Hello and welcome to the first podcast in this series by Jeff Collard, president of Omnivex. These podcasts will cover the digital signage industry and more specifically how software is used to manage all aspects of digital signage networks. Jeff created and grew the channel program at Omnivex and has been recognized globally as a leading authority on the digital signage industry. Jeff, what does Omnivex do?

Well Marie we're a software company. We basically supply the tools people use to run digital signage networks either as a – for their own business or possibly for service for other companies. It started back in 1991 we were – we used to work with trading floors helping them take information and make it visually a little more compelling and allow people to spot trends. So a lot of what we do heralds back to the days of the trading floors and taking data feeds and making that a graphical representation to help people make decisions.

Great. So can you explain how do you help companies make money from digital signage?

I really think the issue here isn't about how you make money from digital signage it's how you make money with digital signage.  And the reason I say that is that this is just a tool to help people improve their communications and improve the comprehension of people viewing information. And so it actually makes – it's a way to make your business run better or your communications to your customer more effective or visitors or whoever it is you're dealing with. It's to get – it's to allow them to do things in a form that's more efficient, more productive and actually you know help raise the bottom line for every company by improving their communications.

One of the problems we get into is people look at digital signage as just electronically updating conventional signage. And it's really much, much more than that. I always try and encourage people to look below the water line and see all the stuff that's about their operations the way that improved communications could help make their business run better. And in doing that it becomes very important for them to understand you know where the return in their investments are in their day to day operations and then how can we improve communications to make those things better.

Okay. So what are some of the market forces driving digital signage today?

Well there are a lot of reasons for people trying to adopt the technology. The obvious things are things like you know eliminating the printing distribution and management of paper. And today being – you know everyone being conscious about being more green and being more efficient in the way they do things. That in itself is pretty valuable but that's really is missing where the really strength of this thing is. You know it's being able to provide a unique message at every point that's specific to the viewer that's standing in front of that screen. That's really where the drive is and where the real value in this digital signage system is.

Creating a unique message at every individual point is just not possible on conventional signage. But looking at this as a communication tool as to how I enable you to make it efficient at whatever point you are and whatever location you might be really enhances what the value is of messaging. And you know you're looking at how you get real time information, how to dig into databases or dig into different sources of information and getting that into the hands of people to help them facilitate a decision that's really where the value is. And that's really what's driving this market forward because people see where they can – that can just make their communications better.

So everyone's concerned with measurement. How do you measure the performance of a digital signage or visual communication network?

Well that really depends on the industry you're looking at. And it's really you know how do you measure a business? How you would measure an aquarium that's having visitors come to the facility is quite different then how you measure a call center. And a lot of business what they're looking at is – they have KPIs or key performance indicators of how their business works and how they're measuring the performance, efficiencies, return on investments of things like inventory turns. Or you know number of – in a call center the number of calls handled to go through the queuer, average waiting times that people have to wait before someone picks up.

Those are all measureable things so you looking at taking that information and getting it to the operators or getting it to the people who use that information in an effective visual way helps them do their job a little bit better. And one of the things that's always interesting in any business is you know if you measure it and report it back to people the performance always goes up. And so digital signage is a way to get that reporting back and close that loop.

In the case of the aquarium or in a retailing environment it's much more about how do I improve my customer experience to make them better informed, enjoyed, and be better educated about whatever it is they're looking at or whatever they're looking for. And if I can assist them in that way through better visual communications, that's going to make their buying experience that much better and ultimately that helps the business.

So you typically – your measurement there is through surveys or through – if it's pure retail sales lift and you can start looking at different types of measurements. But you know you should also be looking at what is your cost to deliver messages to because that is also a worthwhile measurement.

So it sounds like there's so many different ways digital signage can be used. What are some of the most impressive business applications for digital signage?

Well the impressive ones are always the ones that use information strategically, that aren't just sitting there trying to figure out how to do something relatively simple to run the Coke ad or to get the message in front of employees or something they should do. It's really some things that have a longer-term strategic goal for the business and there are also things that are invisible to the viewer. They really don't understand or know why the display happened to give them just the piece of information they needed just at the right time but they just somehow do.

I got – you know there are a few examples where I always like to reference.  A great one is the Hyatt Regency in Chicago. They have RFID readers around their signage and so if you have a badge because you're there for a convention as you walk by a sign it will tell you information pertinent to the convention you're there for and not one that's someone else’s. And so different people get a different message from that sign as they go by.

So most things we're using GPS units in buses to help deliver a certain content based on where you are at that given time in that bus in a tour.  I think my favorite one though is St. Joseph's Hospital in Orange County. Most people look at that healthcare market and think of things like way-finding and donor walls and reception areas. They stop – turn around and look internally at the operations of the business and talk about how to make – help staff do their job better.

And people in a hospital can't sit in front of screen all day. They're up, they're moving around. By putting digital signage into the facility and giving them information about what's going on in the operating rooms it allows the people outside of those operating areas to understand exactly what's going on in each room, at what point every operation on and allow them to schedule their time appropriately to know what's going on.  And they do that through using color coding and graphical elements that help communicate a lot more information to the viewer and that's something that's very easy for people to understand very quickly.

So you know that's a great application where people are strategically using information to do their job better. They get things done and you know I think that's really where you start seeing the real value in these systems. Looking at it simply replacing static signage and making it electronically delivered that's not a big value return to a customer. But when you start looking at people are really being strategic about how they use this as a communication tool, that's when you start really seeing some value in it and that's where the impressive applications are.

Jeff, how can people find out more information about Omnivex?

Well you can find us anytime on the web at www.omnivex.com. That's O M N I V E X or you can call us. There's a toll free line 800-745-8223 and they'll direct you wherever you need to go.