Sixteen:Nine - All Digital Signage, Some Snark
00:14:44 · Antonia Hamberger, Dave Haynes
[00:14:44] S2: Well, in a lot of cases, they don't even know what it really is. [00:14:47] S0: This is true. It's it's it's the thing about the digital signage industry. A lot of the companies still are run by technical people, engineers, electrical engineers, software developers, everything else. They're not good marketers. And then they hire people to do their marketing for them. And those people, with some notable exceptions, don't understand a damn thing about the space. So they just parrot what their executives say, which is far too technical and people don't understand it. And I always try to bang on people that if you're going to market your product, for god's sakes, provide some relevance and context and to use my Canadian term, why... Give me an explanation as to why I should give a crap about this. Yeah. Why I should care. [00:15:34] S2: I guess that's a thing that a lot of companies in the digital signage space struggle with, finding those people who also understand their products on a on a technical level. Yeah. But we don't just want a badge on the digital signage industry because there's a lot of... [00:15:48] S0: There's a lot of great things about it.... [00:15:50] S2: Industry. Yeah. So what's your favorite thing about the industry?
00:15:50 · Antonia Hamberger, Dave Haynes
[00:15:50] S2: Industry. Yeah. So what's your favorite thing about the industry? [00:15:56] S0: If we're talking in technical terms, I'm impressed and encouraged and excited by how LED in particular is opening up all kinds of new possibilities to start to think in terms of displays being a building material, being a finish, being the curtain wall glass, being something that's a full exterior of a building. That's... It gets way beyond just this idea of screen on a wall, which is how this industry was defined for a whole bunch of years. Thinking like what the industry is just simply it's a relatively small industry, even though, you know, we tend to think that, you know, it's giant and it's booming and everything else. It's in in pure terms, it's it's very small compared to most technology industries. But that means you get to know a lot of people all over the world. And there there's no shortage of knuckleheads, but I would say, by and large, it's full of really great people. And I've got, you know, because it's a small industry and it gets together two or three times a year at different events, I've got to know people all over the world and develop friendships with people all over the world that I never do and all... And, you know, doing other work, which is fantastic. You know, friends with the Invidis folks, and here I am in Munich having a beer.
00:15:56 · Dave Haynes, Antonia Hamberger
[00:15:56] S0: If we're talking in technical terms, I'm impressed and encouraged and excited by how LED in particular is opening up all kinds of new possibilities to start to think in terms of displays being a building material, being a finish, being the curtain wall glass, being something that's a full exterior of a building. That's... It gets way beyond just this idea of screen on a wall, which is how this industry was defined for a whole bunch of years. Thinking like what the industry is just simply it's a relatively small industry, even though, you know, we tend to think that, you know, it's giant and it's booming and everything else. It's in in pure terms, it's it's very small compared to most technology industries. But that means you get to know a lot of people all over the world. And there there's no shortage of knuckleheads, but I would say, by and large, it's full of really great people. And I've got, you know, because it's a small industry and it gets together two or three times a year at different events, I've got to know people all over the world and develop friendships with people all over the world that I never do and all... And, you know, doing other work, which is fantastic. You know, friends with the Invidis folks, and here I am in Munich having a beer. [00:17:10] S2: Yeah. And we're always glad to have you. But you've also did a lot of... You've also done a lot of trips over the years. Right? You went to Taiwan, visited visited some display manufacturers just, I think, last year. [00:17:24] S0: Yeah. Spent a week in Taiwan in October.
00:17:24 · Dave Haynes, S3, Antonia Hamberger
[00:17:24] S0: Yeah. Spent a week in Taiwan in October. [00:17:27] S3: 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 200,000 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. [00:18:14] S2: So what was your, like, the best road trip you had during all that time?
00:18:14 · Antonia Hamberger, Dave Haynes, Balthasar Mayer
[00:18:14] S2: So what was your, like, the best road trip you had during all that time? [00:18:19] S0: Best road trip? Well, the best best trip I had was probably... Did a consulting gig for... Extended consulting gig on digital signage for a mobile carrier, a telecoms company in South Africa, I went down there three times. I never would have went to South Africa. It's very expensive. It's a long flight and everything else. But I was there for, I think, six or eight weeks. I forget now. And so I spent a lot of time in Joburg in Cape Town. Nice. That was absolutely fantastic. It was just something I never would have done otherwise. I would say the the most interesting stuff has been going to Asia just because that's where it all emanates. And I think the second time I went to Hong Kong when LED was really starting to come out, that it was a a kind of a big moment for me in that I I don't like to go to tourist places, although all of Hong Kong is really a tourist place, but I like to go kind of off the beaten track where you don't see all the people with their cameras and everything else. And I was just walking this district and saw over a nightclub entrance a very large billboard, LED billboard that in North America would be a press release. There'd be all kinds of buzz about it because look at the sun. [00:19:34] S2: And in Germany, let me tell you, that will be the breaking news, the news of the year. Talk [00:19:41] S1: of the Digital Signage Town. Yeah.
00:19:41 · Balthasar Mayer, Dave Haynes, Antonia Hamberger
[00:19:41] S1: of the Digital Signage Town. Yeah. [00:19:44] S0: But there it was just there and it really kind of told me that, this is where this is gonna go, where it just becomes commonplace because it already was there and when you go to Asia, it's a little, I shouldn't say it's a little, it's way over the top from what I've seen from a distance in China. I've been to China, but I haven't been in in several years now, pre COVID, where you see entire skylines that are just... They've LED lighting, whether it's mesh lighting or they've got larger lighting that's illuminating the whole building, but you see entire skylines that are synchronized. I don't really want that in whatever city I live in with all the light pollution and I I... It it it looks kind of amazing, but it's it's not appealing in another way. But it's it's it's a China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Seoul. All those areas really kind of are instructive as to the possibilities as well as Dubai. But Dubai is just insane. Yeah. It's it's like, I don't think that's a marker or instructive of anything. It's just a crazy place. [00:20:55] S2: No. It just also has tons of money, that place. [00:20:59] S0: Yeah. They build entire skyscrapers on a change order. [00:21:03] S2: Dave, was there ever a particular moment where you realized that your blog really has influence? Because I know like almost everybody in the North American Pro AV digital signage industry knows you and reads you. But that has taken a while. So was there a moment where you [00:21:22] S0: Oh, was immediate. [00:21:23] S2: When you said, yeah? Oh.