As digital signage network size and complexity grows, remote monitoring and control become essential.

One of my earliest memories as a small child was sitting down with my folks to watch the "Ed Sullivan Show." Many may remember the variety show for the historic appearance of the Beatles and the beginning of the British invasion. Others still may remember the program for the host's famous catch phrase - something like, "We have a really big show" with the word "show" sounding exactly like the drawn out pronunciation of the word "shoe."

What I remember the most was a stage act in which the performer began spinning bowls on wooden poles protruding from a platform. As the act progressed, he also began spinning up dinner plates, positioned between the poles balancing the spinning bowls, on their edges. To keep all of this in motion, the performer would run back and forth between poles, adding more spinning momentum to the bowls as he added more plates and bowls to the action. To the amazement of this little boy watching in awe with his parents, not a single bowl or plate crashed to the ground; rather the performer concluded his act by collecting each spinning object and neatly arranging them on the platform.

This childhood memory paints a mental picture for me of what it must be like to manage an extensive network of digital signs without proper monitoring, alert notification and control functionality. I can see in my mind's eye some poor soul having to run between monitors to make sure they are on, playing back the right content and functioning properly. But instead of traversing the width of platform no bigger than dining room table, this digital signage manager would have to run back and forth between signs scattered around an arena, across a campus or even around town.

Fortunately for digital signage network administrators, tools exist to eliminate the need to visit individual displays in person and instead provide the ability to remotely monitor and control all displays from a central command center.

Various approaches can be taken, but some of the more useful elements in any such system include support for: SNMP (simple network management protocol messaging); snapshot confidence monitoring of all displays on the network; serial control of monitor functions, including on, off and volume control; and some degree of network and device diagnostics.

Without these basic tools, managing, controlling and monitoring the performance of a digital signage network would be a feat akin to keeping all of those spinning plates and bowls in motion.

In future columns, I'll layout more details about each of the important elements of digital signage network monitoring and control, but for now, I just wanted to set the table with lots and lots of spinning plates and bowls.

One final note: If you are interested in seeing the spinning plate and bowl act, go to YouTube and search for "Erich Brenn 'Plate Spinning' on The Ed Sullivan Show."

Cheers & Happy Holidays

As mobile media makes inroads into the public consciousness, digital sign communicators can use relevancy and timeliness to cut through the clutter.

One open secret about the success of dynamic signage as an out-of-home medium is that often the audience for the signs does not have a whole lot of choice when it comes to selecting what media to consume.

That's not to say dynamic sign viewers are a "captive audience," but they often have been easy to grab because they typically didn't have other video-based media competing for their attention. Congregating in lobbies, cafeterias, medical and dental waiting rooms, car dealer service areas and other common areas, many members of digital signage audiences welcomed the chance to let their attention focus on the sign rather than reading a newspaper of magazine they may have already seen.

But that's all changing. Wireless 3G and 4G networks turn mobile phones into media players, and YouTube, Hulu, and other video Web portals make Internet TV easy to access. Add to that the fact that new mobile digital TV broadcasting capable of delivering local TV broadcasts to personal/portable devices is right around the corner.

Suddenly, just having a digital sign located where people congregate isn't good enough. Suddenly, there is competition for the attention of viewers. Suddenly, it's more important than ever to create fresh content that is relevant to the intended audience of the digital sign and to make sure it is timely.

A recent article in a Connecticut college newspaper discussed the attempt of the leader of a student government group to build support among school administrators for installing digital signage on campus. The student government leader saw digital signs as a way of building school spirit and creating a more unified campus community. As part of the effort, students were surveyed to find out what they thought about the idea.

Of 400 students polled, 56 percent said they thought digital signage would likely raise awareness among students about the goings on around campus - a respectable finding for proponents of digital signage.

Another finding, however, speaks to the importance of keeping digital signage content timely, relevant and informative. Respondents to the survey told researchers that the effectiveness of any digital sign installed on campus would be tied closely to updating information regularly on the signs.

The college students responding to the survey expressed an opinion that's likely to grow increasingly prevalent among digital signage audiences as wireless video media become available to a growing segment of the population. For dynamic signage content to be consumed, it needs to be fresh and a valuable source of information. Otherwise, the audience that once could only choose between a back issue of some mildly interesting magazine and a dynamic video sign may increasingly turn to a third alternative, namely personal mobile media devices.

For some digital sign communicators, the concept of competition for attention may be a foreign one. But the evolving media landscape in this nation that's putting video content within easy reach of anyone on the go is changing all that. It's time to redouble efforts to keep digital signage content relevant, fresh and interesting.