"digitized signage"

The vast majority of the people in the entertainment industry don't know anything about DIGITAL SIGNAGE. I work in Hollywood and meet with people in mainstream entertainment. Yesterday, I had two meetings that illustrate this point. My morning appointment was with a prominent TV writer who writes for the Oscars and most of the variety TV specials on broadcast and cable. He --- like most --- never thought about all those damn screens he sees everywhere as a new avenue for "targeted entertainment," that people have to program those screens like ANY network and that advertisers have to get their messages out there and that OOH is a natural avenue for them, and that --- like TV in the 50's --- CONTENT ultimately will drive the marketplace. He immediately saw the frontier.

My afternoon meeting was with a casting director who has done movies and TV for the last 15 years. She too had never considered the various flat screens popping up at her bank and florist and coffee shop and pet store as a bonefide vehicle for broadcast-quality media. She said "all I see is powerpoint and bad production value and news, news, news...maybe some weather." Exactly. She immediately saw the future.

Being at the epicenter of ENTERTAINMENT and coming from a pedigree that can be traced back to the very beginning of television gives BCP a huge advantage in this burgeoning industry. We are walking in the right direction and, as Oliver Wendell Holmes said (paraphrasing) sometimes that is as important as where you stand.

We are certainly not there yet. Advertisers are skittish. Research is spotty. Standard practices are non-existent. People are in a huge chicken-or-egg battle over how to start (do I build out or sell advertising? Wellllll, can't do one without the other and can't do the other without having the one...). And the old guard in this industry (people I respect greatly and in whose debt we all owe our present open field running...innovative technology and forward-thinking leaders like Gerba and Haynes and Gorrie and these companies out carrying the canary....thank you thank you thank you...) are attached nonetheless to the "known."

Think about it: the possibilities are unlimited. It is a revolution out there. Here in Hollywood, the writing has been on the wall since the proliferation of CABLE CHANNELS. Fewer and fewer big numbers; more and more niche audiences.

With digital technology creating the highway and the possibility of out-of-home Networks, we can go anywhere. Possibilities are unlimited. Those that say we need to stop and establish what works and duplicate that fail to realize that at this point in the industry, by the time you duplicate success, the ball is somewhere else. And so is the audience.

We must keep trying new things. New ideas. Stay fluid. In the flow. We must. Otherwise we do not innovate. We do not break through the morass of obstacles we all face.

Onward!

possibility

Dave Haynes is an elder statesman in this industry. I bow before him. I enjoy his steady and measured output even though I'm not a fan of BroadSign. Below is a link to his BLOG and an excerpt from an entry yesterday and then a response I posted.

His Blog: 16:9
Yesterday's Entry (check out link to report below):

"Interesting little analysis posted today by Northern Sky Research , a Boston-based market research firm."

And here is my comment on the matter:



Ridiculous naysaying. Ours is a nascent industry. Of course people are getting it wrong.

And the people that come after will learn from these trailblazers. And the “bad” and the “ugly” are essential for there to be “good” in the first place.

We have to remember that Everything About Communication is changing in our society…and that to try to assess or find or even try to establish rules or a definitive how-to is folly.

I realize that this is VERY unsettling to those who do not have a high tolerance for ambiguity (read: analysts, researchers and most in the traditional media industry).

However, NOT KNOWING is essential in order to move things forward.

Advertisers have been trying to find a place to take their money where they can reach their customers’ customers for years as cable cut into broadcast eyeballs and now as internet et al cuts into cable.

To raise this kind of a red flag is static on the line between you the industry visionary and the goal of a breakthrough…

Ride the waves and don’t be scared off by those who fall off their boards — and especially not by those standing at the shore, waving and telling us how dangerous it is out here in the water…

All there is… is possibility.

Media Training for Native Youth

BCP and NMTN also helped jump start a media training initiative at Fox Studios.

Thanks to visionary leadership by Gerald Alcantar (pictured), Fox Studios VP of Diversity Development, the program is now one of the industry's success stories. Every June, the Fox Studios American Indian Summer Institute gives native youth hands-on experience in production and post production. In addition, they are introduced to job possibilities in the industry, and, as important, the industry is introduced to native youth from around the country.


View Excerpts from BCP Training Projects:

2002 - Tribal TANF high school workshop


2003 - Fox Studios AISI


2004 - NPR Next Generation workshop


2005 - Fox Studios AISI


2006 - Fox Studios AISI

The Evolution of a Vision....

In 1999, BCP began working with Floyd Red Crow Westerman (pictured left), Syd Beane (pictured right middle) and the Southern California Indian Centers, Inc. to create a job training program for American Indians in film and television production.


Floyd passed on in the fall of 2007, but his vision is alive and well...


The job training program he initiated has grown into the Native Media and Technology Network, a national initiative dedicated to building media capacity and a job pipeline for American Indians through training and the creation of culturally relevant programming. NMTN has since affiliated with non-profit community centers all over the country and over 300 tribes.




The NMTN tri-chairs are (pictured upper right: left to right) Frank Blythe (Omaha), Syd Beane (Minneapolis) and Lyn Dennis (Pacific Northwest). Shortly before Floyd died, BCP partnered with the leadership of NMTN to form a digital signage company: Earthstream Media promises to be a tipping point for native media. Digital technology now makes it possible to create private media networks on Tribal lands, thereby creating job opportunities while building media capacity and an outlet for creative expression.