Digital Signage
Expo New Attendee Tips from an Expert
By Jeff Porter, Porter Digital Signage Consulting
Your first trip to DSE?
Great! There’s a lot to take in
and only two days to do that, so please allow me to offer you some tips to take
best advantage of your time at the show.
A common rookie mistake is that folks are completely
overwhelmed with the breadth and depth of exhibitors at the show, and I’ve
heard that many newbees end up more confused than when they arrived. So let’s nip that one bud early.
There are many parts to the “digital signage food
chain”. And there’s a good chance you’re
starting from the WRONG end of the chain.
You’re wanting to deploy a digital signage network and don’t really know
where to start. Let me give you a
hint…start with having a solid content strategy. Understand what sort of content you want to
put on your screens to get the most impact from your viewers. It’s probably more than just a simple video
loop these days. Maybe a news, weather,
sports, stocks feed. Maybe social media
integration. Maybe some web based
templates. Maybe making sure you can
easily day-part your content so that the right information is being shown at
the right time of the day.
Understanding your content strategy will help you pick the
best SOFTWARE platform for driving your digital signage network. Besides checking to make sure that all the
content bells and whistles are easily managed by the software (without going
crazy even for a larger network), you’ll need to decide if a cloud based system
is good for you (so called “SaaS” or “Software as a Service”, where you pay a
monthly fee per player) or if you’re looking to host this yourself with an on
premise solution. SaaS is pretty
popular, since it has low up-front costs, but for a larger network, those costs
can add up. Not all systems offer both,
so you’ll need to understand this up front.
Not all systems can be managed 100% from the web, so make sure that’s on
your check list. And if your IT
department hates “the cloud”, you’ll need to find a software platform that your
IT guys can host for you instead. That’s
a huge early decision point.
And I would probably stay away from software platforms that
lock you into their proprietary hardware platforms. You’ll have more choices if the software
provider supports a plethora of hardware choices, from PC based embedded media
players, to low cost android media players, and growing in popularity, embedded
players built into many of the commercial screens from folks like Samsung, LG,
NEC and Panasonic. These built in media
players (sometimes called “SoC” or “System on a Chip”) can provide a very low
cost solution (the media player is “free”!) and also make deployment clean (no
extra wires, cables and boxes) and easier to deploy. So once you have chosen your software
platform, find out what hardware options that company supports, and investigate
those at the show. Don’t bother looking
at hardware choices that your software platform does not support!!
Finally, take a look at the screens. The classic rookie mistake is to start with
the screens, then other hardware bits like media players and finally
software. THAT IS TOTALLY BACKWARDS!!!
Surprisingly, there are NOT a lot of “total solution
providers” at the show…folks that do hardware, software, content development,
content management, network management, installation, and field service all
from one company. You will find some,
but you likely won’t end up with “best of breed” or the lowest cost
solution. It’s not that they’re not out
there. It’s that they don’t usually
exhibit at the show. They’re walking the
show, just as you are, and are looking for new best of breed technology pieces
that they can offer their clients in the future. So please don’t forget to attend all of the
“networking events”. Get to know your
fellow attendees. Work the room. You’ll probably find some interesting folks
that can help you on your quest to deploy the best digital signage network for
your company.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jeff Porter is one of the industry’s leading experts in
digital signage and is the founder of Porter Digital Signage Consulting. From business planning, to sales and
marketing and technology choices, Porter has been helping his clients get all
the moving parts of digital signage in alignment for success. Prior to heading his own consulting business,
Mr. Porter was employed by Scala, Commodore, Bell Labs and Eastman Kodak. Mr. Porter holds a BSEE from Purdue
University and a MS from the University of Illinois. He can be contacted at
jeff@porterdigitalsignage.com or by phone 610-202-7676. For additional articles of interest on
digital signage, check out http://porterdigitalsignage.com/Blog.html
