Be all that you can be (virtually)

The American Defense Industry has put a multi-platform digital environment in a retail setting. Instead of trying to up-sell customers to get a few more dollars out of their wallets, though, these terminals are designed to sell a career choice. The Army has been making good use of digital technology for many years, funding research and development for a wide variety of products. Now, the ordinary consumer gets a chance to experiment with military technology in a retail setting, with last week’s grand opening of the Army Experience Center at Philadelphia’s Franklin Mills Mall.

This environment proves interesting not only for its amazing array of technology, but for the soft sell it represents, since military personnel who staff the center are not technically recruiting, but rather telling all visitors "the Army story." Most of the promotional news reporting about the Center has been quick to point out that, even with current military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army is meeting its current goals for recruits. At the same time, the Center is located in a high traffic mall close to a large urban population, an ideal customer base for both public education and potential enlistees.

The actual space is an interesting combination of virtual video gone wild and lifestyle promotion. The lounge serves food and drinks (free to anyone who registers) and has a digital display of army life. Touch screen videos allow potential recruits to find military bases across the globe, research potential careers with the Army, and learn about advanced training in multimedia, robotics, and piloting. The Tactical Ops Center looks like a movie set, with nine large screen displays for global tracking, computer-simulated missile operation, and other virtual training opportunities. If all that seems too tame for you, there’s a whole room of Black Hawk, Apache helicopter, and Humvee simulators. To prove that today’s youth are not wasting their time on video games, there’s a sci-fi inspired theater arena for Xbox and PC games like Warcraft, Madden’s NFL, and Ghost Recon. Although gaming skills start early in our culture, this room is limited to those 13 and older.

If the whole Army experience-in-a-mall isn't enough one its own, you can wind your way to Sears and pick up your very own official Army clothing (proceeds go to support programs for the troops) so that your simulated helicopter runs will feel even more authentic.

The entire site is more than three times the size of a basketball court, filled with digital and interactive kiosks. The sleek touch screen pillars look a bit too much like vintage Science Museum fare, the kind where you learn about protozoa and the last days of dinosaurs (Why make people stand at a kiosk when they don’t have to?), but the overall experience is sleek and inviting. The lounge has the feel of an airport club, with Army Life videos playing rather than CNN.

Overall, it’s an interesting approach to retail-as-education through state-of-the-art digital technology. If you’re in the Philadelphia area, it’s worth a stop just to see what’s possible with a large budget and no monthly sales quota. Be all that you can be, indeed!

Pictures make Olympic kiosks worth a thousand words

Check out Kodak's Olympic Kiosks and... Richard Mackson's racing photos.

We hear a lot about how blogs have democratized writing, making information and communication more accessible to both the writer and readers, but it’s also true that blogs and other internet features have had a substantial influence on photographic images, too. People share their output on sites like Flickr, add new photos to their blogs, and link to their favorite photos from another site. Images that once were shared with a few friends are now all over the world. Photojournalists are no longer the only ones recording events for posterity.

The Olympics are a treasure trove of photographic moments: the images are more powerful than any commentary or article. Kodak has taken great advantage of the photo-happy opportunity by sponsoring bloggers who post new images every day. In Bejing at the Olympic site the Kodak building is loaded with kiosks where visitors can learn more about how to develop or download the images they’ve just taken. Young sales staff in white outfits assist customers with glee.

The bloggers are posting amazing images of the games and of their sightseeing in China, along with occasional tidbits about how to get the best shot. Richard Mackson’s comments on his photos make you think anyone can be a Sports Illustrated quality photographer with just a little closer attention to shutter speed and composition. Looking through his album you won’t believe one person could have attended that many different events in such a short period of time. After viewing his bicycle racing photos, I went back to NBC and found earlier coverage of that event so I could catch up with the stories Mackson had covered in still photographs. My favorite part is their promotion of an Olympic Picture of the Day, which ends up on a digital sign in Times Square as well as being showcased by mainstream media.

So what does Kodak stand to gain from all this? The best form of marketing there is, according to Media Post:

There are no plans to use the photos in marketing or advertising campaigns, but pictures and blog posts drive awareness to other Kodak online activities, such as an exclusive Kodak Olympic pin promotion that consumers can find in the online store… Since the start of the Games, Kodak's Web site--including the blog-- has experienced a spike in traffic, but Hoehn says becoming eyes and ears of Olympic fans really means "connecting with our customers in a unique way and demonstrating our innovative products and services."

The integration of web-based activities, local kiosks, and promotion on digital signs is the best way to get Kodak's name back into households. With all the expectations placed on the Olympics, in terms of commercialism, sports, and politics (even though, of course, the Olympics are supposed to be free of two of those things), it’s great to see a corporation like Kodak developing good will while improving its brand image.

Premier Election Solutions (Diebold) blames voting kiosk problems on antivirus software

I think this pretty much says it all...

Best Buy kiosks coming to airports

Talk about brand extension.... This interesting article on Yahoo! Tech notes that bricks-and-mortar consumer electronics retailer Best Buy will be rolling out several self-service kiosks (vending machines would be a better description, actually) to major airports. So far, Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Minneapolis and San Francisco all have the devices, and supposedly more are on the way.

The giant gadgets dispense much smaller gadgets (think PSPs, digital cameras, MP3 players and assorted cables), which consumers can select using a touchscreen system that provides product information and pricing. The swipe of a credit card can reunite business traveler with long-lost power cords, for example, or perhaps give little Sally an iPod to play with on the long flight home.

Tags: kiosks, self-service, vending machines

Self-service kiosk software development

That was posted as a comment in response to the New York Times's David Pogue's rant about Delta's self check-in kiosks:

You come up, you swipe your credit card. That alone ought to tell the kiosk who you are, and it should therefore know what flight you’re checking in for.

But no, it plays dumb. It asks you to key in your destination. So you type in “SAN” for San Francisco. And it asks you: San Francisco, San Diego, or San Juan? Oh, I don’t know–how about THE ONE YOU HAVE A RESERVATION ON!?

(Yes, yes, I know–you might have more than one reservation on Delta. But come on. Let’s say you have flights today at 3 pm, tomorrow at 5 pm, and next Friday at 8 pm. As you swipe your credit card, today, at 1:30 pm, does it really think you’re checking in for anything but the first one?)

But O.K. You tap San Francisco. And now–I kid you not–it wants to know what time of day the flight departs!

Are you kidding me? It doesn’t know the airline’s own flight time? Come on–it already knows what flight I’m on, so what’s the point of this exercise? For God’s sake, just check me in!

Whenever I encounter badly designed software like this, I stand there, slack-jawed, mind boggling, and wonder what on earth the designers were *thinking.* Not, obviously, about elegance, intelligence and simplicity. (My emphasis added)

I'm sure we've all found ourselves in this situation. Clients come in, asking to benefit from our years of experience in the industry. Using that accumulated knowledge, we proceed to work on a design that incorporates the necessary functionality, provides a suitable level of accessibility, and meets the client's business objectives. But because it isn't precisely what the client had in mind, it's not what they ultimately want or feel satisfied with. Their "gut instinct", or whatever you might prefer to call it, gets the better of their reasoning minds. Whether it's a startup in a garage or a Fortune 500 company makes no difference, this phenomenon exists everywhere. In the end, it comes down to sticking to your guns and perhaps losing the account (or your job), or else giving in and winning the contract. You can guess which the Delta kiosk's designers did.

Tags: kiosk, self service, software

The next POPAI Digital Signage 101 webinar is coming up on August 7th

This is pretty much a cut-and-paste from the announcement two months ago, and admittedly this post probably won't be appropriate for 90% of the audience of this blog, considering that I know lots of you are already experts on all things digital signage.

However, if you have a client, partner or other interested party that's starting to explore the exciting world of digital out-of-home media, POPAI's holding another "Digital Signage 101" webinar on August 7th.

Specifically designed to help newcomers see past the industry hype and focus on the projects, business cases and best practices that have been successful in the real world, POPAI's Introduction to Digital Signage webinar is a great way to spend an hour of your time -- and only $50 -- to jump-start your understanding of what works and what doesn't in the digital signage world.

Dale Smith at Peerless will be leading the way, covering topics including:

• An introduction to the digital signage market with some basic market history and analysis,
• A look at some of the most common usage scenarios,
• An explanation of the components used in typical digital signage networks,
• A discussion of the benefits and drawbacks of using digital signage, and
• An examination of some of the most common pitfalls and problems that occur, and ways to avoid them in the first place.

So please join us on Thursday, August 7, 2008 at 1:00pm EDT


Tags: digital signage

Cybercafe software maker raises $5 Million from Sequoia

Remember cybercafes? I bet you thought they were all dead and buried, didn't you? Well, if you live in an industrialized nation, that's mostly true (though you can still find some pretty busy ones in major cities and airports). However, if you live in a developing nation, the cybercafe might well represent your link to the Internet and the outside world. And since there are literally billions of people living in such places, there are still companies like Ideacts who are writing software to make the experience as enjoyable for the customer and as profitable for the cafe owner as possible. Thus, it's not too surprising that the Mumbai-based company was able to pick up the cash from software-savvy Sequoia Capital India, as this article notes:

Ideacts has a desktop interface application called Clinck which is targeted at cybercafe users, providing shortcuts to internet browsers, messengers, search, news, entertainment and online storage, as well as advertisements from various companies.

Ideacts has tied up with cybercafes (especially white labeled ones, and not the Sifys or Reliance WebWorlds) and the latter will be paid for installing the Clinck application on the desktops. It’s an offline way to reach out to the cybercafe users. Ideacts will make money from advertisements. Some of the companies advertising with Ideacts are ICICI Bank, Yahoo, Naukri, Radio Mirchi, Dell, MSN, White Mischief and Makemytrip.

Rudrajeet Desai said the company’s focus is white-labeled cybercafes: “We pay these cybercafes on a monthly basis, which vary according to their size. At present, we have this arrangement with 625 cybercafes, which come to more than 5,000 computers.” Desai further said that they plan expand to around 3,000-3,500 cybercafes.

Don't expect to see their kit in the US or Western Europe anytime soon, but if you have a stopover in Mumbai on your way to Bangalore and you decide to pop in and check your email, perhaps you'll come across it.

Tags: kiosks, cybercafes

60 Kaiser Permanente clinics to deploy self-service kiosks for check-in and payment

As this press release notes, "Kaiser Permanente deployed its first KP Self-Service Kiosk to optimize the patient check-in and payment experience in an innovative project that will include over 60 medical clinics in Southern California. This is one of the largest pilot kiosk projects undertaken by any U.S. healthcare organization, and it is another example of Kaiser Permanente's market-leading efforts in electronic integration."

If you haven't run into them before, Kaiser Permanente is one of the nation's biggest integrated health plans, and it's a non-profit organization to boot. Consequently, they've tried all sorts of things over the years to help keep their overhead down and run efficiently as possible. Given the success of check-in kiosks in airlines, company executives no doubt realized both the cost savings and gains in efficiency possible by adopting a similar approach in-house. Using the devices to handle payments might be a bit more tricky, and will likely have a slower adoption. After all, people are used to getting money out of kiosks (in the form of ATMs, of course), but they might be more uncertain when it comes to putting money in.

Tags: kiosks, self-service

"What Not to Wear" for digital technology, kiosks, and interactive signs

What makes someone qualified to give advice about anything? Experience and knowledge.

My main claim as an analyst (aside from the PhD, which only authorizes me in a narrow scope of the social sciences) is that I read a lot.  I mean, a lot, and always in a wide range of sources, from academic books to what’s on the New York Times best seller list to magazines, web sites, promotional materials, archival matter (right now I’m working on advice columns in African American papers), and yes, even a few blogs. 

One of the few blogs I look at every day is Steve Portigal’s All This Chitta Chatta. Steve has experience and knowledge, but he’s also got an amazing eye, a true sense of the visual landscape, be it urban or rural, Southeast Asian or suburban America. His photographs tell you more than most feature length magazine articles. In terms of marketing and design, developing an acute visual eye is a critical tool, especially for folks in the digital signage and digital media industries. What distinguishes one product from another is often determined in a two-second glance.

One continuing point of interest for Steve is the notion of post-design, fixing a product by adding something exterior to it to explain or enhance its original use. Sometimes people adapt to a new technology (I'm definitely getting used to the self-checkout at the supermarket). Sometimes the technology has to adapt to people. Often designers develop ways of solving an environmental problem – a door handle, a checkout line, a digital menu – and then some aspect of the finished product doesn’t work out as planned after taking it "live."   Post-design is when the user – or designer – has to adapt what exists to the realities of how people think and move through the world. Think about how many of us would crash into doors without the ubiquitous “push” or “pull” signs. My favorite example is of a toilet flusher that requires a posted explanation of how it works.

In the world of kiosks and digital technology we’ve all seen versions of this: the most common is the taped-over swipe slot on a point-of-sale checkout, telling customers to hand their credit card to the clerk rather than swipe it themselves (even though the machine is designed for that!). People with long fingernails, people who don't see or use the stylus, and people with, well, slippery fingers, often complain about different aspects of touchscreen technology. And then, of course, there's the smart clerk who discovered that the wax paper used for picking up bagels and doughnuts works great on credit cards with hard-to-read swipe stripes. These aren't all problems that can be fixed by design, but they do present interesting issues to consider.

This week Steve highlighted a new version of post-design: a Chili’s interactive menu with touch-screen technology has a static sign added to explain to the customer exactly how to use the touch screen. I wonder if the designers saw the separate sign as temporary, until customers adapt to using the digital menu more readily. Or, perhaps, it was too costly to integrate the new directions into the existing terminal.

While there’s nothing inherently wrong with having to develop designs post-implementation, it strikes me that the kiosk and digital signage industry needs its own version of “What Not to Wear” – like the do’s and don’ts fashion column that shows real people in real outfits walking down the street, looking extremely sharp or completely off, developers and designers in new technologies need to share what they see in terms of real life usage. While we can laugh at the truly ugly adaptations, it's also important for such a quickly changing industry to develop an archive of design development.

Feel free to send me your examples: photos preferred, of course.

For Alaska Airlines, self-service = big savings + better customer experience

It's rare that businesses really come across a true win-win situation. Normally, when people say win-win, it usually means something more akin to "I win, you don't lose... too much." But Alaska Airlines, in a recent bid to update their terminals to improve customer flow, lessen wait times and congestion, and reduce complaints, has figured out how to do it. (Note: this isn't the first time we've written about their experiments). According to this article at Fast Company, the company has used a combination of traffic control and self-service systems to, "save almost $8 million a year on the [newly-renovated] Seattle terminal if it converts customers the way it has in Anchorage. And the makeover cost just $28 million. Thanks to the fast flow of traffic, trained employees, and eye towards efficiency, "seventy-three percent of Alaska's Anchorage passengers now check in using kiosks or the Web, compared with just 50% across the airline industry." The overall result of this?

During [the author's] two hours of observation in Seattle, an Alaska agent processed 46 passengers, while her counterpart at United managed just 22. United's agents lose precious time hauling bags and walking the length of the ticket counter to reach customers. Alaska agents stand at a station with belts on each side, assisting one passenger while a second traveler places luggage on the free belt. With just a slight turn, the agent can assist the next customer. "We considered having three belts," [Ed White, Alaska's VP of corporate real estate] says. "But then the agent has to take a step. That's wasted time."

We know that self-service alone, even when modestly implemented, has helped airlines to streamline their operations and improve efficiency. However, Alaska shows us how building self-service into the corporation, both figuratively and literally, can boost productivity, lower costs and improve customer satisfaction all at once.

Tags: self service, self check-in, kiosks

HP launches new touch-screen desktops

As reported in Advertising Age, of all places, HP is getting serious about the touchscreen terminal market, if their latest offerings are any indication. While many other manufacturers have been playing in this space for a while, HP's new line of computers is... well, I'll just say it... sexy -- if you could ever call a touchscreen computer sexy, anyway.

Interestingly, while Dell, IBM and others have always pointed their touchscreen offerings squarely at the business market, HP's line is definitely designed for consumers. I'm not entirely sure how or why they think adding a touchscreen to a desktop PC is going to empower consumers to work faster, smarter, or just have more fun, but then I'm not a consumer product marketing specialist, so perhaps the obvious is just eluding me right now.

Tags: kiosks, touch screen, touchscreen

Introduction to digital signage webinar coming up on June 12th

There's been a lot of talk lately about digital signage, and specifically, treating the store as a new medium for communicating everything from product advertisements to late-breaking news and important information. Regardless of where you stand on the issue, there's no doubt that the industry is growing at a fast clip, and a lot of retailers, brands and marketing agencies are clamoring to learn more about its efficacy as a marketing medium.

While there are a lot of proclaimed "experts" in the field, POPAI, the global organization for Marketing at Retail, has decided to start holding bi-monthly "Introduction to Digital Signage" webinars to get more of their members -- as well as interested non-members -- properly oriented in this complex and evolving field. The first of these webinars is coming up this week - Thursday, June 12, at 1PM EDT.

If you're already an expert in the field of digital signage, this webinar isn't for you. But if you're just starting out in the industry, or if you have a client or partner that is, it will give you an excellent introduction to the exciting world of digital out-of-home media.

Specifically designed to help newcomers see past the industry hype and focus on the projects, business cases and best practices that have been successful in the real world, POPAI's Introduction to Digital Signage webinar is a great way to spend an hour of your time -- and only $50 -- to jump-start your understanding of what works and what doesn't in the digital signage world.

The topics we'll cover include:

• An introduction to the digital signage market with some basic market history and analysis,
• A look at some of the most common usage scenarios,
• An explanation of the components used in typical digital signage networks,
• A discussion of the benefits and drawbacks of using digital signage, and
• An examination of some of the most common pitfalls and problems that occur, and ways to avoid them in the first place.

So please join us on Thursday, June 12, 2008 at 1:00pm EDT


If you're interested, you can click here to sign up now! You have to sign up by the end of the day on Wednesday the 11th in order to participate, so don't wait too long if you want to check it out.

Tags: digital signage

Fixing your bathroom sink...with your cellphone

The newest digital technologies face one enormous non-technological hurdle: getting ordinary people to use them.

According to mobile content researcher M:Metrics, however, only 6% of U.S. cell phone subscribers used their device to watch a video recently. At the same time, advertising expenditures on mobile ads are projected to be in the billions this year. Right now most marketers are using text ads, with web and video placements in development. Not surprisingly, iPhone owners outpaced all other cell phone users in their downloading and web searching by a huge margin.

But Home Depot is counting on two developments to move video use on mobile devices into everyday experience. First, new technologies make it easier for users to search for, watch, and share, and save mobile videos in close to real time, even going so far as to store playlists on your device.

The second development is smart marketing: Home Depot has developed a series of “how to” videos that are accessible in store and easily downloadable to cell phones. Imagine getting information from a helpful clerk about installing that cool Indonesian-looking ceiling fan, only to get home and get involved in other things like making dinner, driving to a soccer game, and watching the Stanley Cup Finals. By the time you finally get started on that ceiling fan, you wish you’d taken your memory-enhancing supplements that morning. But now, while you were in the store you could have entered an SMS short code into your cell phone and downloaded the instructional video. Back home, you can watch the video and remember to put the mounting plate in before you attach the rotor blades.

What’s great about Home Depot’s strategy is that it offers a necessary and ordinary application for mobile device use. It may be a while before I’m downloading and watching television shows on my iPhone (after all, someone needs to buy me one first) – but I’d get the instructional videos immediately. That's the theory, at least, and Avot Media and Home Depot are already trying out instructional videos downloaded to your cell phone to help with the installation of a new line of ceiling fans.

I don’t have any marketing data on this, but personally, this approach to in-store media is a lot more appealing than video cooking demonstrations in supermarkets. The current formats still seem like 1950s-era Home Ec movies rather than Emeril or even Julia, though I admit I'm biased by my "cooking is an art form" mentality.

On the other hand, my home repair skills are not nearly as eclectic, innovative, or confident as my cooking, so I think I’ll do what the instructions tell me for now. And my favorite part? If I need to, I can always go back and take another quick look on my cell phone. One of our first home-improvement projects ever was putting up a shed from a kit. It came with a video, which we popped into the VCR (yes, that long ago), watched, and then promptly forgot as we mounted the window upside down and on the wrong wall. Perhaps we might have avoided these mistakes if there could have been a quick check on the cell phone video.

Tags: self service, mobile, video

Another thing that keeps me up at night...

So I've been a little remiss on posting lately, but I promise I have a really good reason. I'm not normally inclined to post personal stuff on these blogs, but a lot of you folks already knew that my wife and I were expecting our first baby sometime around now. Last week, he decided to show himself to the world. Say hello to baby Liam:

The surprised look on his face is because I was telling him about the digital signage industry at the time -- the number of overlapping vendors, the lack of standards or formal metrics, the continual volume of hype fed into the channel. But fear not, a solution is at hand: he promises to start working on the problem as soon as he learns what his fingers are for.

Thanks for your patience, folks. Things on the blogs should get back to normal in a few weeks :)

- Bill

Giant's easySHOP gives self-checkout a new meaning

In what might be described as an evolution of the price-check kiosk, Giant Super Food Stores is testing out a new system called easySHOP which allows customers to bypass checkout lines altogether by scanning and bagging items as they pick them up in the aisles. As this article on Shopper Culture notes, the system

"lets people scan and bag items as they shop throughout the store, then pay at a self-service check-out kiosk and leave. In other words, groceries go into your cart from the shelves and don’t leave until you get to your car.

"easySHOP requires Giant’s BONUSCARD loyalty card. The system aims to empower customers by putting more control in their hands. Further, the perception is that scanning one’s own groceries is faster than having them scanned in a check-out line. Finally, the scanner lets people keep a rolling tally of their bill, helping them stay within their budget."

As self-checkout lanes have gotten only a mixed review so far, this program could potentially offer time savings that make early glitches and an unnatural-seeming change to shopping behavior worthwhile.

Tags: self-checkout, self-service, easySHOP