Digital signage networks are powerful communications tools, but to get the most out of them requires proper monitoring, content management and control.

Digital signage networks are enticing to marketers, advertisers and large institutions because they offer exceptional reach and wrest control away from traditional gatekeepers, thus collapsing the distance between the communicator and the medium.

So much for the highfalutin talk; let's get practical and take a journey on the road to succeeding with digital signage networks. If digital signage networks are to achieve these lofty goals, they must offer certain fundamental capabilities, including making it simple to manage content, monitor playout, detect network faults, diagnose problems, control individual monitors and override playout schedules to issue emergency messages in times of distress, such as weather events, fires and other catastrophes.

The first stop on this journey is the content management server. The content management server provides a network operations center (NOC) with access to every, or targeted, digital signs along the network. Rather than manually communicating point-to-point, addressing one digital signage player after another sequentially from a central location to distribute media and playout schedules, the content management server pushes out new media and schedules to targeted players over a LAN, WAN or VPN as instructed by someone with administrative rights -often long after that person has left for the day and is snoozing away in bed.

Depending upon the application, it may also be necessary for the content management server to accommodate hyperlocal content playback on specific monitors, which, for example, may share the same general geography. Imagine a university with a digital signage network. A content management system could serve media files and playlists for all but a single onscreen area to ensure consistency of messaging across campus. However, in that reserved onscreen space hyperlocal content regarding individual schools, colleges and departments could playback messages tailored to their needs.

The next trailmarker to success is confidence monitoring of individual signs in the network. Think of the nightmarish task of continuously making sure every sign in a network is functioning if there were no IP network connectivity. You'd need some comfortable running shoes or lots of reliable people to watch the monitors locally and report problems as they arise. A far more practical approach is to ping each monitor via the IP network at a regular interval -maybe every 30 seconds- take a snapshot of what's on the screen and visually inspect each representation when alerted to a problem from a central location in the NOC.

This leads to the next two landmarks on our journey: fault detection and diagnostics. As individual digital signage players and monitors are pinged, a range of established conditions can be inspected, such as network connection integrity, chassis airflow and temperature. Fault detection and diagnostics not only equip technicians with knowledge of what problem to look for before they even arrive at a faulty player or monitor, but also alert network administrators to impending problems that can be corrected preemptively as conditions drift beyond certain thresholds.

The penultimate stop on this quest is individual monitor control. Imagine the energy and dollar savings to be realized by an institution or enterprise with dozens, hundreds or even thousands of LCD monitors on a digital signage network if only there were a way to turn the monitors off after hours and back on in the morning. A successful digital signage network implementation will provide for RS-232 or IP control over monitors to provide just that control.

The last marker on this path is emergency messaging override. In the event of a fire, a terror situation or severe weather, emergency messaging can mean the difference between life and death. Thus, it's extremely important that authorized personnel -such as upper management, a campus police chief, or emergency response coordinator- have the ability to simply override signage playout schedules on a universal or targeted basis, depending upon the circumstance. This should be done via an ordinary Internet connection via password protected access so there is no need to travel to the NOC and thus no unnecessary delay. Additionally, the emergency messaging system should provide access and remote control of all monitors in the event that an emergency situation develops after hours when monitors are shut down and only a handful of people or at the location. Having the ability to turn on the monitors remotely ensures 24-7 communications in case of an emergency.

Taking the time and effort to ensure these way markers are accounted for when setting up a digital signage network is worthwhile. Doing so will ensure your institution or enterprise has the maximum degree of control and flexibility and elevate your chances of successfully communicating important messages to people via your digital signage network.

From iPhones to ATMs and other self-service kiosks, consumers are demonstrating their love affair with touch and interactivity.

I recently was having lunch with a friend who excitedly told me he had signed up to be one of the first to buy an Apple iPad. While he liked the prospect of owning a full-color tablet to access and consume all of his favorite media, what he instinctively knew he would love about the gadget is its touch-screen interface.

Already an owner of an Apple iPhone, he was well familiar with navigating his device with a simple touch, scanning through menus with the flip of his fingertip against the screen and blowing up a picture to a larger size by touching the screen with the tips of his thumb and forefinger and pulling them apart. Navigating around his new iPad in the same fun way, undoubtedly will feel comfortably familiar.

My friend is one of the millions of people around the world who today enjoy the fast, friendly feeling of control made possible through touch and interactivity. Many of these touch-screen devotees were first exposed to the concept of interacting with technology in the form of a computer mouse used to point and click through an interface to complete a desired task. (Thank you Xerox PARC for the concept of a GUI and Stanford Research Institute for the mouse). After years of whetting their appetite for this sort of interactive control over technology, it's easy to see why consumers now have a deep love affair with interactive touch-screen control.

Just look around. Touch screens are everywhere. Think about it. You likely are not going to spend more than a day before you encounter touch screen interactivity in the form of an ATM, self service kiosk, MP3 player, GPS navigation device, cell phone or even on TV in CNN's Situation Room or in the movies like "Minority Report."

Research firm DisplaySearch has quantified the popularity of touch screens. It released a report in May '09 finding about 220 million touch screens were shipped for use in mobile phones in 2008 -or 16 percent of the mobile phone market. By 2015, the research firm forecasts the penetration rate of touch screens in mobile phones will grow to about 40 percent. And that's only one slice of the interactive, touch-screen pie.

I bring this up because I am a big proponent of identifying important trends and positioning oneself to benefit from where that trend is headed. So when it comes to digital signage, professional communicators would do well to consider the potential of digital signage panels to tap into the public's love affair with touch-screen interfaces and add interactivity to their digital signs when appropriate.

Consider a large casino or hotel lobby. How much easier and efficient is it for patrons to access and staff to convey way finding information or ballroom event schedules than via interactive digital signs? Simply by automatically tapping into the booking and management software used by the hotel or casino, a digital signage controller can extract the appropriate data and create the right digital signage page before it's required. Thus, when Aunt Martha wants to find out where the chrysanthemum contest is being held, the digital signage controller has already gathered that data from the facility management software, created the page and is ready to display "Ballroom C."

Best of all, when interactive control is not required, that same digital sign can mimic a traditional digital sign and playback scheduled media to promote shops, restaurants and other amenities offered by the facility until once again being called into interactive service.

Simply by recognizing the public's fascination with interactive touch control, those designing digital signage installations can add interactivity to make any given digital sign more useful to the public and more effective in the eyes of the marketers, advertisers and other professional communicators who intend to use the sign to achieve their goals.