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