They aren't so different: both require care and feeding.
By Perry Goldstein
May 14, 2012
We got a puppy for Chanukah. His name is Buster. My kids were so excited, well, until that first accident. It was their responsibility to clean it up. “Why me?” asked my son. “Why can’t you do it? It’s gross.” I explained that a puppy is a big responsibility, and is not a toy. It requires a lot of care and feeding. Along with the fun comes work.
What does this have to do with digital signage?
The same situation holds true for a digital signage system. It’s fun and exciting the day you turn it on. The monitors are all lit up with beautiful graphics. But, there is a lot of work and maintenance once it is installed. And with that maintenance comes with an expense…yes, expense. It seems that organizations forget to budget for the operation of the system. And when it starts to cost them too much money, and time, they abandon the system. They either leave it up on the wall partially operational, or just pull the whole thing down and call it a failure.
Areas of Maintenance and Expense
What sort of expenses does a system operator need to anticipate when placing a digital signage system?
Content
Content must be constantly updated and refreshed. If you don’t do that, you might as well have placed print signage. The advantage of digital signage is the dynamic nature of it in that it can be updated instantly and on the fly. That is what makes it effective. When a screen changes often, it keeps people’s attention. The content can be as intricate as that which is custom-made from scratch or merely from a template. There are services that offer templates. But those templates have to be modified to add your unique message. All of this has a cost. The templates that come from an outside source have a cost. There are some sign systems that come with a built in library of content, but they still need to have the information inserted. Additionally, there is a cost for a staff member to create the content.
Staff
Creative Staff: You will need a person, or people to create the content. You may already have a creative services department, but do they have the skill set to create content for digital
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