Sixteen:Nine - All Digital Signage, Some Snark
00:08:54 · Dave Haynes, Jeremy Gavin, Shawn O'Connell
[00:08:54] S2: there any risk of taking you guys out? Like, it'll just replace what you're doing? [00:08:58] S1: Yeah. I mean, I suppose everyone's gotta be aware of that risk. And so that's something we think about, but we see it as an enabler. At the end of the day, most recently we're working on news right now and how do we use it as a moderation service? And we recently came out with something called community events that finds farmer's markets or library readings, that type of events that banks love, credit unions love. [00:09:24] S4: It would [00:09:25] S2: take a hell of a lot time to find all that. [00:09:27] S1: Can't moderate for 1,300 locations or how many you have. So we've trained AI bots to make those selections for us by giving it great prompts, the results are amazing. So it certainly helped us deliver for our customers. And so I think as long as we stay focused on leveraging it, maybe we'll stay ahead of it and we'll still have our jobs. [00:09:50] S2: All right, thank you. [00:09:50] S1: Yeah, you bet. Thank you. [00:09:52] S4: Hi, I'm Shawn O'Connell, I'm the Executive Vice President of Sales at Uniguest covering the Americas market. I have revenue responsibility for all verticals and all channels within the organization. So Shawn, can [00:10:06] S2: you tell me what Uniguest is all into? Because I have this idea that you're primarily working in hospitality, but I'm thinking I have kind of a narrow idea.
00:10:06 · Dave Haynes, Shawn O'Connell
[00:10:06] S2: you tell me what Uniguest is all into? Because I have this idea that you're primarily working in hospitality, but I'm thinking I have kind of a narrow idea. [00:10:15] S4: Yeah, absolutely. We started out as a hospitality organization, but what we've seen happen over the last five years as technology converged and the need for content management solutions comes together, we're starting to see a pretty more robust revenue stream across many, many verticals. So we're not just focused on hospitality anymore, it's all verticals including stadium and corporate and senior living and healthcare. So we've got [00:10:41] S2: our finger on the pulse of many, many verticals nowadays versus where we were five years ago. Now is that because it kind of organically went that way or was this a strategic decision that, yeah, we need to look at these other markets as well? [00:10:54] S4: Yeah, very strategic in the sense that we've been in the acquisition mode for the last five years. So we're very strategic, we're acquiring companies that were hitting sweet spots where we weren't to help us gain some market share and some footprint in certain verticals. And then we grew organically from there. And as we converge our software and technology, it's relevant in all these different verticals. So it was very strategic through acquisition. Now we're organically growing within each of those spaces.
00:10:54 · Shawn O'Connell, Dave Haynes, Trey Courtney
[00:10:54] S4: Yeah, very strategic in the sense that we've been in the acquisition mode for the last five years. So we're very strategic, we're acquiring companies that were hitting sweet spots where we weren't to help us gain some market share and some footprint in certain verticals. And then we grew organically from there. And as we converge our software and technology, it's relevant in all these different verticals. So it was very strategic through acquisition. Now we're organically growing within each of those spaces. [00:11:20] S2: Acquisitions are an interesting thing. A lot of times when there's a company doing a roll up of other companies, they pick up a lot of software and a lot of capabilities, and then they have to figure out, okay, what do we do with these things? I found it interesting with Uniguest in that you were able to kind of mix up what you have, particularly when it comes to IPTV and then venue based stuff. [00:11:42] S4: Right, right, I mean, absolutely. I think what's happening for us as we converge those legacy systems and very deliberately move to what we're branded as Hub, which is a cloud based CMS software package, it's to basically end of life some of those legacy products that were really heavy on the hardware side, moved to a cloud based solution and converted it, so under one unified ecosystem, branded Uniguest via a cloud CMS called Hub. [00:12:06] S2: Okay. A lot of people use the term digital engagement. [00:12:11] S3: Yes. [00:12:12] S2: A lot of people have used the term. I'm curious how you guys define digital engagement.
00:12:12 · Dave Haynes, Shawn O'Connell
[00:12:12] S2: A lot of people have used the term. I'm curious how you guys define digital engagement. [00:12:17] S4: Yeah, I think it's a fair, fair question. For us, it's about removing friction on all of the different endpoints that are involved in how consumers are engaging, whether it's with a mobile device via an app, whether it's a TV in a restaurant or a bar, whether it's a TV in a guest room, whether it's smart signage in a lobby or in a corporate venue, could be at an art gallery that is digitizing. So for us, it's all about that consumer engagement and no friction on how the content's getting managed and how it's, in some cases, becoming very, very personal for who the consumer is that is engaging with that digital asset. [00:12:53] S2: Right. So the idea of a hub is that you can do all of this off of one login, one user experience, as opposed to doing one thing, then you gotta back out, log into something else to [00:13:03] S4: do this either bit? Absolutely, I think what's happening with the way that the world is working these days with fewer bodies expecting to do more, unifying this under one platform makes it easier to administer so these IT organizations and the marketing organizations have one tool that they're able to actually go in and log into and can create that digital experience, whatever it may be, because a guest room TV in a hotel, for example, or a senior living residence, for example, will require one experience, completely different, managed under one unified tool. [00:13:35] S2: Okay,
00:13:35 · Dave Haynes, Shawn O'Connell, Jeremy Gavin, Stan Richter
[00:13:35] S2: Okay, [00:13:35] S4: Alright. Thank you. My pleasure. Thank you for having us. [00:13:39] S1: For over a decade, Screenfeed has been the reliable choice for beautifully designed licensed content such as news and weather. We handle over 27,000,000 requests a day to deliver dynamic content to 2,000 screens across the globe. Now we bring you Screenfeed Connect, a no code solution that makes complex content projects easy. Projects that used to take our designers and developers weeks became a to do we could complete before lunch. The easy to use browser based tool leverages pre built data connections and ready made widgets to give you the power to design with data. Create team member profiles, schedules, tenant directories, progress boards, featured products, or anything that leverages your data. Discover how Connect empowers you to complete projects faster at screenfeed.com. [00:14:26] S5: Hey, I am Stan Richter, CEO at SignageOS. [00:14:28] S2: And I'm Dave Haynes. We've known each other for a long time now. When we first got to know each other, I would describe SignageOS as doing middleware and kind of bridging the gap between all the different SOC platforms and making it possible to blend networks. That's evolved a lot and I get a sense that much more of your business now is on the device management side. Is that accurate?
00:14:28 · Dave Haynes, Stan Richter
[00:14:28] S2: And I'm Dave Haynes. We've known each other for a long time now. When we first got to know each other, I would describe SignageOS as doing middleware and kind of bridging the gap between all the different SOC platforms and making it possible to blend networks. That's evolved a lot and I get a sense that much more of your business now is on the device management side. Is that accurate? [00:14:50] S5: I think it's pretty accurate and it has evolved a lot. I would no longer call SignageOS a middleware, though it still plays a role. I think we've evolved into more an infrastructure as a service because we have a suite of different services that we tie around just the middleware. And device management is part of that. [00:15:15] S2: But when you say infrastructure, that's gonna make some people think it's hardware, but you're not talking about hardware. [00:15:20] S5: No, not at all, no, Everything is kind of cloud based infrastructure for digital signage, empowering companies to accomplish more you know, with doing less. [00:15:30] S2: Why do they need this? I mean, yesterday you were talking about a lot of your business, like we were in a meeting and talking about how brownfield opportunities are, what's really kind of driving your business.