If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know that I don’t broadcast a lot of news. It’s just not my thing. If you want digital signage news, there are many other channels to get it on. But today, when I got word of the Digital Signage Federation’s new webinar series, it made stop, applaud, question, then want to announce, which is what I’m doing here.
The release says (found in its entirety here):
Digital Signage Federation (DSF), the independent not-for-profit trade organization serving the digital signage industry, is making available an entire program of interactive, educational webinars for its members and initially, inviting non-members to participate as a free trial.
DSF’s webinar series will be conducted by notable industry experts the second Wednesday of every month beginning September 8, at 2pm EST. The program will kick off with Turning on Digital Signage, part of the popular Digital Signage Expert’s series. Alan Brawn, Principal of Brawn Consulting who will be leading the first webinar session, is also Chair of the Federation’s Education Committee.
Brawn said, “The Federation is launching this webinar series in response to requests in a recent member survey for accessible and continuous educational opportunities. The program is designed to educate, inspire, and motivate individuals interested and involved in the digital signage industry. The topics would be under the umbrella of the 7 Key Elements of Digital Signage as well as the new educational Conference Series structure of the DSE that is being launched next year. The webinars will be impartial, agnostic, and vendor neutral in nature and represent a true cross section of our industry.”
Members and non-members may reserve seats free of charge on a “first come” basis at https://www.gotomeeting.com/register/277144451 until the session fills. The first free webinar is on Wednesday, September 8th. The program will run one hour beginning at 2pm EDT/2pm CDT/11am PDT.
From my perspective, this seems like a good, well-intentioned initiative. To gain traction, adoption, and ultimately buy-in, education is a key component. There seems to be a solid program structure with credible speakers in place. Kudos to the DSF for this. I don’t know many occasions where education can’t be of benefit.
But…….here’s the question I have: will something like this reach the right people? The marketing/advertising/communications professionals? The media agencies? Brands? Their member list looks to be diverse, but as I’ve seen in my short time in the digital signage “circle,” there is a tendency for the circle to talk to itself. As a result, the circle might get a little bigger, but it doesn’t morph into a web, which is what we need.
Make no mistake, I am thrilled to see something like this concept. I think it could be a huge benefit to those inside and outside of the industry. My hope is that the Federation, in its attempt to do good, thinks through to those who can really impact the traction, adoption, and ultimately buy-in of this amorphous, yet inevitable communications channel.
For all of you readers who want to know more, please sign up for the first webinar. Let’s see what this is all about and get our learning on!
Mike:
(Full disclosure, I am an interim Board member at DSF) Thanks for getting the news out, and more importantly, for adding insight to it. Your point about creating a web, as opposed to a circle, is spot on. It is a real challenge, and one we hope the webinar series and other efforts will start to tackle. There is no doubt that the marketers, agencies and brands are a VERY important constituency. They also have very specific interests, as the agency folks on our Board call last week pointed out. As such, our goal is to attract presenters who have the chops, the topics and the interest in helping to build that “web”. And we know that the topics of interest to the creatives, agencies and brands will be really interesting to the network operators, technologists and vendor community as well. In fact, I bet you have a few topics in your head (or on your hard drive) that would pack the virtual room. Just sayin’…
Ken-thanks for stopping by! I really appreciate the angle you guys are coming at this with and think it’s a great step for providing much-needed education by people who are experienced and passionate about digital signage, regardless of the “hat” that they wear in the industry. I’d love to get involved!