Harry Callahan, the maverick cop played by the great Clint Eastwood, lets out a slight smile and caps “Magnum Force” with,

“A man’s got to know his limitations.”

What do Harry Callahan and Bill Gerba have in common (besides everything)?

Harry and Bill both come to mind as we touch upon a touchy digital signage subject: the do-it-yourselfer.

In his Wirespring digital signage blog, Bill recently released results from a survey, asking if digital signage network operators (or those contemplating DS networks) handle essential services in-house or outsource the execution of those services. For the record, the list of services (generally accepted as necessary, if not flat-out required, for successful DS network operation) included logistics management, strategy consulting, project planning, content strategy consulting, content management, network/operations management, initial project management, ongoing project management and installation services.

And the winner, in a landslide, is:

“We do it ourselves”

In only one of the ten categories (installation services) did the majority of operators say they outsource the work. Every other service, the respondents said, is handled in house.

Maintaining his objectivity, Bill did not pound the table on this subject. That doesn’t mean other digital signage pros can’t.

“In other parts of our lives, we make rational decisions” says Tom Percich, vice president in charge of business development for Diversified Media Group, a leading integration firm that has planned, installed and maintained dozens of networks. “But when it comes to digital signage, people go a little crazy and think they can do it on their own.”

Why? You know why. And you know who you are. You’re trying to cut corners and save money. How’s that working out, if you don’t mind us asking?

Tom notes the example of a client who bought cheaper off-the-shelf monitors at a department store (“Let’s see. I’ll take some toothpaste, kitty litter, and 50 plasma screens.”) rather than going with the more expensive pro-recommended industrial models. Sure enough, 7 months later, the consumer screens started dying. No warranty. The client had to replace the consumer clunkers with industrial models. Thus, the client was forced to buy twice as many screens, spending twice the dough. And oh by the way, installation fees were doubled also.

“You don’t know what you don’t know” Tom says. “Sure, there’s information everywhere. You can learn how to do open-heart surgery on-line. But if I needed open heart surgery, I would tend to go to a doctor.”

Another point: any reputable pro stands behind his or her work. “We have to eat our own dog food,” Percich says. “If we manage the network, we have to live with our recommendations. But that’s fine. Those recommendations are based on years of experience. Our expertise combined with that experience usually results in cost savings. We’ll live with that.”

Another result of the survey, which is borderline stunning, is the percentage of respondents who say that “they don’t bother” with the essential services. Really? No kidding? You don’t bother with network management? Project management? Content production?

“Content is the last thing discussed, which drives me mad” says Stephen Ghigliotty, who for the past two years handled content creative and strategy for Artisan.

Strategy. Now there’s a concept.

The dialogue at the meeting goes something like this: “The deliverable is a long-term plan, a strategy. The goal is good content on budget and on time. We’ve got a lot of sharp people on staff. They can knock out this strategy thing before lunch.”

Stephen tells the story about one sharp client, with no DS experience but ample experience paying broadcast-spot production rates, who commissioned a single (read “one”) broadcast-quality piece for their digital signage network. The piece looked great. But the client burned their entire content budget on that one piece. So they played it, over and over and over again, leading to burn out, tune out and flame out.

Brian Ardinger is the marketing director for one of the industry’s leading software providers, Nanonation. The folks at Nanonation focus on software and only software. Nonetheless, they are DS pros. And by keeping the big picture in mind, pros can help novice clients navigate the minefield.

“We have a good understanding of all the parts, the good, the bad and the ugly,” Brian says. “For example, we don’t hang the screens but because we’ve been involved in so many networks, we know who to call to hang the screens.”

Brian and the others share a common insight: there are many links to the digital signage chain. One link breaks, and there goes the chain.

But enough already. By now, you’ve figured us out. We’re just self-serving vendors who want to charge crazy rates for work you can handle yourself.

That’s true. We do like to get paid. But anyone charging crazy rates in this business does not last long.

The genuine DS pro wants your network to thrive. Every blue screen of death, lame content, display hung 12 feet off the floor where no one sees it network drags down the entire industry. We cringe, grind our teeth and lose sleep, whether we had anything to do with the offending network or not.

Our goal is not to gouge. Our goal is to lift digital signage to a new level.

We sum it up with another classic Clint Eastwood line.

This one goes out to all of the do-it-yourselfers who plan to handle DS services in house or, better yet, plan to not even bother.

In the words of Detective Callahan in “Dirty Harry”,

“You have to ask yourself one question. ‘Do I feel lucky?’ “

Well, do you?

Like the first two in the series, it is full of good insights into what’s happening in stores. It is also suggests digital signage is woefully ineffective, and anyone reading this report without thinking it through and getting some perspective would quickly toss out the concept of in-store digital as something even worth pursuing. It’s that bad.

As you might imagine, that’s a bit of a problem for companies trying to sell the dream into that sector.

Miller Zell and a research firm did a survey of 999 shoppers in March of this year “to determine which in-store marketing communications elements influence and inspire purchase behavior.”

The research revealed and confirmed 60 per cent of brand decisions are still made in the store, and that in-store advertising is more influential than out of store. It suggested mass merchandise stores are where people prefer to shop and convenience stores are the least favourite. And it suggests the in-store experience is incredibly important, with more than 2/3s of respondents saying the experience was a make or break factor for them in choosing where they shop.

Notice-ability sorted out what was actively noticed in stores by shoppers, and what was not. At the top, end-caps and merchandising displays, with percentage rankings in the 60s and 70s.

At the bottom, digital signage, at a woeful 10 per cent or so.

Floor graphics did better!

Digital signage did a little better when it came to purchase and brand choice influence, but not a whole bunch. It ranks 9^th of 11 choices, and just ahead of ceiling banners and overhead mobiles.

Now at this point you may have closed your laptop, had a last sip of your coffee and headed for the roof of your building. It really could seem awful and hopeless.

But let’s stop and think about this. I can pretty effectively argue that the reason the numbers are so bad is that the execution, to date, has been so bad in retail.

One of the reasons digital screens are rated right down there with ceiling banners and overhead mobiles is that they have been hanging from the ceiling or high up on a wall, just like ceiling banners and mobiles. Except they are a fraction of the size. No amount of zippy motion graphics in ads will get people looking if the screens are well above the normal field of vision and are, in relative terms, tiny in the context of the retail environment.

An HDTV that looks massive in your living room is just a speck on the horizon of a big box store, and even in smaller retailers. And it’s just a flat-panel TV, and they’re everywhere. That novelty factor is long, long gone.

Sprinkling a few screens around a big store, hoping they will get noticed and have an impact, really isn’t much more than wishful thinking, and this sort of data really drives that point home. To service the general environment of a large retail space, you need equally large displays that actually command attention and set the tone and experience that shoppers clearly want.

That technology is coming, but the other, easier route is to use what the research tells us, and get the screens in positions where they are noticed. Those are the ends of aisles, merchandise displays, department locators and at the shelf-edge in the aisles.

I have a client that has been working with a major brand on a merchandising fixture that includes a large LCD screen integrated into the fixture, with strategy and programming specifically tuned to working that fixture hard with rotating promotions and regularly changed SKUs. The fixtures where wheeled into place in stores and the results were immediate and phenomenal, with sales jumps against control stores well, well into the double figures across scores of sites. The program has been doubled in size.

Other retailers that have put screens in positions where they can’t help but be noticed, and where the content is well-executed and steadily refreshed, are seeing sustained sales increases that easily justify the effort and cost. The recently opened Microsoft store is a fabulous example of a retail design that really exploits the possibility, with full walls of tiled screens. Expensive, sure, but not all THAT expensive. Hugely impactful, though.

Miller Zell also told me (I asked) that another reason the numbers were low was critical mass. There aren’t all that many retailers yet with real screen networks.

This stuff DOES work, but getting it right takes a lot of careful consideration and use of the information available, LIKE these kinds of reports. The days of retailers and network operators “hanging and hoping” with their screens have to end, and people in the industry have to take a role by flat telling their clients, “That’s not going to work.”

I sell the pots and pans for one of those software firms. That means I have a vested interest not only in winning business but also steering people to other solutions when it’s clear my pots and pans aren’t the ones to use. I can’t afford to chase no-hopers. And I have also spent way more time in the industry being on the other side of this – launching and running networks, and sorting out what way to go with my own company’s technology choices. I am by no means THE expert on this stuff, but with a new year approaching, tightened budgets and tough, tough investors, this is as good a time as any to provide some guidance.

For the purpose of this exercise, let’s talk in terms of real networks with real rollouts, with some complexity in how things need to be done across the estate. If you’re going to be putting up three screens in your school or office campus, just get whatever winds your watch.

And let’s assume all the platforms do the basics of distributing media content over a network, and playing it back in some sort of order.

1 – Avoid relying on reports, ratings and rankings lists

Such reports and lists do not and probably cannot represent objective opinion or thorough research and testing.

They are mightily shaded by sponsors and business partners or by a personal bias or agenda. Thinking logically, how would any company faced with such a wide spectrum of products be able to make a fair, reasoned and thorough assessment?

Trade publishers are not going to bite the hands that feed them. You will see head-scratching news items and opinion pieces posted, at times, for no other reason than the sponsor/advertiser insisted, so any review of “top” or “best” companies or platforms needs to be greeted with suspicion. They may well be the best, but they may also represent business relationships and “understandings”.

Consulting and research firms don’t do things for giggles, and you will see industry reports and forecasts from them that include references and quotes from companies that, usually, paid to be there. That’s why much of their work is sponsored.

And bloggers don’t have the time to truly be the last word. It would take a dedicated lab, seasoned, objective technical people, and much, much time for a proper look. I obviously write a blog, and I sell software. As hard as I try here, it’s likely my point of view is skewed on this advice … without even trying.

2 – Look at the track record

What’s the company’s history? What’s the installed base? How many clients does that represent? This is a growth industry, even in this economy, but a LOT of the companies now in this space will either be out of business, hanging on by threads, or in acquisition talks over the next year. This is probably not the time to roll your company dice on a little-known company with no real track record. Their financial problems rapidly become your problems.

Everyone, even companies that just completed fundraising rounds and would seem to have walking around money, is being careful with spending right now. Even a year ago, there were some pretty well-known companies looking to get bought. There are more of them now.

Don’t base your research on the rumor mill – which is at best unreliable and lately, a little ridiculous. Ask the vendor directly.

3 – Insist on references

Good companies with happy clients will pony them up. And don’t be satisfied that the company was comfy enough to pass on names and contacts. Make the calls, and ask real questions. You need to hear much more than how Brand X “has some great guys.”

4 – Test drive

Get a production account on a managed platform, or an eval license on shrink-wrapped software. Use it, learn it. Think about the resource implications that come with it. Pay attention to the level of support and customer service you get, or don’t get. You shouldn’t have to pay for that eval if you can provide comfort you are a real company with real prospects. Some companies may try to charge you to keep away the no-hoper nuisance accounts, so you may need to be insistent. If they insist on a fee, there’s a red flag for you.

5 – Create a minor calamity

Screw something up in your testing and then ask for help and support. Nothing catastrophic, just a problem needing help. Analyze the process involved. Watch who gets involved. Track response times. Consider the quality of care. Keep in mind this is what life will be like post-contract, and if it was frustrating or chaotic, there’s a big screaming clue for you. If it was orderly and smooth, there’s a better clue.

6 – What do they really do

The big thing I hear over and over again is turnkey solution. Find out what that means, and how much is REALLY done in-house and how much turnkey is really just outsourced, with 15% added on. Some companies base a lot of their revenue on margin from hardware and service fees.

7 – Is there a development roadmap?

Is there a careful plan that looks ahead and considers the marketplace? You will find a lot of companies, particularly in a tough economy, where the sales tail wags the company dog. In other words, roadmap equates mostly to whatever customers want … NOW!

That sort of thing may give the customer short-term goodness, but it’s not good for the overall company and customer base.

8 – Ask for a current staff list

Seriously. It’s a great way to assess how many people really work for the company and what they do. You may find the five-person support team is the same set of people as the five-person software development team, and the same as the five-person IT team.

9 – What’s the process?

How is the product developed, tested and released. Are there formalized release processes? What’s the timing?

10 – Forget the shiny buttons and dancing bears

There’s usually a reason something is graphically pretty and dead easy to use. It doesn’t actually do much. While the user experience is important, and I think sometimes given short-shrift by developers, the real keys to software in this space are:

• stability of the platform and particularly the playback engine
• efficiency for industrial use: as the network gets bigger, does the workload also grow at that rate? If so, move on
• accountability: what reporting can be extracted from the system, and at what level of granularity? Doers that reporting match up with your needs. Your target industry’s needs?

11 – Don’t get hung up on the gadgets

I remember a Dali-esque episode about five years ago when my fledgling company almost lost a contract because a new competitor came in and said it could do its network delivery using Wi-Fi. I said, “Yeah, so?”

For me it was just one way of doing the network, and definitely not the best. For the other guys, it was their whole pitch, and five years ago, it sounded REALLY cool to my client. Eventually, I talked the client off that particular ledge.

The point is that debates over things like cellular delivery, wireless video, all-in-one panel PCs, interactive screens, Bluetooth and so on are all interesting. But the bigger question needs to be what works for your needs and your budget.

There is a constituency out there, for example, that believes PC-based platforms are old school and prone to failure, and that solid state appliances are the present and future. Trouble is, they are not all that cheap (some are crazy expensive, actually) and most don’t do much. Forget Flash (except transcoded to video). Forget running more than MPEG2 video. Forget flexibility. Forget much in the way of device controls or open architecture.

What fails in the field are hard drives and fans. Solid state drives keep dropping in cost and power consumption on CPUs makes fanless much more affordable. And then you have a platform that is not so limited. And frankly, there are a few guys out there with things that are being passed off as appliances or “digital engines,” when they are really just PCs in small, industrial packages or set-top box looks.

OK, that was a little more hardware-centric, but important.

12 – What’s your vertical?

As a sales slob, my job is to get people to buy my stuff. But I emphatically believe the best sales people are those who don’t mercilessly try to pound their square peg into the round hole of an opportunity.

If your network is all about mapping to an airport departures and arrivals database, look for companies like Omnivex with direct experience in that. Guys like Capital Networks, Chyron and Harris (Infocaster) do great broadcast graphics. A lot of people like Scala because they can do content creation within the application. WireSpring and EnQii are among a short list of companies that are Linux-centric. And so on.

While it’s likely any software could pull off the basics, somehow or other of what is needed, there will be quirks and you are far better off with a vendor who’s been there and done that, and has a development roadmap focused on that.

13 – Does it suit YOUR customers’ needs?

The biggest networks out there are supported by advertisers or brands, and prosper or perish at the whim of the media planning and brand communities. They have their own language, and expectations around things like audience measurement. Hospitals and health care facilities have different dynamics and language. So do retailers.  We’re starting to see companies get more specialized, largely out of necessity. They can get good at certain things, rather than trying to be all things to all prospects.

14 – Open sesame

Is the architecture open, so that if you need functionality that the software vendor is not going to get to anytime soon, the tools and hooks are in place to allow you or a third-party to get that bit done? Ask if they have an API, and what it is for.

15 – Is it safe?

If your network is compromised, you are either dead or breathing badly. Look for a solution that encrypts all the control data and protects against tampering. And also ask how the playback software handles security. This is the sort of thing best handled by a propeller-head. If you have no idea what you’re asking about, find someone who does.

16 – What model works for your business?

There are two core approaches to software these days – shrink-wrapped or managed. With shrink-wrapped, you buy it once and pay an annual license/support fee. You almost always run the platform on your own servers, and have IT people making things tick. With managed, also known as Software as a Service, you effectively rent the software and the platform, and all the services are covered. Your in-house IT needs are minimal.

There are arguments for both models, but the industry is trending towards SaaS because upfront costs are reduced and a lot of the headaches for small media companies are outsourced.

There is also an emerging free or stinkin’ cheap model out there, largely coming from emerging markets. From what I have heard the applications aren’t too bad at all, but like any free model the idea is to get you to upgrade from limited to full functionality. Suddenly, the free model looks very much like paid subscription models out there. Guys who do the free model need to build market share REALLY fast if they are to hang on and eventually prosper.

17 – Player, heal thyself

The big, largely hidden cost with these networks is with field maintenance. Sending a tech on-site to fix a media player is costly and time-consuming, and just a bad thing. Look for software that is largely self-healing, meaning it deals with lock-ups and crashes and codec errors and so on, ideally before they happen and almost always remotely.

18 – Future-friendly

This is a very fast-moving industry and the lines with other media are blurring, as well as with other technology. It’s very likely you will find requirements come up to enable interactivity and to talk to complementary technologies, like wireless handheld devices and POS systems. And it’s very likely there is stuff coming along that hasn’t yet been contemplated as part of what’s now called digital signage.

19 – Consider the circumstances

Are you going to be using cellular for broadband? If so, are the best compression codecs supported by the software? If not, think about what that means for your per site broadband bill (which will be ugly). Do you want to work with GPS? Do you need triggering of content? And on and on. There’s often MUCH more involved than getting something to play ads over and over.

20 – What does your exit strategy look like?

If your plan involves running out a network and then selling it off to a much bigger media company, so you can spend your days on a beach waving at Paco to bring you two more frosties, your chances are much better if you are running on something the big boys know and like. If you have 1,500 sites running on something they’ve never heard of, they may walk … or at best they will reduce your valuation because they know they are going to have to replace it all with stuff they like or trust. If you are on something they’re comfy with, and like what you’re doing, the beach beckons.

I could probably add another 20, but this should be some solid grounding for anyone just now wading into this space. The biggest advice I always give people is to put their Bullshit Filters on and set them to High. The competition is very aggressive and the pressure very high on sales people to deliver contracts. The net result is a lot of people saying “Yes” to whatever prospects ask, and then dumping those promises on the poor developers.

This is an industry in which every company seems to somehow or other call itself the global leader. The reality is there are maybe a dozen or so companies who have the great majority of the market share, and maybe, maybe they could be dubbed global leaders. A second tier is carving out a niche (with other services) in things like fast food and wayfinding, and that’s a really smart way to go. I have seen some stuff put out by smaller companies that is phenomenal and perfect for the market they are after. And then there’s a big wash of smaller guys, or large companies with side projects, scrapping away on a shoestring or with limited corporate buy-in. They either need to get very focused, or figure out that niche.

You can get free networked screensaver software for Windows that will do the very, very basics of digital signage. Some people even use PowerPoint! But if this is your core business, and you are going to place a big money bet on starting a network, don’t cheap out on the glue that holds it all together.

These are challenging times, but still full of opportunity when projects are thoroughly planned out and the people behind them take the time to seek advice. Hopefully, I’ve provided at least a little.