With the fourth of July holiday this weekend, our offices are closed today and tomorrow (Friday). I however, am here in the office today and trying to dig out of my inbox! A friend shared this video which is a classic customer experience from an agency perspective. While it again slowed me down from cleaning out my inbox, I think you will get a chuckle and perhaps get a glimpse of what it feels like to work with some marketing departments!

We hope you have a nice holiday weekend!

With the recent closing of ElectroGraph distributors our US distribution of Symbicon products was also gone.   We were contacted recently by the good folks in Finland at Symbicon LTD about becoming a new direct partner of their products here in the U.S.A.   They were not interested in having a new distributor that just pushes PC’s.  They were tired of seeing their product as just another item in a line card.   They are much more interested in partners such as Electronic Art who can provide a complete custom solution and integration for customers.  So we are now officially partnered with Symbicon LTD for their product line.

Symbicon has a great line of outdoor LCD enclosures that provide full environmental control.  Heat in the winter and cooling in the summer, super high bright screens for daylight readability and completely sealed and durable enclosures.   Many options are available such as integrated PC, Wifi, various finishes and more. Being from Finland, they build these to resist some very cold and harsh climates.  Many ski resorts in Europe and the USA use these products for outdoor marketing, wayfinding and promotion.  These units are super engineered and well made.   Electrograph had one in their booth at the DSE show in February 2009 which was huge!  Just what you need outside to message to large crowds.

See our Symbicon page for more details and spec PDF docs.

Informational screens at Helsinki mall

Outdoor 57inch LCD on Chicago train station

Symbicon outdoor LCD 57 inch in Saalbach

82 inch LCD in Austrian ski resort

While we’ve been selling, integrating and recommending Zebra printers in kiosks and self service solutions for years, we’ve finally joined their VAR partner program.  By partnering with Zebra we get access to many internal resources for marketing, support and new product development.

Kiosk Print Station shown as a grocery app.

We recently showcased the new Zebra Kiosk Print Station at our booth in KioskCom, Las Vegas 2009. It is an off the shelf printer enclosure for all in one kiosks or point of sale devices. The new product can be wall mounted or table top mounted to provide printing capabilities to your kiosk terminal in a very small footprint. Made by Zebra, who manufactures printers that are used in retail, POS, and many kiosks. We first saw the kiosk print station at the National Retail Federation show back in January (NRF in NYC) where Zebra was unveiling the new product.  I think this will be a big hit with applications such as gift registries, loyalty card programs, product locators and HR applications.  We have one at our office if you’d like to see one in person. And, those of you who subscribe to our E-Newsletter got a special promo price last month to kick it off!  Those of you who don’t subscribe should consider it to get monthly specials on hardware as well as brief information about recent projects and happenings at Electronic Art.

More details on the Zebra Kiosk Print Station are available in the kiosk section of our web site. And if you are looking for a kiosk enclosure that includes a printer, you know you’re in good hands with Zebra components!

Tim Burke, Founder and President of Electronic Art, was named chair of the PR & Marketing Committee for the Digital Signage Association on May 5, in Las Vegas, during a board meeting prior to the 2009 KioskCom Self Service Expo.

In this role, Burke plans to provide marketing and PR guidance to promote the awareness of the industry association and increase membership. He expects to work with other association committees to help them achieve their missions as well.

“Marketing is one of my key strengths. I’ll help drive awareness through social media, trade shows and other events with attendees that consume digital signage,” Burke said.

Burke’s first goal is to get the DSA involved with the Cincinnati Digital Non-Conference to be held on Sept. 24 - 25, which provides a targeted audience for the DSA to provide education and drive awareness of the association. He will also encourage involvement in the Digital Signage Expo and other events that serve to educate agencies, media and IT professionals, architects, and property management firms about digital signage.

DSA members are some of the most prominent and respected suppliers in the digital signage industry. Other committee chairpersons were named at the board meeting, including Margot Myers of the Platt Retail Institute, the chair of the Education & Certification committee, and Greg Masingill of Seneca Data, the chair of the Membership committee.

“Our industry has grown tremendously in the past three years and is expected to double in size by 2012. I want to help lead the organization meet its mission and play a role in that industry growth,” Burke said.

For more information about Electronic Art, contact Tim Burke at (513) 321-1771 or tburke@electronicart.com, or visit www.ElectronicArt.com.

About the Digital Signage Association

The purpose of the Digital Signage Association (DSA) is to accelerate the growth and advance the excellence of digital signage deployments worldwide. The DSA strives to help those deploying digital signage solutions be as successful as possible. The Association is built on three pillars: advocacy, education and networking. For more information, visit http://www.digitalsignageassociation.com.

About Electronic Art

Electronic Art (www.ElectronicArt.com) is a Cincinnati-based interactive agency specializing in kiosks and digital signage as well as many related online services. Originally founded in 1998 and incorporated in 2002, Electronic Art began primarily as a Web studio offering high end custom programming, ecommerce, and design. Electronic Art provides custom solutions for many industries in kiosks, digital signage and website development. Sales of kiosk and digital signage hardware allow for a complete solution from one vendor, and an onsite IT staff handles build, integration and support needs.

The Kioskcom.com show last week was really good.  We were nervous going into it because of the economy.  We wondered if customers would come out to the show.  We were happy to see a great turn out by VP’s and decision makers with real projects in hand.  In years past you would see multiple team members from a brand attend, perhaps marketing folks, IT staff and VP’s.  Kind of a “design by committee” mentality. But this year, they seemed to not need to bring the whole committee out, just the decision makers, which all of the vendors appreciated.  We met with folks from Motorolla, Ikea, Target, Ceasars Palace, Delta, American Airlines and many more.

Our booth showcased the new Lobstr application on a 37″ touch screen, the new Zebra Kiosk Print Station with our “Hike & Bike” kiosk concept,  as well as our demo kiosk of various past customer implementations.  Our partners at 5Point also showcased Lobstr on their newest enclosure for Interactive Digital Signage (IDS) Platform, the Concierge.  Our app looked so cool on their 40″ screens that we are partnering with them to have this as our default hardware option for Lobstr. More to come on that soon.

Our booth chotsky was a full pack of Orbitz gum.  I figured it was better than most of the squeeze balls and pens given out by many vendors.  And also the obvious reason which is that I was tired of talking to people with bad breath.   Hmmm, I think Orbitz just found their next commercial idea!  Now if only I could brand the packaging with my company information it would have been perfect.

The educational break out sessions and tech talks were a big hit with attendees.  DT Research gave a session on “Interactive Digital Merchandising: Expanding brand and product impact and creating customer engagement.” which is a topic we can get behind.  Andrew Fischer did a great job in this session.   Another session was titled “Return on Message - Optimizing your digital signage network for success. ” which was giving by Keith Kelson who is the Chairman of the Content Best Practices committee of the Digital Signage Association along with Roger Sanford of the MediaTile company.  Return on Message (ROM) is the new buzzword in our industry and a methodology that  provides standards based processes to guide companies through complex variables that must be considered for a successful digital signage deployment.   This also showcased many of the best practices laid out by the association in the past years.

Speaking of the DSA (Digital Signage Association) of which I sit on the advisory board: we had our board meeting the night before the show at the M resort just south of the strip.  This new Casino / Hotel was only 62 days old and our board members were treated to a behind the scenes tour of the facility and the technology used by their VP of IT services.  I doubt I will ever get to see the NOC and security areas of another Casino in my lifetime, it was very interesting to see and learn about how they operate and how they use Digital Signage for both customer facing areas of the facility and also employee facing messages.  I appreciate the hospitality of the M Resort in Las Vegas.   During this meeting we did a review of several committees, discussed goals, events and recapped the past year’s success.  I am now the chairman of the PR & Marketing committee for the Digital Signage Association.   We have some good people on the committee already, so I’m excited about working with them to help promote the association, drive awareness and education, and help increase membership of the DSA.

As for new technology, there was a lot of the same hardware at the show that has been seen before.  I got a sneak peak at a new product from MicroVision which is a Pico Projector (ultra small projector) about the size of an Iphone.  Useful in our industry for some small digital signage applications for rear projection, etc.  However the brightness and resolution are the only current drawbacks I could see.  This may be addressed in the second and third generations of this unique laser projector called ShowWX.  See their site for a preview and watch for it to be launched later this year.  The projector is unique becuase of an ultra tiny red, blue & green laser that allows the image to be in focus at any distance.  It was really nice, but the first generation will likely be a consumer model.  They are interested in finding new products they could embed the engine into, such as a cell phone, or other device.

We enjoyed the opportunities to talk with many customers about their projects, hardware or software needs and to explain to them once again, that no… we are not THAT Electronic Arts company in California.   The “S” at the end of their name is short for dollar signs and no, our firm does not make games for the Playstation or Nintendo.   You have to love our name, but the similarities do make it confusing.  I’m pretty sure the lady at the Paris Casino was treating me really good because she thought that was our company when she saw my shirt.  For a free drink… I didn’t correct her.

@electronicart

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We are pleased to announce that our partnership with Zebra technologies has provided us with an opportunity to play a part in their trade show give away of an Ipod Nano and Itunes cards at KioskCom to showcase the new Kiosk Print Station. Visit their booth and our booth (829) to win.  Details are as follows:

Zebra Kiosk Print Station

With reliable Zebra® kiosk printing solutions—together with the software and integration expertise of Zebra’s technology partners such as Electronic Art —you get the key to an effortless, complete kiosk solution.

See for yourself at the KioskCom Self Service Expo May 6th & 7th, 2009:
1) Visit Zebra’s booth #615 to pick up a “Key to a Kiosk Full Solution” passport card.
2) Visit five of Zebra’s featured partners and get your “passport” card validated at their booths.
3) Return to Zebra’s booth #615 with your completed passport and your business card to ENTER OUR DRAWING.
You could win one of five $25 gift cards…or an Apple® iPod® nano!

See contest rules at Zebra’s Booth #615.

Example of an Ipod Nano

It’s that time again, we are exhibiting at the KioskCom Self Service Expo in Las Vegas on May 6th & 7th, 2009. I think this is our 7th time exhibiting at the show which is in Vegas in the springtime and NYC in the fall. The show is packed with all of the vendors in the Kiosk and Digital Signage industry showing off their latest hardware, software, accessories and giving seminars and speeches. It’s a good show to attend to become familiar with the industry and what is available for your projects. Many of our vendors are there such as Zebra Printers, Site Kiosk, Scala, LG, Samsung and more.

We use the show to exhibit recent software apps and designs to show prospects the quality of work we can do and showcase new services or products. In this year’s booth we have a new digital signage way finding service targeted towards property managers, architects and developers called  Lobstr. This turnkey interactive office directory solution is a great way to attract new tenants, retain existing tenants, set your buildings apart from the competition and provide great service to your guests and visitors. A low cost enables the software and touch screen LCD panels to be installed quickly and easily. The booth demo will have a 37″ touch LCD mounted on a floor mount that enables you to rotate from landscape to portrait mode easily.

We are also showing the new Zebra Kiosk Print Station. The new product can be wall mounted or table top mounted to provide printing capabilities to your kiosk terminal in a very small footprint. Made by Zebra, who manufactures printers that are used in retail, POS, and many kiosks. As Zebra VAR partners we first saw the kiosk print station at the National Retail Federation show back in January (NRF in NYC).  I think this will be a big hit with applications such as gift registries, loyalty card programs, product locators and HR applications. Come see our booth #829 to see a demo. And, those of you who subscribe to our E-Newsletter get a special promo price this month to kick it off!

Also in our booth at the KioskCom tradeshow is the IBM AnyPlace kiosk showcasing some of our past kiosk applications from clients such as Verizon, Citrucel, Charbroil Grills, Os-Cal, BlackBerry and more. The IBM AnyPlace kiosk is a retail hardened all-in-one touch screen kiosk that has most of the features required for kiosk applications such as IR glass touch screen, Mag card reader, barcode scanner,  Wifi, built in precense sensor, stereo speakers, Express card slot for cellular broadband connectivity, and Windows XP embedded. The entire PC and screen are built in to one hardware component the size of a large laptop. This enables it to be wall , pole , desktop mounted or integrated into an enclosure. It truely can be mounted just about Any Place!  In the past we’ve combined it with various printers, mounted it on retail end-caps and even combined it with medical devices such as blood pressure cuffs, pedometers and weight scales to facilitate client needs. What can we do for you? Come see it at the KioskCom Self Service Expo.

If you are considering going to the show, post a comment below or let one of our staff know and we’ll be happy to send you free tickets good for free admission to the expo. The show management, JD Events, does a great job every year and we’ve seen the list of registered attendees. It should be another great show!

I’m on a Samsung partner webcast at this very moment listening to new product information, end of life information on old SKU’s that will no longer be offered, and info on video wall connections. Samsung does a great job with partner channel education and today’s call about large screen displays for digital signage is very informative.  They have commercial screens with built in tuners and speakers to look like consumer grade (but with all of the commercial grade benefits) but the biggest sellers are the CX series and UX series.

I really like their video wall options, with small bezels (as small as 2.4mm). Very cool options for stacking screens together in free standing video walls much like a tower display.
They also have prebuilt IR touch screens out of the box instead of having to apply touch to existing SKUs like we often do from many LCD vendors. Nice to have only one vendor responsible for the components.

They also have high bright screens for outdoor signage. The model 460DRn-A is a  46″ high bright panel is 1500 NITS is weatherproof with built in HVAC, PC and shockproof. Vandal resistance has camera built in to snap a picture if someone trys to damage it.

They also mentioned that they are working on a multi-touch series that will hopefully be avaiable soon.  A preproduction version was shown recently at a show.

I will be gathering specs on many of the new products like the outdoor LCD. If you have interest, give me a call and we’ll get the right product for your needs spec’d out.

Samsung product info is available on their public web site.

Samsung Partner