Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Building a Successful Digital Signage Team - Parts I and II

I've been writing a series of articles for KioskMarketplace about assembling the best team to deploy and manage a digital signage network. The first two of five planned articles have been published, with clips at WireSpring's Dynamic Digital Signage and Interactive Kiosks Journal, and of course, in full text, over at KM. From the introduction article:

In the retail world, we've found that the most successful digital signage deployments are managed by teams who understand each of the unique jobs and roles required to install and maintain their networks. Spanning a diverse range of fields including finance, marketing and IT, a structured group can best handle the wide array of responsibilities that a digital signage network creates. And even though this kind of structure can provide tremendous benefits, we've found that few companies seem to take a role-based approach towards their signage projects. Thus, while this might sound more like "Staffing Your Company 101" than an article about digital merchandising techniques, I'd like to devote a few thousand words over the next few weeks to the roles and responsibilities that we've found to be essential in building out and maintaining a large, retail-oriented digital signage network.
And from the Technology & Operations article:
"[O]ne major functional area that I haven't touched upon at all is general logistics management. It's not included in the above list because it is part and parcel of every other task mentioned there. But experienced managers know all too well how much time and manpower apparently simple tasks like shipping, order tracking, and maintaining store contact lists can take. The bottom line here is to consider every aspect of a job, get processes in place early to automate as much as possible, break out complex tasks into small, attainable (and measurable) goals, and above all, don't underestimate even apparently simple tasks. For example, we recommend that tech and ops teams break down their pre-installation procedure into a checklist like the one below so that problems can be spotted early-on and the tasks can all be tracked and accounted for.
You can find the full text of these articles at:
Role Call: Building a successful digital signage team
Role call: technology and operations

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