris Chinnock: That's why this job is fun. I learn something every day, right?
Yeah. That's the same with me. People ask me, I'm in my early sixties now and people are asking me, “Are you thinking of winding down?” And I say, not really because the stuff I work on is interesting and I follow the stuff that's emerging and that's always fun.
Chris Chinnock: Exactly. I'm with you.
All right, Chris, I appreciate you taking some time with me.
Chris Chinnock: I appreciate the time. Thanks, Dave.
Wednesday Mar 10, 2021
Bill Robertson, NextGen Video Information Systems Alliance
Wednesday Mar 10, 2021
Wednesday Mar 10, 2021
The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED – DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT
Suppose something bad happens - like a tsunami or a gas leak - and the alert messaging comes up on TVs and digital signage screens in English text. That's great, except if much of the viewing audience consists of first-generation immigrants who barely speak or read English.
It's pretty much the problem, right now, with public alert systems, and a volunteer organization called the NextGen Video Information Systems Alliance is trying to fix that. Called NVISA for short, the body has come up with a way to add universal graphic elements to emergency alerts.
Called Visually Integrated Display Symbology (or VIDS), the system can be adopted across a wide range of communications platforms, notably digital signage.
In this podcast, I speak with alliance member Bill Robertson about the thinking behind these graphical alerts. We also get into detail of how digital signage network operators and solutions providers can plug into the system and put it to work.
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TRANSCRIPT
Bill, thank you for joining me. What is the NextGen Video Information Systems Alliance and why did you form it?
Bill Robertson: The NVISA, as we call it is a group of like-minded initially technology companies that had different pieces of technology that were primarily focused at the upcoming ATSC 3.0 broadcast standard. We had different elements that we could use or leverage and many of us that formed the NVISA were members of the ATSC, what was referred to as the “I Team”, implementation team, where we talked about this and helped present some of the elements that are the standards that embodied in ATSC 3.0. We saw more opportunity in getting together and not just being standards based and focused on those particular things, but how could we leverage this? What could we do together as a group, again, of like-minded individuals to be able to represent these things.
And some of it too is not necessarily having to wait until people adopt that new standard, but what could we do today? What could be leveraged with even today's technology? So the initial start was some technology companies, but more broadcasters and other people have joined the Alliance to help modulator what's going on, what and how it could fit, what other things we could do.
So it's been a nice thing about this next gen video thing does not necessarily say that it's gotta be the next in this type of standards implementation, but what else could we do to improve the whole idea of information?
Okay. So I was interested in this because I got a press release talking about how your organization had put together a series of recommendations for symbols to use for alerts, correct?
Bill Robertson: Yeah, and that was actually our first product in Working Group 1. I was a chairman of that particular group and what we focused on is a recognition that there are things in the broadcast groups in North America, primarily the United States and Canada, where there are members of the community, emergency managers, females on the United States side, whether Canada on the Canadian side, that issue alert information and the alerts can go out over radio, in audio broadcast and they can also go over television. People have seen these in the United States, they're usually accompanied with different tones to get your attention, to make sure you understand, “Hey, this is an alert. This is information.”
Well, the interesting thing about those is they're represented in, if it's a television thing, there's an oral component and a visual component. We've got text crawl, we've got audio that's associated with it. The trick is that those particular things have never been really associated with something that wasn't texts that had to be read. Or it might be a full screen display that takes over the primary programming and displays what the event is about. But we've seen more of a situation where if we could represent those with a graphical element, we could do a couple of more things. Number one, you're not reliant on them being able to read the particular alert, what it is. That seems a little strange, only in the fact that if English or French may not be your native language, let's say we needed to represent something to a Spanish community, to a Slavic community, whatever it might be, that if we can use symbols that are more generally understood to represent a particular event that's happening at that time, we think that is a better way to help communicate.
So it's not just saying, you have to have the text and you have to have a crawl representation or you have to have a full screen slate, but many times, when you see this, if you see a lot of other symbols, like Stop signs’ got a standard shape for them and people will know what they mean, others signs, things like that represent information that can be conveyed without having to do any kind of motion, without having to display anything else. If we can put that symbol up there, we can definitely communicate.
There must have been a lot of debate around the symbols?
Bill Robertson: There's some interesting things around that. There actually was a good body of work that was already done. So we leveraged a lot of that and some of these are ISO standards. There's actually an ISO standard on different societies; it's actually referred to as societal security emergency management guidelines for color coded alerts. In that standard they represent, okay, “here's a color code” and we adopted that into our recommended practice. One thing I should point out too is NVISA's not a standards group. We are coming together as a coalition of people and we're publishing these kinds of work as a recommended practice. So it's an idea that, here's some things that we've put together as like-minded individuals and we think has roots not only in this particular part of the industry, but in many other things, again, wherever there's visual displays and digital signage is the perfect example. Hundreds of thousands of these displays all over the place that could take advantage of a similar kind of thing. And by us mapping these things or looking at these symbols and bringing that together, it really helps.
Another ISO standard for graphical symbols for public information, again, most of these, by the way, tie with hazardous waste or potential electrocution, you've seen some of these things as you approach a building many times, those kinds of things, but there's another group that's called the National Alliance for Public Safety GIS goes by the acronym, NAPSG and they've done quite a bit that goes beyond just electrical symbols or gas, chlorine gas, natural gas, those kinds of symbols that you would put up as warnings to the general public. But they've done things to incorporate elements like floods, hurricanes, tornadoes.
And so we leveraged a lot of the work that was done and didn't just say, “okay, we're going to take this symbol.” Now some of the symbols, I will tell you, are a little complex if you start to squeeze them down onto a small display size, but they do a pretty good job of conveying the information. A tornado looks like a tornado, the symbol is pretty well described. There's other things too, where a flash flood looks like a house with waves so you know there's things going on.
What we had to do was they didn't cover a lot of the event codes that are used in public alerting. So we had to either craft a couple of things around it, or reference them in a slightly different way. There's things that can be communicated to the public that are just simply information, for example, a school closing would be an information. It doesn't have to have a sign that might jump at you and scare you into action, but it's an informational type of thing. Maybe an exclamation mark or maybe we did a little cloud symbol with an ellipse to say, “Hey, there's information here, and pay attention to it.”
One of the important things that we did was not just about the symbols, but was also in adapting these ISO standards for people that are colorblind and to reference the symbol with the particular essence of the alert, “is this a really traumatic type of event?” For example, a tornado is a pretty substantive short fuse, quick action type of thing. Your life, limb, property are in potential danger. So we escalated some of these alerts to be represented not only by the symbol, but we added something to the symbol where we did a double underline and that was again to reference this, if I just put up the same symbol, for example, flash flood and flood watch look like the exact same symbol, but by adding a color border around them, we can represent them differently. So red with a double underlined says, “Hey, pay attention” More information to exchange and reference things. “Hey, this is an important thing.” “It's red.” “It's got this.”
We also looked at the idea of contrast so that if the font was done in a proper way, and it had a certain speed to it, things like that, but it would be enough contrast. So people that had again, either colorblindness, maybe in the red, green spectrum or other things like that would still be able to at least read the text or be able to discern the difference because the double underline is different than a single underline or no underline. And that's again, the basis of what we did.
Yes, there was some debate, there was a lot of stuff, but I think we centered on some really good elements that we came up with to really represent what we were trying to go after.
Yeah, I think there are three tiers of alerts. Is that accurate?
Bill Robertson: We actually have five groups and that doesn't mean that the symbols change but group one, which is the most important one, for example, I use a tornado warning, something that has a substantial impact and again, a short fuse, it's a very timely thing you needed to take notice very quickly. In group one and group two, we use the same symbols. We use the same color background, but we have a unique thing that we set. One of them is an example. If you were to tune into your TV set and you happened to be watching while the alert is being sent, the typical scenario is that the alert pops up there, maybe we can put the symbol up there too, the alert scrolls by, and then it's over. It's done. You switch back to regular programming.
The trick there is that the alert is still active. The alert hasn't gone away. The fact that you're still in a danger situation is still there. It just so happens that it just doesn't show up on the TV screen. So what we've done is set up a situation where the symbol would pop up and then the crawl or the text information would be displayed associated with that. Now, when I talk about a crawl, typically on television, you're familiar with these things, ticker-tape crawls, we went across that kind of stuff. Again, if that symbol pops up with it, you've got some association. If it goes away or let's say you tune in after it's already displayed, you don't know you're under an alert.
So we have a scenario that says: Group one has the symbol and the text displayed together. Group two uses the symbol, but no text. The nice thing about that is, for example, you might have a, let's say a tornado warning for an hour. You're in an active storm cell area. You've got a tornado warning and it's active for an hour. So now I can pop up the thing with the texts, say you're under a tornado warning, but then I can leave the symbol on the screen. It's not really blocking a lot of other information and programming is still up, but I've got persistence in that group too, that says I can leave the symbol up for the duration of the alert, not meaning I know how long the crawl is, but the duration of the alert says, what does the emergency management group say the duration of this event is, and keep it up for that period of time. So we've got like a watermark. So it's using the same symbol, it's in the same position and everything.
And so when when the crawl goes away or that information goes away, that symbol can persist. Now, this has deeper meaning in the future, that might be a clickable type of link. So here's an example:say the alerts have already been broadcast, the alert, the audio, everything has already gone. I tune in 10 minutes later. I see the screen. It's got that little icon up there. I wonder what that's about. I don't have to go search someplace else. It could be a clickable link. So on my smart TV or my display or whatever device I happen to be viewing this particular content on. I could click on that and it would take me to a page or to an area where I could find out more information about what that event is, what's going on, do I need to be prepared for what's happening?
So that persistence in those really severe alert things really helps us set a standard and I say that loosely in a standard body type of thing, but in a way of representing important information and giving guidance on how it could be used to form a sense of iconography that people could use in the rest of their display technology.
So what would happen if this wasn't done, or I guess because this is just brand new, what's happening right now in terms of alerts. Is it just a problem that a lot of it's in text and it's just an English?
Bill Robertson: Yeah. You're going right down that path. The situation that we have, and obviously I'll speak a little bit more to the United States because of the EAS system in the United States, the primary alerts are done in English. That's it, that's the kind of the native thing it's done in English even if it's a Spanish station. The worst case scenario is it could be a Spanish radio station and you’re still going to get the alerts in English. And that's not very good for that audience.
So in the same context you would have English text information on a Spanish channel, so if you're looking at a video display and all of the programming, all the advertisement, everything else is all in Spanish, you've got your target market. All of a sudden, I pop up in emergency information, which emergency managers are really seeking to communicate to as many people as they possibly can. I want you to get this information out. It needs to disseminate to as many people as possible.
And so if you just typically look at the normal things, there's no sign, there's no icon. You're going to get an English text crawl. You're going to get English audio over a Spanish station. That's not very good in really trying to communicate what's going on and to whom they can really discern that information and take action on it. The idea of this alerting is to be able to know whether you need to take action and what type of action you need to take. Typically that's described in these alerts, that's an important situation.
So the idea is if we can take this stuff forward and people start to adopt this “VIDS” idea or this visual information display symbology. That's how we've coined the term VIDS to represent and do a better job of leveraging the stuff we've already vetted out. We vetted out the icons we've done the colors. We've done a lot of other things. It doesn't mean people couldn't modify that if they want it to, if there's something that they want to present a slightly differently, perhaps for a station ID type thing, but it's really to help bring this together. Bring this symbol that is universal. If there's no language issue with presenting the symbol and therefore it can be more easily discerned by people that don't have that native language skill or a may not be able to read the text, may have a visual impairment about reading it, or don't have the language skills because it's done only in one particular language.
And I assume it's important to have everybody on the same page in terms of the symbology use, because if you have five ways of showing a condition, you're just causing people to look at it twice and go, “okay, what does this mean?”
Bill Robertson: Exactly and that's why, again, what we did is, we didn't invent that. It wasn't an idea. In fact we loathed the idea of trying to build graphic symbols because a lot of the stuff was already done. It’s “can we leverage them?”
And by leveraging the stuff that's already out there and doing a little bit of improvement in what we think is by adding the double underline, so you can differentiate both the elevation of the alert, because again, the symbols could be the same in a flash flood and a watch, which isn't as meaningful or impactful if it was a flash flood warning that, that's the next step up.
So that actually by the way, ties back into the group. So group one is the event codes or the event information is displayed with a symbol. Group two is the symbol-only to persist for those really important alerts. And then we go into group three, which has a yellow color again, focusing on what we should do for cautions or warnings and types of things. It uses a single underline under the symbol, again, to differentiate it, so we know where we are with the symbol, and represent that in terms of, “Hey, this is something of importance. It's not as critical as a red alert, but you've got a yellow alert.” So again, that color coding, we think is important. There's blue that we do with some symbols and most of the blues are done as informational types of things. Again, it's not a critical life/limb/property type of event, but it's something that's informational. Again, school closings or a road closure someplace because of Some kind of construction thing or accident even as it may be.
And then the final one, is group five is a green background, no underline under the symbol. And that's really, again, a level of information, but they're typically for tests. So this is just, you could in essence, ignore it. “Don't worry, it’s green. Everything's okay. We're fine.” It's just up there to help say, okay, I can't read the text, but I understand this is just a simple message. No action necessary.
So I'm an end-user with a digital signage network of some kind, let's say on a university campus, or I'm a digital signage software vendor, or a subscription content service as well.
How do I use this? How do I plug into it? What are the implications of operating it?
Bill Robertson: We've had a couple of companies already implement VIDS in their character generation devices. One of our partner companies in NVISA has done this and we actually have some examples of what this looks like, which I can send you the YouTube video links I think would be very nice because again, when people see it, in a classic sense, a picture tells a thousand words and so they can see it and they get a better understanding of what these different types of things look like.
But for the content providers and especially the digital signage network, we would love to see them adopt this similar thing. And there's a couple of things around it, but again, the symbols are there. We have them available in JPEG and SVG format so they can grab the symbols. We've gotten the table already built for what event codes they're associated with. So we've done a lot of the groundwork. All we need is more people to gather the information that we've already provided and adopted into their product.
The one thing that they will need in that environment and we've seen a lot more of this, and this is coming from my work, let me say my day job at digital alert systems,is we build the devices that listen for the event codes, that listen for the emergency managers and even in some respects the emergency managers use our equipment to generate the alerts that go out over the air, over the internet. And when we receive those, we can pass that information into the signage systems, into the character generators, into those things. So in other words, for the most part, they're doing their normal thing. They're showing and displaying the content that is already set up for that sign. if it's a map in a mall, if it's a menu in a restaurant type of thing, whatever it may be, they're doing their normal work. We can send them a message over IP that just says, “Hey, if this display is in this location, given some geo coordinates about where it might be, then here is the alert that you're currently under.” And Dave, part of the stuff that I look at around this is there's an idea that in college campuses and facilities, enterprise facilities that have a lot of signage around in their particular campus areas, they live in what I call a hyper bubble.
So it's a hyper-local bubble there. They're sitting here and they get information and they exchange it inside the building or inside the campus. There's not a lot of recognition of events that might be going outside that could impact them. Again, there's a lot more of these and we've been doing a lot of work in my day job about facility managers and other things about adopting this type of technology, because if I'm in that environment and what's really good, is these signage elements have a great way to communicate. It's fast, it's a great way to communicate, you can get very impactful messages, and when I say impactful, I'm talking about again, just because I get an alert, what I want to do is know, okay, I'm under an alert, but what should I do? If it's a gas leak, is it chlorine gas or is it natural gas? What should I do?
Those things all come into play about information that you can exchange about these. Plume maps, there's a whole range of different things.
If we can then pierce that hyper-local bubble and bring in information. So for example, a campus is part of a city, part of a County, part of a state, and there may be events that are happening across that entire environment that they need to know what to do and if we can bring that information in and transfer it into those signage components and it's in a form that’s not only well known or is going to hopefully become more well-known in the typical broadcast community and cable casting community, then these people will recognize, “Oh, okay. I see it. I've got an alert information and I can display it.”
That's using an interim box of some kind that's sniffing for all that stuff. What happens right now, if I'm in a jurisdiction where there's an Amber alert, or if there is some other kind of public safety alert, that's pushed out to smartphones and to broadcasters and so on?
Are they also using some sort of an interim device or is it just sniffing like a data cell or getting something triggered out to it that causes a message to pop?
Bill Robertson: There's a couple of different things because, in the United States and Canada, the United States has what's called FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, but they have a server that is called IPAWS which stands for Integrated Public Alert Warning System (IPAWS) and it uses a technology that's called CAP (Common Alert Protocol). Again, we're talking about the government, so there's going to be acronyms.
There's a similar type of thing that is run by a private company in Canada, and that entire methodology of alerts go through those kinds of clearing houses. Now the important thing too, is not every alert goes into those servers. In a local thing, let's go with some Teton County, for example and I want to generate an alert, it might just go out over the air and the sheriff there generates the alert. It goes out over the air. It never goes and sees IPAWS. So you can have some local ones and if you're not watching for those, you may miss them, but there is this idea of these integrated servers in Canada and in the United States.
The problem is those devices or those servers serve a ton of information because there's a lot of agencies that are on them. What you need to do is to act correctly and so at every television station, every radio station, every cable head-in, there is this intermediate box that its job is to listen and monitor those things and it's also set up with a set of filters. So it's looking, saying, “okay, I've got all of this information, but is it important to me?”
Number one, does it rise to the level that I've set? I'm not going to get every alert and broadcast it, then you end up with a really bad situation of just constantly crying Wolf and no one pays attention to it. So the idea is to have a device, an intermediate device that monitors this feed, these feeds, and it says, “okay, is it for my area? Does it rise to the occasion that I need to pay attention to it?” And if it does, I basically need to decode that and turn it into text and audio because many times, for example, the ones in Canada, they don't come with audio. We actually use a text to speech engine to create that, and cause it to create the audio for the particular message.
So the nice thing about that is: that capability that idea of having this intermediate device is to monitor, to look and to format it, so that the downstream devices, the character generators, the digital signage content only have to react to what we say is important because you preset it for what values you want and it has all of the information necessary for that. Here's the text, here's the audio, play this, represent it this way.
So in a lot of circumstances in the digital signage world I would say 80, 90% of the networks that are out there are running as software as a service. So the end users may be using a service that is used by hundreds of other companies.
Does the central digital signage software CMS company need to have one, a listening device for all of its networks or one for each of its networks, or how would that technically work?
Bill Robertson: There's a couple of different ways to do it and it's not dissimilar to the way that a lot of cable and even some broadcast companies have done central casting. So they've got remote locations, transmitters set up in one city, but they're actually being fed content from another remote city.
Depending on the level of engagement, and the reason I say that level of engagement is in the United States, the FCC says that you have to have very specific standards. In other words, there's a requirement that says you must monitor off air signals and you must monitor the FEMA iPAWS feed. Again, that's under the purview of the FCC, for example, or in Canada, the equivalent situation where you are required to do that. In an area it's not a requirement, you can phase yourself into that and that way, if the central CMS system has the capability of discerning, “If I send it to five areas.” And in Canada there are SGC or special geographic codes in the United States. It's they're called FIPs codes, very similar to ZIP codes so that you've got an area that is defined.
If I send 10 different area codes, let's just use that as the idea. If I send 10 different area codes to the CMS, then the digital signage content management system is able to say, “This is an alert for this area code and I can send the alert information only to those receiving points.” So if I have the capability of breaking up my content or the alert going into those receive points, then you can do it in a central point because I can assemble it back to that central point, I can send information out and it's a great way to do it. It really is going to be dependent on kind of the design typology and how much addressability that CMS provides for different locations.
All right. So if I am, again, an end-user or a digital signage solutions provider of some kind. I've read about this, I've listened to this podcast, and they're interested, what do they do?
Bill Robertson: One thing that they could do right now is they can download the VIDS document the recommended practices from the NVISA website that's www.nvisa.org and so if you go to the nvisa.org website, you can download this recommended practices and the symbology. Once they take a look at that and understand what we're talking about in the context of the symbols and things like that, we can make available the symbol set, we've got that available for them, and we can talk to them more about specifics on integration and then some of the other companies that they can talk to about how they would be able to assimilate that information, get it into their displays, where does the information come from? How was it received? What protocols are used? And that kind of stuff. So we can take them through a number of different things, but I really would encourage them to take a look at our recommended practices.
One of the things that we did in the practice document is make sure that it wasn't based on things like scan lines or pixels but really is a ratio, it's a relationship because if it's a 16:9 display, or if we rotate it for a vertical presentation where it's 9:16 or something else we want to be able to have the the icons and these text types of elements in the same relative position. Again, if it's a smaller screen, I'm not giving you fixed sizes for the number of pixels, there's a ratio of banner height to symbol height and that's an important distinction too, so that we can be very flexible in whatever format the display might be.
All right. That was terrific. Very interesting stuff. Thank you so much for spending some time with me, Bill.
Bill Robertson: Dave. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
Again, if they just visit the www.visa.org website, take a look at the documentation, give us a shout, let us know if we can help!
Wednesday Jan 27, 2021
ACE Roundtable: The Tech That Worked In 2020, And Going Forward
Wednesday Jan 27, 2021
Wednesday Jan 27, 2021
The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED – DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT
Just before Christmas, I moderated an Advocates for Connected Experiences roundtable that tossed around thoughts on what technologies were used to get us all through 2020, focusing on what really worked, and will continue to work into 2021.
It was a video discussion on Zoom, but it translates nicely to audio. I had technical issues with the planned podcast for this week, but this is a worthwhile, albeit last-minute stand-in.
The first voice you hear is Kim Sarubbi, one of the founders of Advocates of Connected Experiences, or ACE.
Also on the discussion, Joe' Lloyd from AVIXA, Kym Frank from Geopath, Beth Warren from CRI and the DSF, Cybelle Jones from SEGD, Bryan Meszaros from OpenEye Global, Asif Kahn from the Location-Based Marketing Association, and myself.
This podcast is produced with the kind, ongoing support of ScreenFeed, the digital signage content store. Get awesome-looking, engaging and automated subscription content for your screens.
Wednesday Dec 09, 2020
AVIXA Digital Signage Power Hour - Roundtable - Commercial Real Estate
Wednesday Dec 09, 2020
Wednesday Dec 09, 2020
The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED - DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT
I have been working with both AVIXA and invidis for most of the year on a series of monthly roundtables, called Digital Signage Power Hours.
They’ve all been great, but the one we did recently on experiential media in real estate was particularly good … because of the people who kindly provided their time.
We had David Niles, who created and still works on the Comcast Experience, one of the earliest and still one of the best projects out there involving LED in real estate.
We also had Amahl Hazelton, one of the big thinkers at the famed experiential creative agency Moment Factory. Cybelle Jones, CEO of SEGD, was on, as was Jeremy Koleib, whose Consumer Experience Group works with property companies on big LED projects. And we had Emily Webster, the Senior VP of Creative at New York’s ESI Design, which is behind some of the best experiential real estate you’ll see in real estate.
We could have chatted for hours, but we had 50 minutes. Listen, learn and hopefully enjoy.
Subscribe to this podcast: iTunes * Google Play * RSS
Wednesday Sep 23, 2020
ACE Roundtable: Making Connected Experiences Work Now, And Post-COVID
Wednesday Sep 23, 2020
Wednesday Sep 23, 2020
The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED - DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT
Advocates for Connected Experiences is an umbrella organization created several months ago, that pulls together the people and shared interests of a variety of organizations that deliver experiences to guests.
That can be in places like retail, in museums, commercial properties or theme parks.
The short form for the group is ACE, and it was pulled together and somewhat driven by the Digital Signage Federation - notably past and present board members like Kim Sarubbi, Beth Warren and Laura Davis-Taylor.
One of the early efforts from ACE has been a monthly series of online discussions about important topics, that pull together top people from member organizations. The most recent one was about connected experiences now and post-COVID, as we all all hope there is soon a post-COVID.
I was the moderator for the discussion, and this is the audio track, which is roughly one hour.
The panelists included folks from Shop!, SEGD, Geopath, the DSF, the Location-Based Marketing Association, Blue Telescope, The Experiential Designers and Producers Association, Retail Touchpoints and AVIXA.
There's a lot of voices and you won't always know who is saying what, but the content is worth any confusion you might experience.
TRANSCRIPT - skipping this episode ... too many voices to sort out who said what. Anything particularly brilliant was not me.
Wednesday Jun 10, 2020
Advocates For Connected Experiences: Industry Panel - Re-opening For Business
Wednesday Jun 10, 2020
Wednesday Jun 10, 2020
This is a special version of the 16:9 podcast - the audio from a recent online call put on by the new Advocates For Connected Experiences, focused on the challenges of getting people back to work, and what that means for connected experiences and technology.
The chat, done on a Zoom video call, features senior folks from several organizations, talking about what's changed, what's going on now, and how technologies are being applied. I was the moderator.
On the call, you'll hear from:
- Kim Sarubbi, ACE
- Joe' Lloyd, AVIXA
- Trent Oliver, Themed Entertainment Association
- Debbie Hauss, Retail Touchpoints
- Cybelle Jones, SEGD
- Bryan Meszaros, SEGD
- Kym Frank, Geopath
- David Drain, ICX Association
- Beth Warren from CRI
I didn't have time to buff this up with the audio leveled, etc, etc, so you may have to monkey with your volume controls. But it is a good chat that's well worth a listen.
Warning - it is 60 minutes or so, but you can always listen to half and come back to it later.
Subscribe to this podcast: iTunes * Google Play * RSS
Wednesday May 27, 2020
Panel: AVIXA Digital Signage Power Hour On Access Controls In Pandemic Times
Wednesday May 27, 2020
Wednesday May 27, 2020
The trade association AVIXA is running a series of digital signage "Power Hours" that are designed much more as roundtable discussions than webinars.
I've been moderating them, and while they are available for playback on demand via AVIXA's YouTube channel, it's a conversation that works well as just audio.
This session was on the new demands out there for technology-driven access controls, and messaging for retailers and other venue operators who are slowly re-opening to a new normal.
I stripped out the presentation the guys from Invidis did at the front end of the hour, since they do refer to visuals. This is the conversation, which featured:
- Beth Warren from CRI
- Jay Leedy from Diversified
- Ben Reynolds from Stratacache
- Chuck Lewis from Palmer Digital Group
- Florian Rotberg and Stefan Schieker from invidis.
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Tuesday Apr 21, 2020
Kim Sarubbi, Advocates For Connected Experiences (ACE)
Tuesday Apr 21, 2020
Tuesday Apr 21, 2020
There are a lot of special interest member organizations out there, all focused on the things they do as businesses, but also on the trends and market forces that affect them.
There is a hell of a lot of crossover when it comes to things like customer experience, but historically, there's been very little crossover between these special interest organizations.
In simple terms, an issue that's important to a digital signage network operator can be important, as well, to an advertising company and to a location-based marketer. Privacy issues is a prime example of that.
A new organization called Advocates for Connected Experiences - or ACE - has bubbled up in recent weeks with the goal of getting different organizations collaborating on these kinds of common interests. It's not a member organization you'd join, but more of a working group.
I spoke with Kim Sarubbi, who stuck up her hand and said she'd pull ACE together. She gives the back-story, and tells me what ACE is doing, and where she could use help in what is, right now, totally a volunteer effort.
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Wednesday Apr 08, 2020
Sean Wargo, AVIXA
Wednesday Apr 08, 2020
Wednesday Apr 08, 2020
AVIXA, the trade association for the pro AV industry, has started doing a weekly impact survey with members in North America and internationally - as a way of understanding how hard the pandemic is hitting business, and the collective point of view on what is happening, and will happen.
As you might imagine, things don't look so hot. Sales are down, and revenues with them. Jobs are being furloughed or ended. And even businesses that would, in theory, be rocking - like video conferencing - are struggling with supply chain issues.
But it's not all doom and gloom, and even in rough times, good things can happen.
Sean Wargo, AVIXA's Senior Director of Market Intelligence, runs the impact surveys. He was kind enough to take some time the other day to walk through what he is hearing, and also what AVIXA is doing with and for its members.
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Wednesday Jul 18, 2018
Gordon Feller, Meeting Of The Minds (Smart Cities)
Wednesday Jul 18, 2018
Wednesday Jul 18, 2018
I can't say I've been all the enthralled by what I've seen so far with smart cities initiatives that involve digital out of home media companies. For the most part, they're just digital posters with some wifi and maybe some sensors tossed in so the things can be called "smart."
Those things exist to run ads, and the "smart" thing is largely a veneer to get the ad concession, and for city governments to get free stuff that purports to make their burg seem somehow innovative.
BUT ... there's a lot of potential there, and when you talk to someone who spends all his time thinking about and working on smart city initiatives, you learn there are some good things happening not only with broader smart initiatives, but also with efforts that DO involve media companies.
I wrote a mildly snarky piece recently about this stuff, and Gordon Feller sent me a note suggesting I have a look at a report he did for the Outdoor Advertising Association of America. He's a longtime Silicon Valley tech exec and founder of Meeting Of The Minds, a non-profit public-private partnership that's all about creating smarter cities.
We had a frank talk about what's happened to date, where it really works, and what he sees as the vast potential for smart cities that work with media companies and digital signage technologies.
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