Digital Signage Connection

Any digital signage network’s success is dependent upon how well it integrates into its environment, enhances the venue user’s experience and delivers its message(s) to the intended audience. It is critical to understand and employ the fundamentals of creating a cohesive content strategy. Through this hands-on session, participants will navigate real-world scenarios designed to instruct them on how to plan, strategize, develop and execute a content strategy within a range of venue settings.

This hands-on attendee participation format is ideal for content strategists, planners and designers. Featuring four specific market-focused tracks, each attendee will select the one that is most relevant to them for a deeper understanding of content development strategies, tactics, processes, resources and tools while participating as part of a team to formulate a content solution. A team of expert network operators, content strategists and creative directors will actively facilitate this workshop, which will not be a lecture or stage presentation.

Based on real-world scenarios, it will consist of four separate tracks or “Market Challenges,” each designed to represent the challenges and opportunities experienced within the specific market sector being addressed. Working as a team in their chosen track, attendees will interact with expert strategy and content planners, creative directors and designers as they map, plan, ideate and create their conceptual solution. At the end of the session, examples of developed digital content will be shared with each team for reference and comparison to their conceptual solution.

In this workshop, you will…
1. Learn useful strategies and tactics to assist in aligning content development with core business objectives
2. Gain better insight, understanding and working examples of the content ideation-to-execution process
3. Share peer-to-peer industry perspective and experiences from collaborating on your chosen Market Challenge

Attendance in this special half-day workshop is limited. Each attendee must select one of the following four tracks when registering:

Consumer-facing DS Networks:

• Retail Store(s)
• Restaurant/QSR
• Healthcare
• Education

Employee-facing DS Networks:

• Corporate Communications (i.e., Business & Industry)

Light snacks will be provided (no lunch).

Chris Bias works in employee communications at the global pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and Co., where he runs the LillyTV digital signage network — about 1,000 screens in 40+ countries — to communicate to Lilly’s 40,000-person workforce. Bias also manages video production for employee communications, produces intranet graphics and works with Lilly’s CEO on video, blogs, social media and other CEO communications.

Robert Brown is a member of Visix Inc.’s award-winning Creative Services team. He has over 10 years of experience with graphic and user experience design for companies such as Coca-Cola, Turner and NASA. Brown is a graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design.

Jude Carter is the director of marketing for The Marlin Co., the workplace communication experts, serving thousands of companies in the U.S. and Canada. With more than 30 years of experience, she has developed marketing and communication strategies for Fortune 500 companies such as Fidelity, Aetna, adidas and Prudential. An expert in workplace digital signage and visual communication, Ms. Carter has spoken at industry events throughout the U.S. and Canada, including Digital Signage Expo, National VPPPA (Voluntary Protection Programs Participants' Association) Conference, Waste Expo and many long-term care association conferences. She is a dynamic speaker and program facilitator.

Michael Chase is an industry leader in next generation marketing and creative thinking. As the chief marketing officer (CMO) for St. Joseph, he has made a name for himself as a driving force for change within the company itself and also within the broader, global marketplace. Chase's thought leadership empowers brands to succeed in an ever-changing digital world, allowing them to create real connections with real people -- their customers. He has provided strategic and creative direction for a diverse host of international companies including BMW, FedEx, Porsche, Air France, MTV, Viacom, HBO, Universal, Warner Bros, Sony, Nike, IKEA, Wal-Mart and Diageo. Chase lectures regularly on the North American Speaker's Circuit. He is an often quoted "industry expert" and has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Marketing Magazine, The Globe & Mail and other leading books and publications.

With more than 13 years of communications and marketing experience, beginning as a national award-winning writer/photographer for Thomson 
Newspapers,  Dave Dolejsi has spent the past nine  years developing the Alchemy brand for St. Joseph Content – a division of St. Joseph Communications, Canada’s largest privately held communications company. With a strong 
background in strategic branding as a marketer for brand-conscious heavy-weights like Starbucks, as well as B2B marketing and multimedia, Dolejsi has 
developed a deep and varied skill set, also bringing his experience and thought leadership to producing whitepapers, blogs, public speaking and the social media landscape. His specialty is strategic development. Helping clients like Labatt, Bell, TD and Sears identify and develop digital ecosystems where individual campaigns become parts of a greater whole, where consumer audiences are engaged on many levels across a variety of media that ultimately ties them to brands beyond the Zero Moment of Truth — to a lifetime of brand loyalty.

As a founding partner of MediVista Media (MVM), Loren Goldfarb co- developed the content strategy for Everwell, the company's national digital out-of-home TV network in doctors' offices. He oversees MVM's in-house production team, which creates original health and wellness content for Everwell TV, everwell.com and the company's many syndication partners. An award-winning journalist, Goldfarb's TV credits include Dateline NBC, ABC's Nightline and the PBS magazine HealthWeek. In addition to his role in shaping content, Goldfarb directs the company's operations center, which manages the customer service, hardware, software and related components of the Everwell digital signage network.

With a formal education in art and technology, along with design and photography, Neil Hoyng has spent the last four years working with industry leading technology in marketing departments in both educational and private company settings. Upon finishing his education, he moved to Los Angeles to work with TOMS Shoes Inc. in a marketing, communication and research capacity. Hoyng has since moved back to Columbus, Ohio, to work for The Ohio State University, where he is responsible for digital signage at the student union and all recreational sports facilities, which includes managing 95 screens.

Bryan Meszaros is the managing director of the retail media consultancy OpenEye. His 12+ years of experience in creative design and digital media were instrumental in OpenEye’s development of a digital wayfinding application for the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History. Previous to this, Meszaros was director of new media initiatives with MarketSource Corp., helping to develop Campus Central, the fist university-based digital signage network in the US.

Patricia Mitrano is director of visual communications at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center (NBIMC), an affiliate of the Saint Barnabas Health Care System, the largest integrated hospital system in New Jersey. Patricia has extensive experience in content creation, graphic design, internal event staging and communications. With the responsibility to communicate management messages to 3,000+ employees, she became intrigued with digital signage as an efficient medium. She has spearhead the research, purchase and deployment of a seven screen digital employee messaging system incorporating 1,000 existing hospital TVs for her facility. Knowledge of not just technical skills but also soft, people skills are critical as the cooperation and vision of the internal integration team is key to a successful digital signage implementation. The NBIMC team (IT&S, Telecomm, Public Relations and Visual Communications) work very well together and respect their various disciplines and expertise. Mitrano is also enrolled in NBIMC’s healthcare leadership track and is a member of Health and Science Communications Association, International Association of Business Communicators, Toastmaster International and is a Board Member of her community arts council.

George Yunis is SVP marketing & consumer engagement solutions for Allure Global Solutions, joining the Atlanta-based company in 2012. He is a versatile marketing, advertising and communications executive with 17 years' experience in private agency, broadcast media and corporate marketing for organizations ranging in size from $4 million to $13 billion. Specializing in strategic and visionary integration of a broad range of media and mediums, he has directed development of pioneering on-demand customization applications for the Internet, forged innovative non-traditional revenue sponsorship campaigns for broadcast media and is continuing this innovation in digital signage. His client and work experience includes Live Nation/Clear Channel Broadcasting, Coca-Cola, General Mills, Honeywell, Air Touch Cellular/Verizon and many other major brands. From 2006-2012, he played a key role in creative vision, communications and promotional strategy for ARAMARK Corp. as senior director, Creative Services. Active in industry education, Yunis is a former four-year member of the Digital Signage Expo (DSE) advisory board and current serves on the Digital Signage Federation (DSF) board of directors and as co-chair of the DSF education committee. He was also named the Digital Screenmedia Association (DSA) 2012 Deployer of the Year.

Mark Zwicker leads sales and marketing for St. Joseph Content, where he is responsible for driving strategic initiatives, expanding into new markets, and strengthening collaborative business relationships with clients. This responsibility also involves aligning internal resources to provide strategic planning, creative development, shopper marketing solutions, package design, retail branding, interactive development and out-of-home digital media production.