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Masters of attention: Refining your dynamic digital canvas

In the second part of our exclusive interview, Chris Devlin, president at Omnivex, joined Digital Signage Today via video call from his home office in Toronto to explain how to build on the discussed foundations to make the digital canvas even more dynamic, agile and gripping.

Art credit: Daniel Brown. Assets credit: Adobe Stock.

April 3, 2023 by Daniel Brown — Editor, Networld Media Group

Chris Devlin is president at Omnivex. Image provided.

This is part two of our series on making your digital canvas dynamic. Read part one here.

In part two of our exclusive interview, Chris Devlin, president at Omnivex, joined us via video call from his home office in Toronto to go into depth on how we can build on foundational principles to make the digital canvas even more dynamic, agile and powerful in reaching our target audience.

Devlin expressed his belief that modern success means every business must become a "master of attention," and regardless of whether people choose his team's technology to do so, Devlin added that he hopes more people adopt these principles, because the correct use of digital signage (and technology) simply makes the world a better place, in his view.

"Everything is connected" — Douglas Adams

Part of the power of modern, dynamic digital signage is the way it commands users' attention through interactivity, including programmatic advertising and other tools.

"For all of them, it's based on this agility, giving themselves a dynamic canvas. And that that word 'dynamic' is important," Devlin said, pointing to smart signage and kiosks that can do audience measurement. "I can have a sensor that tells me how many people are there so I can get the message I want to that particular group of people because I know its location."

With the advent of portable and mobile displays, including tablets, there's a whole new set of variables, from a security guard's tablet carried on rounds to DOOH displays in pop-up stores. "So, you're using metadata and other types of data to know what that user is, what that sign is, and then have that all work in a layer together," Devlin said.

Devlin added that multilingual support is a big deal throughout his native Canada. This means having metadata tags that the sign can use to automatically know which language to use — which significantly increases customer satisfaction. Also, by serving multilingual user needs, the signage also becomes more accessible, which is important as ESG and DEI issues become ever higher priorities for customers, providers and end users in the industry.

This illustrates the holistic nature of the modern digital canvas: everything is connected, which is why good communication between your company's different divisions is vital.

In a similarly holistic way, the legal side, along with privacy issues, are woven into the tapestry of the canvas. Another variable involves setting up your signage networks with the target user groups in mind; public-facing digital signage can't display sensitive information, like operations data, which should only be displayed on internal displays.

The next layer involves consistency.

"Airports went through that lesson in a good way," Devlin explained. "You can't have the gate information be different than the FIDS (flight information display system) board."

After making sure your data is accurate and matches across displays and messaging channels, you have to make sure it is secure; true to the IT roots of digital signage, this can often be done with role-based permissions, but there are many methods, including things like geospatial. "Airports have mastered this," Devlin said.

Masters of attention

"All companies, in my opinion, are going to become masters of attention," Devlin said. "When somebody comes into your facility, you want to draw their attention to what you think they need to know. That's how you serve customers best."

In traditional digital signage examples, this could be brick and mortar retail stores, but thanks to the pandemic and remote/hybrid work revolution, it is also starting to mean new avenues for the communications canvas.

"I want my salespeople to know certain information," Devlin explained. "Email's cool, but it's quite static. And after you've read it, it's gone. So, where's the dynamic part of that? And that's why think tools like Teams and Slack become interesting — but those are very purpose-built for projects."

With digital signage evolving as rapidly as its underlying technology, and with the rapidly changing nature of workplace communications, becoming an omnichannel master of attention means focusing on user experience, regardless of your industry, and remembering the people on the other side of the display.

"It's not just customer experience," Devlin said. "It's employee experience. It's this whole convergence that's going on across the system." This echoed not only digital signage industry trends around "viewing the employee as another type of customer," a theme recently discussed by restaurant thought leaders on hiring and retention at the RIFSummit.

Everyone is a customer/audience member

This can be a lot harder when an organization is heavily siloed — like universities, for instance. Transient populations (with, on average, a four-year turnover), different divisions with different funding models, a mix of students, staff, faculty and parents, and other variables make it even more complex. "That's one of those areas that is going to be hard to transform because of its structure," Devlin said.

Regardless of what your industry is, you're going to have to experiment and figure out what works for your user base, Devlin explained, and said that a wonderful strategy for agile, dynamic canvas building involves watching the market closely — and not just studying your peers and competitors, but looking outside of your industry entirely to see what other industries are doing.

"This is what Eduardo (Valencia) at Minneapolis did so well," Devlin continued, pointing out how the MSP airport team noticed what stadium and entertainment venues were doing in the digital signage realm and adapted it to their own digital transformation project.

"I was there for convention earlier this year," Devlin said. "And it was fantastic. The airport was one of the best experiences on the whole trip going through. And that was coming and going. I mean, it was really impressive."

Devlin also pointed to the example of the Canadian Atlantic shipping industry, including Marine Atlantic's digital transformation, which aimed for transparency and accountability, particularly for wintertime shipping. Beyond shipping and transportation, manufacturing employees in a factory are just as much an audience, a "customer," as passing shoppers are when they walk past a digital display at the mall.

"It doesn't matter if you're a manufacturer, an airport or a retailer — you're trying to create a digital capability to be able to control your messaging, whatever that is for that audience," he said.

One platform to rule them all

With so much change and so many choices, it's hard to design your first canvas, let alone maintaining one.

"We empathize with this because it's very hard," Devlin said. "It is much more of an age where we're becoming digitally literate and it's not just text and our traditional understanding. You've got to think in these agile ways."

From Covid and the rise of ChatGPT to new cybersecurity threats, change is the one constant, and the lesson is to expect the unexpected. "Everything grows exponentially," Devlin said. "It's always been that way. Data grows exponentially — is 256-bit encryption going to be enough? It's not. We're going to have to have way more sophisticated security."

The answer is to have a dynamic, responsive communications strategy to futureproof against Murphy's Law, Devlin argues, along with simplifying and streamlining your organization's operations and software into a unified, secure platform.

"Digital signs are great," he said. "We're pioneers in many ways. We're more sophisticated with IoT and edge computing than almost any other group. But now we need to incorporate that as a living, breathing part of all the other things — for example, you shouldn't have bespoke applications.

"Here's another interesting stat for you. The average enterprise has over 400 applications that they run outside of their main. And there's so much cost in maintaining these on a department level, to go back to the school example. In each department they've got multiple applications doing things. They have their own security, they have their own data. It's not the same data as somebody else gets, so we're institutionalizing misinformation within these organizations, because the way it works, it should be a platform.

"It should be a system, and we can drive out cost if they build their own app. So, they'll have better apps — better in tune to control their narrative — if they approach it the way digital signage does. And it will eliminate the cost of those 400 apps. They'll still have 400 apps, but it'll be on one platform if we have our way."

About Daniel Brown

Daniel Brown is the editor of Digital Signage Today, a contributing editor for Automation & Self-Service, and an accomplished writer and multimedia content producer with extensive experience covering technology and business. His work has appeared in a range of business and technology publications, including interviews with eminent business leaders, inventors and technologists. He has written extensively on AI and the integration of technology and business strategy with empathy and the human touch. Brown is the author of two novels and a podcaster. His previous experience includes IT work at an Ivy League research institution, education and business consulting, and retail sales and management.