You may have already heard that long-time digital signage industry consultant Lyle Bunn passed away last Tuesday, Oct. 9 from colon cancer. If you knew Lyle you also know that he was not only professionally generous, but also kind-hearted and a gentleman whose first reaction was to befriend all those with whom he came in contact.  Lyle was the first ever official member of the DSF when the organization incorporated in 2010.

So it is not surprising that Lyle wanted his friends in the industry to know that it was “His great joy to be able to make such contributions to the industry, touching many individuals and organizations, since the inception of the digital signage industry. His final wish was for the industry’s ongoing success.”

Digital Signage Federation Chairman Richard Ventura said, “With Lyle’s passingI am reminded of the fragility of life and how short a time we are all really here. Over the years, I’ve gotten to know Lyle, both as a person and as a member of our industry. He was ubiquitous in our industry, insatiable in his desire to learn and teach, and genuine in his enthusiasm and gentle manner. He will be missed and he will be remembered. On behalf of the leadership and members of the DSF, our sincerest condolences to his family.”

Know that services to celebrate Lyle’s life will be held at 1pm on Saturday, Oct. 20 at the Brighton Fellowship Christian Reform Church, 204 Main Street, Brighton, Ontario. The family asks that in lieu of flowers, donations be sent in Lyle’s name either to the Canadian Cancer Society or to the American Cancer Society.

With special thanks to Geri Wolff for this contribution.

How a Content Management System Can Yield Effective Corporate Communication

Jerry Rosen

The key to employee engagement is effective communication. But “communication” is no longer black and white. It has morphed into a massive vortex of rapid-moving tidbits available via numerous channels.

Communication is pushed, pulled, shared in real time and at times superfluous. But this poses a problem when considering effective communication is the key to cultivating employee engagement.

The DSF recently had an opportunity to learn how one member, RMG Networks, is trying to cut through the noise with its new platform, Korbyt.

Jerry Rosen, Senior Vice President, Global Chief Marketing and Creative Officer of RMG Networks, said effective corporate employee communication can be enabled by converging technology, strategy and content.

“I look at corporate communications through a lens of internal marketing and advertising,” Rosen said.

That may be a natural fit for the former advertising executive. He has helped drive RMG’s consultative approach, helping customers define engagement and facilitating employee connection.

“We focus our customers on personalization,” Rosen said. “We create engagement and try to help our customers create or identify inflection points where messaging can be done at the right time, to the right people, in a rotation of content that impacts them.”

The ultimate goal is employee retention and engagement. The core technology used by RMG in its approach is the Korbyt management platform. RMG has been developing its own methods and nomenclature around employee behavior and use those resources to help customers plan how messaging is distributed and scheduled. One of those ways is by embracing the unchangeable fact that employees use their mobile devices.

Personalizing the message

While discussing how to put out relative and effective messaging content, Rosen said that digital signage content often lags behind the pace of the enterprise.

“That is one advantage of a system that integrates mobile into the messaging. We reversed the technology road map starting with mobile personalization. Increasingly growing remote workforce has created the demand for personalize content employees can access anywhere, anytime. Is based on mobile content threaded through the desktop and onto signage,” he said.

There is a governance process surrounding the multi-direction dissemination and creation of content. This involves a process of legislating policy for proper and relevant content, monitoring content and curating it for appropriate use.

“The goal is to filter content but encourage honest dialogue. Corporate (communication departments) can push key messaging but should allow group content sharing.  This need for content means that employee generated items such as pictures, videos and storytelling are organic fields for continuous fresh and relevant content.” Rosen said.

One challenge with communication in a digital signage environment has been audio. Video with audio is better applied to 1:1 devices like computers and mobile devices.  Short videos without audio on public video displays can encourage employees to see the longer videos on desktops and mobile devices. One type of video content which proved to have success was messaging from corporate leaders.  RMG piloted CEO videos with this approach and through analytics discovered that the average length of a CEO video should be less than 60 seconds when applied to non-crisis or urgent business messaging. The pilot was based on non-crisis, non-urgent event sharing.

“These videos can be very effective in messaging but require the right context,” Rosen said. “We’re able to see real-time performance metrics including who opened, saw, and watched these videos by department.”  Those metrics in turn help the enterprise understand what most interests their employees.

The corporate communications professional

The accelerated growth of the use of video means the role of the corporate communication professional requires multidisciplinary skills. The challenges they face and variety of communication medium at their disposal mean that internal communication professionals now have omni-channel responsibilities, Rosen said.

Internal communications is a growing hiring category for many companies. RMG is seeing some enterprise customers assign ‘beat reporters’ or designated content contributors. These focused contributors feed the voice of their region or department into corporate communications via employee spotlights, anniversaries, recognition, and other newsworthy items which build the corporate culture.

Using corporate communications to help move employees from passivity to engagement can be supported by digital signage messaging.  “The objective is to move employees from ‘I don’t know’ to ‘I know what’s going on and still don’t care’ and finally to ‘I know and I care!’ That’s the key – move from ‘get heard’ to ‘get change’” Rosen said.

Internal communications benchmark study

This year, RMG, along with Ragan Communications, has published an internal communications benchmark study that includes over 300 full responses from stakeholder involved in employee communication.

Key findings from the study include:

• Employee engagement is notoriously hard to measure, which poses a challenge for both HR and communications teams. Technology – such as self-service and pulse feedback tools – is enabling employers to communicate in new ways to establish a more holistic employee engagement approach. It is important to understand how to best use these technologies to drive engagement and choose the right platform(s) that aligns with your business goals. A content management system, for example, enables individuals to publish content across multiple channels.

• To enable powerful internal communications, the ability to receive real-time feedback can allow an ability to gain insights about your employees. Knowing what percentage of employees accessed the content, how many people watched the video, if it was accessed across all departments, etc., can help better enable communication across the organization.

• It is important for employees to feel compelled to act on the messaging they are receiving from internal communications. This can be done by applying user segments for tagged content to create personalized messaging. With Korbyt, for example, these tags can include roles, channels, teams, departments and more. Employees want to see content that will impact them directly, therefore employers need to be able to easily share content that is specific and relevant.

• Having a scalable CMS platform can better enable employers to create, manage and deploy content across a variety of endpoints, including mobile apps. The key to messaging is that they are consistent and consumable. As the study notes, CMS platforms can be a gateway to creating a truly interactive employee experience.

Council to be a Resource for DSF Members to Support DOOH Advertising Companies, Agencies & Brands

Warrenton, VA – The Digital Signage Federation® (DSF), the only independent not-for-profit trade organization serving the digital signage industry announced today the 2018-19 leadership of the Digital Signage Federation Global Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) Council, an affiliate organization with a worldwide purvie

w specifically to support the needs of companies involved in the intersection between out-of-home advertising and the digital signage industry.

The primary objective of the DSF Global Digital Out-of-Home Council is to provide a resource for DSF members to build their capacity to support out-of-home advertising companies, agencies, and brands. Much of this capacity will be developed through conformity of analytics, ad buying, and technology deployment.  The group will work on achievable goals in 2018-19, including:

• Identifying gaps in the commercial relations between out of home advertisers and digital signage networks and plan for ways to bridge these gaps using the platform of the DSF;
• Adoption of existing industry standards and practices, all of which will be communicated to DSF members;
• Creating professional development resources for the digital signage industry to provide a broad understanding of ad buying practices; this will include the development of the Digital Out-of-Home Summit before DSE in March 2019;
• Working with related industry associations to collaborate on aligning the goals of signage technology and out of home advertisers; and
• Creating an environment where qualified digital signage suppliers and networks can support the business interests of advertisers.

The 2018-2019 Council Members are:

Global Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) Council Co-Chairs

• Sheldon Silverman / CEO and Founder, SmartBomb Media Group
• Kym Frank / President, Geopath
• Michael Cooper / Global President & CEO, Rapport Worldwide

Council Members

• Matthew Hurwitz / Manager, International Creative Advertising, Sony Pictures
• David Krupp / President & COO, Billups
• Susan Danaher / Founder, The Danaher Group
• Jeffrey Martin / President & CEO, Right Media Solutions
• Travis Macionsky / VP, Director, Horizon Media
• Joel Braswell / Sr. Manager, Connections Planning, Coca-Cola
• Michael Provenzano / Founder & CEO, Vistar Media
• Chad Stoller / EVP, Global Chief Innovation Officer, UM Worlwide
• Paula Fernandez / Global Head of Data and Technology, Kinetic – UK
• Guillermo De Lella / Groupo Alsur – Argentina
• Fernando Mayorga / Chief Technology Officer – livedooh GmbH – Germany
• Ichiro T. Jinnai / Director, Out-of-Home Media Services Division – Dentsu Inc. – Japan
• Joe Copley / Director, Strategic Partnerships – Seedooh – Australia

Chairman’s Advisor to the Global DOOH Council

• Philip Cohen/ President, CMN Holdings and former DSF Chairman

Mr. Richard Ventura, Vice President of Strategic Management for NEC Display Solutions, and DSF Chairman, said of the announcement of the council leadership “The shared insight of this group is necessary to grow opportunities for all parties involved in out-of-home advertising.  The DSF membership will rely on this council for leadership and knowledge in the global DOOH ecosystem.”

The Digital Signage Federation Global Digital Out-of-Home Council leadership may call on the DSF membership for input and direction.  Other members may be added to the council throughout the year.

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About the Digital Signage Federation
DSF’s Mission is to support and promote the common business interests of the world-wide digital signage, interactive technologies and the digital out-of-home network industries. The DSF is a not-for-profit independent voice of the digital signage industry reflecting the diversity of its membership. It promotes professional recognition through certifications, continuing education, conferences, publications, and presentations offered by the DSF and affiliate groups. It provides government lobbying to leverage the collective strength of members and represent their interests at the higher levels of government and the community. The DSF provides leadership and networking opportunities focused on building a solid foundation for the advancement of the digital signage industry. For more information, visit www.digitalsignagefederation.org.

For more information, contact

Brian Gorg, Executive Director, Digital Signage Federation

bgorg@digitalsignagefederation.org +1 540-551-5500

The Digital Signage Federation®

To Host Coffee & Controversy – a DSF Breakfast

During NYC Digital Signage Week

Warrenton, VA – The Digital Signage Federation (DSF), the independent not-for-profit trade organization serving the digital signage industry, is pleased today to announce that it will host Coffee & Controversy – a Breakfast, featuring a spirited panel discussion in New York City during Digital Signage Week on Tuesday, October 30 from 8:00-11:00 am at the Google New York City offices at 111 8th Avenue.

There will be two presentations during the event.  The DSF panel discussion, moderated by Dave Haynes, founder and editor of Sixteen:Nine and a DSF Board Member, will explore a number of topics related to technology, content and operations. The morning’s format will be fast paced and has been known to solicit blunt answers from panelists. Panelists will be announced in September 2018 and members of the DSF will be invited to suggest panel questions.  The second session will be delivered by Mike Puzen, Regional Sales Manager, Google Chrome Enterprise, who will present on how Chrome OS is being used to support secure content delivery to distributed digital signage networks.

Registration for the DSF’s Coffee & Controversy Breakfast is available on the DSF website at: https://www.digitalsignagefederation.org/event/coffee-and-controversy-at-new-york-city-digital-signage-week/

Date/Time:  Tuesday, October 30, 8:00-11:00 AM

Location:    Google New York City offices at 111 8th Avenue, NY, NY

Cost:          Free- seating is limited and priority will be given to DSF Members, End Users, and Network Operators.  ID and prior registration required to enter.

About the Digital Signage Federation
DSF’s Mission is to support and promote the common business interests of the world-wide digital signage, interactive technologies and the digital out-of-home network industries. The DSF is a not-for-profit independent voice of the digital signage industry reflecting the diversity of its membership. It promotes professional recognition through certifications, continuing education, conferences, publications, and presentations offered by the DSF and affiliate groups. It provides government lobbying to leverage the collective strength of members and represent their interests at the higher levels of government and the community. The DSF provides leadership and networking opportunities focused on building a solid foundation for the advancement of the digital signage industry. For more information, visit www.digitalsignagefederation.org.

For more information, contact

Brian Gorg, Executive Director, Digital Signage Federation

bgorg@digitalsignagefederation.org +1 540-551-5500

In March, Toronto-based Shikatani Lacroix Design won an APEX Award gold medal for its work on the Boston Pizza Digital Experience project. The company’s work with Boston Pizza began about three years ago, and the first location featuring the digital design opened in April 2017 in downtown Toronto.

Another new restaurant in the Medicine Hat neighborhood in Alberta, Canada, recently celebrated a grand opening featuring the design. According to Richard Dirstein, EVP of creative and innovation for Shikatani Lacroix Design, Boston Pizza has also expedited a rollout plan to inform franchisee owners on how they can adapt their location to the new design in scalable components that will be available across Canada, as well as the U.S. and Mexico.

As part of the process for this chain, Shikatani Lacroix Design completed strategy and execution for all digital components of the restaurant.

“For the chain’s flagship location in particular, it is one of the best places in Canada for customers to immerse themselves in a sports dining experience, and it provides a blueprint for the rest of the chain,” Dirstein said.

Components of the design 

As part of the award-winning design, the welcome area has a large digital screen which communicates brand messaging and welcomes BP rewards members, special event groups and teams. An interactive touch screen in the waiting area features dishes and special events content, and allows customers to interact with a digital menu.

Throughout the restaurant are large screens where customers can watch all major sports. To enhance the experience, smaller portrait screens provide dynamic, RSS-driven, digital content that updates in real-time. According to Dirstein, these screens cycle through things such as team and player statistics, news, schedules and information for fantasy leagues which allow guests to have all their favorite scores displayed in close proximity to the game feeds they are watching.

Boston Pizza Experience.

“The result, customers don’t need to use their phones to check their scores.  They can put their phones down and be immersed in the Boston Pizza experience,” he said. “I think the end result shows that, from a digital perspective, the number of screens in the restaurant and their ability to provide up-to-the-minute, relevant information, really transforms the customers’ viewing experience.”

Aside from the “immersive” Boston Pizza Experience, Dirstein described some of the macrotrends emerging in digital signage, specifically in the restaurant space:

• Graphics on signage, walls, or digital screens can help create a distinctive brand identity and add personality to a space. They provide an opportunity to use color, shape, imagery, and words to reinforce or support a brand message and create a more interesting experience.
• Don’t focus all of the attention on advertising. If all you’re doing with the technology is trying to convince your customers to spend more, they will eventually learn to tune you out.
• Retailers and restaurateurs around the world are using AR and VR to tell unforgettable brand stories, and neuromarketing is being used more often than ever to test and validate new concepts.