Digital Signage Today
00:00:10 · Judy Monnel, Darryl Kuder
[00:00:10] S0: Hi, and welcome to the Digital Signage Today podcast. I'm Judy Monnel, editor of Digital Signage Today. Our guest is Darryl Kuder, founder and CEO of Red Dot Digital Media. It's a Carlsbad based specialty integrator that's often brought in by larger integrators, specifically for his deep digital signage expertise. So for nearly two decades, Red Dot has designed and deployed complex signage networks ranging from single site installations to global rollouts. And Darryl has hands on experience across virtually every major CMS platform, which gives him a unique perspective on our topic today. And the topic is debunking the myth on the single CMS strategy across AV networks. So Darryl attributes much of Red Dot's success to the company's willingness to shed the single CMS approach and instead create custom solutions for each customer. So thanks for being here, Darryl. [00:01:20] S1: Yeah, thank you for having me. [00:01:22] S0: Alright, we're gonna dive in. What is the myth of the single CMS strategy?
00:01:28 · Darryl Kuder
[00:01:28] S1: Well, think the myth of that, it really revolves around companies that are proposing different types of digital signage, especially the CMS providers, are constantly pushing the fact that there should be one CMS to distribute throughout all the different types of deployments. And so, from our standpoint, we actually look at it completely different. We look at it like the CMS should best match the type of content that's being published. So if you're doing a interactive wayfinder versus corporate communications, oftentimes, those two different types of deployments might not be able to use the same CMS. And so we look at it like, choose the CMS that's going to be best for that type of project, and if they happen to be different, then they're different because they're being used and specialized in those different focused areas. So our approach is pick the CMS that's easiest for the client to make updates and manage content on based on the type of deployment, not just one CMS across the entire platform because it's convenient. The one thing that we have found is that the... When you do one CMS across the entire platform, clients tend to think that the the advantage is that they can take one piece of content and upload it to any screen, which is absolutely true. But I think the bigger difference is that, you know, when you really talk to end users about the type of content that they're deploying, they're not necessarily putting up the same piece of content on a wayfinder that you would have, on the other hand, on a video wall. So, you're actually not sharing content across different types of deployments. And so, they are sort of siloed by default.
00:03:26 · Judy Monnel
[00:03:26] S0: Right. But, you know, the integrators, they love the single CMS strategy because to them it's so simple. It's, you know, like you said, simple implementation. But, you know, there are trade offs they might not be aware of, right?
00:03:42 · Darryl Kuder
[00:03:42] S1: Mhmm. Yeah. You know, we do a lot of work with integrators, and we actually really like working with integrators. You know, the value for a company like us to work with an integrator, goes both ways. So one is that we get to work with experts in the field that know the hardware, know the installation side. And, you know, in return, we can offer them the ability to provide from a content perspective and even helping them, you know, spec in the right digital media players and software, we can provide that level of expertise, which ultimately kinda comes together and and puts together a really good project for the end user. Right. But one of the things that we do find from the integration side is that, you know, for whatever reason, and sometimes it's done even before we get brought in, the integrator that's specking in the software and the hardware Right. They're really... They're usually not having a deep enough conversation about the content. And what we found is that when that happens and they're just specking in a media player with a piece of software, couple things occur. One is that the media player itself might not be equipped to handle, an advanced level software. So take, for example, if we're going to use a CMS that does require a little bit higher processing power, we want a media player that can handle that, not just an entry level media player. Well, the same goes true from the CMS side. If the integrator is specking in a specific piece of hardware, we wanna make sure that the CMS is matching up with the type of content and that we're not just blindly deploying the same CMS everywhere. Now, that doesn't mean that you can't do that. There are definitely projects where the same CMS works on every media player, and it's totally fine. But imagine if you have a CMS for, let's say, corporate communications, you know, where companies might have enterprise deployments of hundreds of screens and they're communicating to their employees internally. That one CMS might work great. And the reason it would work great is because it's got built in functionality that makes updating content on corporate communications very easy.
00:06:02 · Darryl Kuder, Judy Monnel
But then you turn around and try to use that same CMS on a wayfinder or some sort of custom HTML type project, and you actually quickly realize that that CMS really cannot handle either the type of HTML you're deploying or something like that, and now you're kind of scrambling and potentially it's gonna cost the client more money or something like that. So when we come across the integrators, you know, we really try to advise them upfront that it's really not always one size fits all, and that it's okay to do multiple CMSs. [00:06:36] S0: Right, and that's what Red Dot does. It does that customized approach. So, say I'm looking to a multi facet Digital Signage project, and my integrator is saying, Oh, we got one CMS that's gonna handle it all. How do I determine if that's actually true? Are there questions that you know, I need to ask to ensure that the CMS portion is being done correctly?
00:07:07 · Darryl Kuder
[00:07:07] S1: Yeah. I think, you know, there's obviously a value in the experience that we have. You know, like you'd mentioned at the top of the show, we have worked with a lot of the top CMS providers that that are out there. And so having that kind of experience really allows us to kinda draw on, like, what's available, what the different CMSs do. And, you know, taking that experience and then kinda translating that, you know, with the customer and figuring out based on the content, alright, this is the CMS we wanna use on this job, or this other CMS is gonna work better on this job, really is some of the value that we're bringing into these types of projects. And so the tough part is that sometimes the only way to figure that out is you have to have a conversation with the client. And that's something we definitely stress is that if we're gonna help with the content or we're gonna help pick a CMS as a specific option, you know, we need to get in there and kinda ask some of these, what type of content are you wanting to deploy? What type of content are you capable of creating in house? What type of content do you need, like outsourced or a company like us to create on your behalf? And once you start realizing that the type of content is actually very simple, okay, they only... They're gonna run full screen images and a playlist, every CMS can do that. So do you wanna spec in a CMS then based on price or additional functionality that they made in in the future? And so we're we're definitely keen to getting in and asking those questions and trying to help the integrator figure that out.