Sixteen:Nine - All Digital Signage, Some Snark

Stu Armstrong, ComQi

In this episode, I’m speaking with Stu Armstrong, President of the Americas for ComQi, a CMS software and services company with offices in London, New York and Toronto.

Stu talks about the opportunities and challenges of working with the retail sector, and how after many years, signage is getting some serious traction in stores. He also talks about a very different line of business for the company - delivering behind the scenes corporate communications solutions like staff training.

Armstrong is based in New York, but he was up in Toronto recently. ComQi’s R&D offices are a 5 minute drive from 16:9’s world headquarters (spare bedroom in my house), so I popped over, miked him up, and turned on the digital recorder.

Note: I worked for Stu, doing business development, between 2005-2007. Despite that experience, he was still willing to have a chat.

Subscribe to this podcast: iTunes * Google Play * RSS

Neil Willis, Hypersign

Neil Willis is the CEO and founder of Hypersign, a digital signage software company located in Greenville, South Carolina.

In this episode, Neil talks about a long career path that had very humble beginnings - working in the air force in Arkansas and sweeping floors at a big box store on weekends to help pay the family bills. A chance encounter while sweeping up got him out of the service and into IT, and later into ISP services and systems integration. 

Years later, he’s running a very successful CMS and services company heavily focused on working in K-12 schools …  and in healthcare. Neil and I spoke via Skype, and it gets a little scratchy here and there.

Subscribe to this podcast: iTunes * Google Play * RSS

Jason Cremins, Signagelive

Jason Cremins, the founder and CEO of the UK-based firm Signagelive, has been one of the very early adopters of emerging technologies that have really changed how digital signage is pulled together and run - from cloud hosting and distribution, to HTML5, to system on chip displays.

Jason talks about how his still small company is managing explosive growth in the past year, and servicing a global reseller network. He talks about the challenges of a crowded marketplace, the delicate balance of partnering with giant companies like Samsung, LG and Google, and how he sees signage technology and the overall business changing in the next 2 or 3 years.

Subscribe to this podcast: iTunes * Google Play * RSS

Stephen Randall, Monster Media

Stephen Randall is the EVP Social and Mobile at the out of home media firm Monster Media. Randall was doing mobile operating systems before they were ever called smart, as a co-founder of Symbian. He then started LocaModa, which was doing visualizations of user-generated content as far back as 2005, before social media was even a thing.

In this podcast we talk about a lot of things, and spend considerable time exploring the LocaModa patent portfolio that Monster bought and is now working with companies to license. Randall explains how his company is not a troll, but a busy media firm just protecting well-established patents. He explains how the patents applies, and how things will play out for companies that are doing work that infringes on that intellectual property.

Subscribe to this podcast: iTunes * Google Play * RSS

Nanxi Liu, Enplug

Nanxi Liu, the CEO of Enplug, a Los Angeles-based digital signage CMS company she started with a group of new friends after she graduated from Cal-Berkeley ... just four years ago..

Nanxi talks about being a Millennial Asian CEO in an industry mostly run by middle aged white guys, growing a company in a rental house in Belair, and how Enplug now has something akin to franchise offices in places like Nigeria, Slovakia and Australia.

Subscribe to this podcast: iTunes * Google Play * RSS

Bill Dunn, LG MRI

Bill Dunn is the founder and CEO of LG MRI, a suburban Atlanta company focused on producing ultra-reliable, long-lasting outdoor LCD displays. You can see LG MRI product on urban sidewalks, attached to bus shelters and placed around busy outdoor areas like shopping centers and campuses.

Dunn, an engineer to the core, talks about his company’s military and aerospace roots, his expansion into new markets like fast food, and the staffing, processes and equipment applied to every job and product. All outdoor displays, he’ll reinforce, are not created equal.

Subscribe to this podcast: iTunes * Google Play * RSS

Bryan Fairfield, Nanonation

Bryan is the CEO of Nanonation, which delivers digital signage and interactive for a fascinating range of clients - from Louis Vuitton to Harley Davidson to Raising Nebraska, a hands-on learning center celebrating and explaining farm life.

Bryan talks about the rise of interactive in retail and public spaces, tuning their work to the purpose of jobs, and the challenges and benefits of running a thriving tech and media business in Lincoln, Nebraska.  

Subscribe to this podcast: iTunes * Google Play * RSS