I met a couple of guys from a Toronto-based company, Jibestream Media, at a show a few months ago.  At the time, I was playing around with the Las Vegas Convention Center’s wayfinder, and this guy walks up to me and asks me about wayfinding.

Side note – my take on wayfinding (and probably many others’) is that I think it’s such a utilitarian tool that can easily be implemented through touch technology and can also serve as an effective DOOH advertising platform.  The context, primarily where it’s actually placed, drives its effectiveness at doing both.  For instance, I don’t think the in-mall static paradigm is broken and needs interactivity, but it can certainly be enhanced for dynamic advertising purposes.  Wayfinding in a place like hospitals, on the other hand, should have a presence and interactivity might help its utility be more effective, particularly with mobile integration.  Advertising here might be less important, but can nonetheless be incorporated and leveraged.

Anyway….I sat down and talked with the company’s VP of Marketing, Chris Weigand, and watched demos of their solution – NOVOMAP – and in the end walked away pretty impressed with him and it.  Novomap is an interactive out-of-home platform that is built to handle wayfinding, dynamic advertising, mobile interactivity, and even social connections.  What I think is interesting here, aside from how great the solution looks (highly produced, great graphics, animation, and an easy-to-use UI), is all of the hooks that they’ve incorporated.  They’re tapped into what’s needed and what’s wanted.  By and large, mobile & social capability are not selling points to large facilities.  Wayfinding and dynamic advertising are tools that can impact their bottom line, so, I think that’s always the base of any solution like this.  This is what gets their attention.  But once these guys get in the door with the utility and a platform that can drive the prospective company’s business, they’re in a position for incremental value via smart, connecting-type solutions.  The type of solutions that will get people talking and excited – because mobile interactivity and connectiveness is now today’s consumer’s utility.

If you hear the way these guys talk about their solution, you walk away feeling like they have it figured out.  They’re talking about it in all the right ways.  They’re working like crazy to get this into as many places as they can, even in test scenarios.  If you haven’t heard of them, check them out.  I’ve really enjoyed keeping up with them over the past few months and would love to see them succeed.  I think they have a pretty cool product that is effectively powerful.  Keep it up, guys.