The Best Of The Past Five Years
Although the founders have been in business together for almost eight years it is actually five years since DailyDOOH was first ‘published’.
Of course, we weren’t the first to cover the digital signage sector, that honour goes to the likes of; Bill Gerba’s Digital Signage Insider and Dave Haynes’s sixteen:nine and the pioneering (sheer commercialisation and globalisation) efforts of aka.tv (acquired by us back in February 2012) which celebrates its tenth anniversary next year.
Nevertheless, we’ve had a great time and almost all of it has been down to you; our readers, the conference and exhibition organisers, the industry associations, all of the vendors, the people who buy the product and the people who place the ads, our friends and indeed our foes – without you, there wouldn’t be an industry and we wouldn’t have a business!
So, in no particular order (and with varying degrees of ‘seriousness’) here our some of our very own personal highlights from the past five years…
- The MicroTiles Launch, November 2009. We were the first non-employee to see MicroTiles ‘lit up’ in their labs 2 years before and we worked during that time helping Christie launch the product. The icing on the cake was being asked to compere the actual launch event in a New York City nightclub
- The team villa in Orlando, June 2011. #InfoComm11 was never going to be our favourite event of the year BUT our own house and pool for the team (and guests) for the week made it, quite simply, one of the most memorable events ever
- Our very own ‘Coffee Shop’, Amsterdam, January 2010. At #ISE2010 we helped out OVAB Europe at the last minute, took a much bigger stand than we had envisioned and had the best blogger lounge and our very own coffee shop and barista. An expensive exercise but well worth it
- March 5, 2012 was our biggest traffic day ever, with 5,429 visitors. The top stories that day; BroadSign Files For Chapter 11 Protection, Is It True That Folks Are Bidding For Ocean Outdoor?, Ecast Shuts Down (Its Jukebox Network), #gs12 Why You Need To Be In Chicago In 2013)
- World’s Biggest Coffee Morning, September 2008. Several months work where we acted as pseudo Media Planners saw 32 UK networks donate air time in the build up to a huge charity event. We finished, tired and exhausted but knew that we had done our bit for the industry
- Bare Naked Ladies. The PRN Upfront is always good but in October 2010 attendees had a good half-hour performance by The Bare Naked Ladies, who not only got the audience involved in its hit ‘If I Had A Million Dollars’ BUT but also performed a song entirely about PRN and the digital signage advertising business. Classic.
- Travelling Grandma. It’s April 2008 and it’s our first ever trip to Montreal. We took to the stage at Arsenal Media’s jadn.tv event and after I spoke a little lady came to the front of the stage to introduce herself and interview me for a Canadian ad magazine. That ‘little lady’ became our very own ‘travelling Grandma’ and we haven’t looked back since hiring Gail Chiasson to be our North American editor
- The Investment Community. Reporting from our first ever digital signage investor conference (and indeed, Gail Chiasson’s first ever business trip on our behalf) October 2009 in New York City. We met Steve Nesbit. We started co-chairing the conference. The rest, as they say is history
- We’ve organised many a good (networking) Supper Club but probably the best was the Munich Supper Club, October 2010. An eclectic mix of people representing an extensive who’s who in the industry. The Käfer-Schänke Restaurant in Munich where it was held has now become a regular haunt of ours
- Bon viveur. Arbitron’s Rob Winston knows more about measuring our industry than anyone else we have ever met. He is also an extraordinary bon viveur. It’s probably fair to say that, as a team, we like eating. It’s also probably fair to say that some of the best meals we have ever partaken in have been with Rob
- 21,000 words, 80 pages and 40 illustrations make up the ‘Blue Book‘
- Bollywood Ladies. Wrapping up Digital Signage Asia 2007, Mumbai in October 2007 (yes, 2007!!). With Amigo Digital’s Alex Hughes, Christian and Alex from Neo Advertising and Bill Gerba in the front row, I was on fire (or at least trying to show off) and held the stage for an hour or more. It got better (for me and the audience) as I was then escorted from the stage by not one, but two beautiful Indian ladies
- jadn.tv. I was honoured to share the stage with both Bill Gerba and Dave Haynes in Montreal at Arsenal Media’s 2008 jadn.tv
- Hiking. That 27 mile hike around the Hoover Dam! Meeting friends in Las Vegas, being invited into someone’s home. Beer, barbeque, more beer, great times and moments that will live with us forever. March 2012
- DSE Preset Group Mixer, Lavo Lounge, Lost Wages. The events may have got bigger but still the best by a long way (to us, anyway) was the first official event that crammed 70 people into a bar on the strip. Small enough to be super-exclusive, big enough to meet new people, intimate enough to get around the room and talk to almost everyone
- I hate fish. Dinner with Bill Gerba, Bill Collins, Manolo Almagro, Phil Lenger and others in Las Vegas 2009. Fish I can just about eat if it is either not cooked or not messed around with. Taking fish, cooking it and then covering it with tomatoes I cannot do. The evening did provide great conversation and lots of humour with a ‘gang’ of people that rarely get together these days 🙁
- DOOHAN. The idea, stolen now by Kinetic, was to list all of the UK Digital Out of Home Advertising Networks (hence DOOHAN) and publish as a high quality booklet. It was a labour of love and almost reached 100 pages (one for each network)
- We told you so. We’ve given readers many scoops in the last five years but the most that gave us pleasure was on a positive note and probably one of the biggest ‘ECE flatmedia acquired by Stroer‘
- Eyjafjallajokull. It’s hard to believe that in this modern day and age when we take it for granted that (pretty much) we get anywhere in the world in 24 hours that you could get stuck in North America due to a volcano erupting in Iceland. Well, along with 1,000’s of others trying to make their way back from NAB in April 2010, we too were stuck in Lost Wages. Mind you, proving that we can work anywhere, we set up an impromptu office in the Rio All Suites: Las Vegas Hotel and Casino and took the opportunity to commute back and forth to San Francisco to catch up with various bits of investor work
- The Scala Partner Conference. It took Scala almost three years before they relented and let us attend and ‘keynote’ one of their partner events. They were silly and we were on form. The best ‘partnership’ conference we have ever been to was held by Scala in Amsterdam in October 2011. Very few software vendors could get 100 partners to an event such as this
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