My Three [Digital Signage] Wishes for 2012

1. Sell hard financial benefits: In order to see the digital signage sector continue to grow the community need to work at reducing the cost of ownership (TCO), improving the return on investment (ROI) and simplifying the content work-flow.  It's no longer sufficient for companies to promise 'targeted marketing' or 'customized message delivery', the smart digital signage companies will be offering a provable cost analysis matrix based on realistic TCO and ROI - that's what's needed to win over the skeptics and get large roll-outs moving through the accountant's office.

2. Develop some standardize:  Standards are a really good thing - they protect consumers, they help buyers sort the wheat from the chaff and they ensure interoperability.  You only have to cast your mind back to the computers of the 1980's to see what a mess we would be in without standards.

3. Roll-out Android: Android is perhaps the most pervasive operating system in the world - a Linux derivative that contains all the libraries to manage complex communications, accelerated graphics and multi-touch displays.  Android promises to deliver tremendous value and real financial benefits to our community.

Digital Signage is a rapidly expanding sector filled with opportunity for the major players including;

Hardware manufacturers
Software developers
Content providers
Network operators
Advertising agencies
Installation and maintenance
Engineering services

The list is pretty impressive and filled with some heavy-hitters.  I'm sure that in amongst such a distinguished list of sectors are the resource to make my humble wishes come true.


Steve Earle is VP Sales and Marketing, Country Manager at Stinova Ltd

How To Make Great Digital Signage Content - #1

Click here to view a low-rez playlist preview - May take a few seconds to initialize, requires Adobe Flash Player plug-in


Those who know me, know that I am deeply involved in the Digital Signage business.  Digital signage is an interesting space because it demands of its principles,  many unique and diverse disciplines.  In this series of posts, I'd like to concentrate on digital signage content.

Digital signage content is quite different from many other types of content.  The content you can use in your digital signage project will depend to a large extent on the capabilities of your media players.   Media players vary in capability from simple, low-cost stand-alone memory players that can read pictures or video from a directory on the memory stick to fully-managed multi-media players capable of displaying many types of media and content in parallel.

The media players (and back-end content management system) you choose for your digital signage project will be determined by the complexity and variation of content that needs to be displayed in combination with the number of displays that need to be addressed.  For example, a stand-alone location could build a very simple digital signage solution based on consumer grade T.V.'s that can read content from USB sticks.  Whereas a large multi-location deployment will need the convenience of a centrally managed enterprise class content server in combination with managed media players that can display content in an automated manner according to defined schedules.

Digital signage content consists of many different media types including images, videos, text, dynamic data such as RSS, XML, HTML and live streams even PowerPoint presentations are supported in some environments.  Digital signage content is strung together in containers called 'playlist' that combine all the media types into serial or parallel structures with or without special transitions.

A serial playlist typically contains a series of media elements, displayed in a full-screen format, one after the other in a continuous loop with or without transitions.  A parallel playlist on the other hand, is built using a template that divides the display's real estate into multiple zones or frames, each zone displays content independently and in parallel.

The basics

Digital signage media elements have 3 basic properties:- Resolution, Aspect Ratio and Duration.

Resolution = Size of media element in pixles
Aspect Ratio = Shape of media element expressed as a ration of width to height
Duration = Time the media element will be displayed

Applying these properties to a series of images, that must be displayed in full-screen format on a modern High Definition display, we get the following:-

Resolution = 1920x1080 pixels
Aspect ration = 16:9
Duration = 10 seconds (duration could be any required value)

Notice that DPI is not relevant - DPI is a unit of measure applicable only to print media - because digital signage content is displayed on screens, only screen resolution is important.

Next time:- Using images in your digital signage project.

Marketing 101 for Technology Geeks

Code Camp 2011

I Recently attended the South Florida Code Camp which is a free Geek Fest organized by Florida.net and was held this year at NSU.  The event attracted more that 1000 participants who had the opportunity to hear 78 highly regarded industry expert who presented software development topics throughout the all-day event.

I sat-in on my friend Alex's presentation "For Love or Money", a discussion about the volatile I.T job market.  As a successful recruiter and owner of SherlockTech.com, Alex has a deep understanding of the I.T. job market in general and the South Florida market in particular.  Following along and listening to the participants input, it stuck me that most of the software developers present don't really understand how to use modern marketing tools to help them develop their careers.

When I was a young engineer, things were not so complicated:

1 Develop your craft 

2 join some user groups

3 become a speaker

4 get poached

5 goto 1

and it was quite acceptable to remain in the same company doing the same job year after year - after all someone needs to maintain this monster you created, right?

Today, things are much more complicated, new technology, fickle employers, highly competitive market, age/gender discrimination - too many moving targets.  so what can you do to stay in the game?  Well, believe it or not the 5 steps above still work today but the frequency needs to be higher - if you want to continue to develop as an engineer you need to be constantly challenged in the workplace or you'll simply be getting the same experience year on year without any growth.

You also have to understand your career objectives: developer > team leader > system architect > project manager > I.T. director etc...  Or do you want to be actively developing software throughout your career?  These are very different paths and require that you develop different skills sets. 

By mixing old and new ideas you can build a marketing strategy that works for you and your goals.

1 establish your expertise - blog, blog, blog

2 contribute code to open source projects and online code repositories

3 use social media to showcase yourself (linkedin, twitter, youtube, facebook)*

4 build a relationship with a top recruiting firm in your field

5 goto 1

*Some notes about social media and your personal image.  Employers future and present will use the web to verify you and your skills so having a presence there is very important BUT KEEP IT PROFESSIONAL AT ALL TIMES. 

Steve Earle is Strategic Sales and Marketing Consultant at e2mktg

Prime Time for Social Media Marketing

Image: Smi23le

Five Social Media Startups top $1BN: http://tiny.cc/8p609 By now, everyone in the known world is aware that masters of the universe Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) have invested $500MIL in the still privately held Facebook.  So what?  I hear you ask.  Isn't this just another one of those rich-get-richer schemes?  Well maybe a bit; of course it's very cool to let slip that you have shares in Facebook - but that's not the whole story...

Wall St. bankers may be many things but stupid probably isn't one of them; with a history of wealth creation and massive profits you have to ask - if they're doing it why aren't we?  What do they know that we don't?  A skeptical view might be that they are simply buying pre-IPO stock that come 2012 (the word on the street is that in 2012 Facebook will launch its IPO) will sky-rocket in value and while that might be true there are in fact more solid investment angles here:

1. Goldman Sachs group offering of private shares in Facebook has created a feeding frenzy among wealthy investors who want in on the ground floor at any price.  This imbalance in supply and demand  has created the perfect environment for a market in derivatives and who is better positioned to create these derivatives than Goldman? But that's just speculation.

2. Facebook now has 600 million (and still growing) subscribers.  Facebook is changing the way people communicate and share information.  This has created a new marketing paradigm that cannot be ignored by anyone serious about the future of marketing. When Facebook added that little 'like' button it had marketing professionals around the world scrambling to understand the broader implications.

3. The tech boom-bubble-bust of the late 90's taught us that companies must have real value before investors will flock to the gates.  Facebook, linkedIn, Twitter, Zynga and Groupon (a discount coupon sharing site just turned down a $5BN offer to sell) are all examples of new millennium companies with billion-dollar-plus value.

So if you're still wondering whether you should consider social media marketing as a real option for you business - Hello!

Steve Earle is Strategic Sales and Marketing Consultant at E2Mktg, call him on 954.806.2188 and get started with a Fast-Track Marketing program today!

Why you should use QR codes

Scan Me!

If you're in marketing chances are you know what QR codes are.  QR codes are high-contrast images that can be scanned by smart-phones and other devices and can direct a smart-phone scanner app to a website or other resource.

This is incredibly useful in all manner of marketing scenarios and immediately offers marketers valuable feed-back without going to the expense of costly biometrics.

QR codes are particularly useful to the Digital Signage industry - many advertisers have looked to Digital Signage as a means of engaging customers in a two-way conversation.  By implementing QR codes, retailers and advertisers will get information about what customers and consumers are scanning and the impact of that interaction. 

Because QR codes can be printed on almost anything and read by almost any consumer phone or smart-phone (a small app must be installed - they are plentiful and free) the opportunity to deliver additional consumer experiences is unlimited.  Additionally, the scanned codes are saved by the app for review by consumers at any time.

Their use in anything from museum exhibits to restaurant menus may make the traditional kiosk obsolete as more and more consumers are carrying what amounts to a kiosk in their pocket.

Steve Earle is Creative Guy at E2Mktg, call him on 954.806.2188 and get started with a Fast-Track Marketing program today!