Robert Koolen (furthest to the right)

Hi there. We took a few minutes and sat down with Robert Koolen, Scala President, to get his input on DSE 2010. We settled on 5 questions to pick his brain about digital signage, the Scala booth at the show and a little bit of everything else. Check it out…(and thanks for your time Robert!)

1. Talk a little bit about the DSE experience this year…how may it have differed from years previous?

It was just as exhausting but at the same time extremely gratifying to see that optimism is returning to our industry. There is plenty of hope and enthusiasm for the industry to grow as evidenced by the almost 20% increase in leads we saw from 2009 to 2010.

2. I see Scala took home some awards this year...that's gotta feel good, right?

Awards are always good!  Scala is of course thrilled to have earned such accolades, but the most important characteristic to us is that we received honors for our work across a slew of industries.  We earned a Silver and Bronze Apex Award for installations in the Education and Healthcare category, a Gold Award for our work in Public Space deployment, a Gold and Silver for Retail and a Bronze in Transportation.  Additionally, these awards are simultaneously earned by the partners and customers who worked hard on these deployments.

3. You referred to more interest in Scala at DSE as evidenced by the increase in leads…why do you think interest was up?

A lot of factors played into this one. The placement of our booth at the entrance of the show and the design of the booth with Christie Digital’s MicroTiles was an innovative use of their product never before seen. Most designs implemented with the MicroTiles have them displayed symmetrically…we used them in a novel staircase configuration similar to the bang (!) in our logo. So, Scala was really “stepping it up” in every way.

4. So…what about next year?

We have already committed to DSE 2011. It’s been a good show for us and we’ll continue to support it as long as it serves its purpose of meeting our objectives but more importantly expanding the digital signage industry. The best way to grow the industry is to reach out to more people and DSE is good at doing just that.

5. And what about social media at DSE 2010? It certainly seemed to be more involved…

It was…we definitely used all aspects of social media to our advantage in maintaining a high profile at DSE. We found ways to use it to be an integral part of how we can reach out and communicate. It certainly helped us in many ways – we made the top 10 in most tweets at the Daily DOOH. All shared news and social networks really help to build the digital signage community.  Plus, it's nice having different places to announce when you've won awards.

Got a sec? Check out Scala’s at Twitter, Facebook (has photos from DSE) and LinkedIn.

After a recent conversation with a co-worker regarding exotic animals we have seen/hope to see, I thought about zoos.

You ever have a bad trip to the zoo because there were no animals out and about?  Or maybe it was way too crowded and you could hardly catch a glimpse of what the animals were up to?

I think it’s safe to say most people have.  Little kids are always excited for their favorite animal…in certain cases, it may be all they care about.

“I want to see the monkeys!”  
“I want to see the lions!”
“I want to see the polar bears!”

Now, when you think about it, most of these animals sleep a ridiculous percentage of their day away.  Any sign of activity would be at night or first thing in the morning when public zoos have their doors closed.  So, outside of feeling slighted with the cost of parking, entrance and the fact that you smell animal stench in the hot sun all day, you don’t want to also have disappointed kids to deal with.

Furthermore, most of the zoo habitats provide plenty of nooks and crannies for animals to easily avoid the public eye, so there’s a lot going against you having a successful trip.

Placing monitors at these elaborate habitats would be a huge help to many of the tourists and schools on field trips.  When the school children are all pushing and shoving to get to the front and see the zebras just to stare at nothing, the monitor can be linked up to an interactive sensor in the pen of the animals to track their movements.

With an interactive digital signage system in place, it would be easy to make the excursion more informative and engaging.  When it finds them, whether the animals are inactive or out playing, it can show facts on the screen about their daily habits or how their life in captivity differs from their life in the wild.  If it detects lack of movement i.e sleep, the program could share information on the sleeping habits and why you’re not seeing anything fun.

Content can always be changed and updated to keep it fresh:  give biographies of specific animals, point out the group leader, mention zoo news and expected additions of fauna - let the paying public know…Educate them in an entertaining way so that they can learn something new on subsequent visits – even if the animal is asleep again (or still).

Bottom line, a little digital signage network at zoos could spruce up an empty habitat regardless of what level of activity their animal pen is showing.  Plus, I’m sure zoo staff would like a system that did all this and also provided the benefit of recording animal activity to study at a later time.

A digital signage network such as this would have allowed my colleague to bear witness to one of God’s most interesting designs:  the platypus…even if it was just catching some shuteye.

Given the economic climate over the past 2 years, it is not surprising that retailers are looking to In-Store advertising to generate revenue. Major retailers can provide literally hundreds of millions of impressions per year across their channel. Think of the store as the channel and the products as the content….

Many of these retailers have undergone expensive studies to determine who is in the store to make it easier to sell access to those eyeballs.

I see two major issues with this In-Store network. First, it can’t be only digital or only static. You must have one network consisting of every media type in the store. Each media opportunity is profiled so that it can be sold by audience as part of a package.

The second issue is the sheer number of ad faces in the inventory. Each store in the network can have hundreds of different faces. The retailer must be able to easily check availability, generate proposals and work orders, manage the production and content and provide feedback to the client.

By creating a single media management platform and tying it into the store’s POS and inventory systems you can avoid having competitive programs running at the same time in the same store. You can also tie the ad program to the sales results so you really know whether the program worked or not.

Imagine how much easier it would be to manage if you could just query your system for available ad opportunities in the Northeast region with a Hispanic profile and an electronics department, then push a button to generate a proposal.