EPISODE 141 | Guest: Sean Matthews, president & CEO of Visix
InfoComm is the largest professional audiovisual event in North America, with education and certification courses, live events and panels, and thousands of new products and technologies on display. Whether you’re a manufacturer, integrator or end user, Infocomm 2024 is the place to be.
Listen to this episode for a quick preview of what Visix will be showing in booth C8135 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, June 12-14. Not only will we be demonstrating our latest software features, but we’re also unveiling some new products and solutions.
- Hear about Visix’s digital signage ecosystem and how it’s grown
- Understand how interactive experiences are making a comeback
- Explore what’s included in our sustainable space management offering
- Explore four ways to show space reservations and schedules
- Get a free exhibit hall pass with our VIP code
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Learn about what we’re showing at IC24 here.
Transcript
Derek DeWitt: For companies in the audiovisual and digital signage spaces, trade shows, exhibitions and conferences are an important way to let people know what each company is up to, obviously try and get some leads and potential customers, and just touch base with the channel. The biggest one in the United States for a company like ours, Visix, is InfoComm, which is run by the Audiovisual and Integrated Experience Association or AVIXA. This year, InfoComm is in Las Vegas on June 12th, 13th and 14th. And of course, Visix will be there. What’s Visix gonna be talking about? What are they gonna be showing? Well, who better to tell me than the president and CEO of Visix, Sean Matthews, who joins me today? Hi, Sean.
Sean Matthews: Hey, Derek. How are you today?
Derek DeWitt: I’m very good. Thanks for coming on.
Sean Matthews: Yep. Glad to be here. Thank you.
Derek DeWitt: And thank you everybody out there for listening to this episode of Digital Signage Done Right. I remind you that you may subscribe if you care to, to the podcast, and you can follow along with a transcript of the conversation on the Visix website under resources and podcasts.
Okay. So InfoComm, I mean, Visix was one of the first companies I think ever to go to InfoComm, right?
Sean Matthews: Yeah. I mean, we’ve, well, we’ve been supporting the audiovisual integration channel for over 40 years now. And we actually were exhibiting at InfoComm when it was called NAVA, the National Audio Visual Association. NAVA became InfoComm the Association, and then InfoComm the association changed into AVIXA, but the show is still called InfoComm. So, we’ve been doing it a long time.
Derek DeWitt: I hope everybody’s following. It gets complicated when you go back that far. Of course, as usual, you guys are gonna be there. And, this year, of course I know a lot of people are talking AI and, you know, there’ll be a lot of talk about that stuff. You guys are eschewing that for now. And instead, my understanding is you’re really focusing on sort of sustainability and hybrid stuff and what you’re calling the digital signage ecosystem.
Sean Matthews: Yeah, we are definitely focused on the digital signage ecosystem. I mean, digital signage is at the core of what we do. And, you know, we’re really focused on not just the ecosystem, but the people experience and beyond the people experience, hybrid offices and sustainability. What we’re really gonna be focused on at the event is a combination of things all under the ecosystem – digital signage, interactive wayfinding and space management – all coming together to really complete a visual communication solution.
Derek DeWitt: So obviously you’re gonna be talking about your, you know, flagship product AxisTV Signage Suite, which is your content management system. And of course, obviously requires players and things. So that’s gonna be all about visual communications and so on. And I know there’s been a lot more interactive projects lately as well. It seems like that’s really taking off.
Sean Matthews: Yeah, actually, you know, we went through a period post-pandemic where interactive projects really were in a bit of a slump just because, you know, A) people weren’t back in buildings yet, and then budgets changed dramatically during that pandemic period. And believe it or not, like, in a world like ours where the technology is typically employed in places where people congregate or come together, it’s actually been a few years since, you know, we really had any rush or demand for interactive projects. But it has, it has stormed back this year. And, you know, our creative services offering is up by 50% this year, so clearly, we’re gonna focus on that.
But beyond that, you know, interactive experience and touching screens, one thing that you are gonna see this year that we’ve not really talked about –we haven’t said much about it because it was kind of coming down to the wire – but we’re going to be sharing interactive experiences using gesture control. And so literally, using cameras and other AI-related technologies. We have an integrated solution for gesture-oriented wayfinding. So it’s actually gonna be quite cool.
Derek DeWitt: So there you go. AI sneaks in, even though everybody’s gonna use it for something. I think that’s a great use of AI, though because gesture control just seems like something people want. I want it for sure. I mean, you know, I know I keep, whenever it comes up, I talk about that movie Minority Report, but yeah, that’s the tech we want. We don’t wanna touch things anymore.
Sean Matthews: Yeah, and I do think, you know, AI has its place in digital signage and a lot of people, you know, talk about it. And, you know, really if you just get down to the fundamentals of AI in our space, you know, you’d be looking at things like textual references, you know, create some informative message that is succinct, etc., you know, using AI or image generation. But a lot of what really is going on with AI in our space right now is data analytics. And that typically applies to retail environments, which is not something that, you know, we really focus on as a business. I mean, our ecosystem is about the people experience in offices, college campuses, government facilities, etc.
Derek DeWitt: Right, right. So, AxisTV Signage Suite has these, as you said, touch and voice, both contactless ways to create interactive projects sort of now built into the actual software itself, which is I think, quite cool. So people can easily experiment with them. Hey, maybe they work for you, maybe they don’t, whatever.
And I notice in my notes that you’re also just kind of going, you’ve really managed to find a way to just make things much more flexible, which I think is nice. Whether it’s scalable licensing or it’s flexible deployment. It can be cloud, it can be on-premise, it could be hybrid. You could do software only or you could have hardware bundled with it. And even the pricing schemes themselves are flexible, lots of different offerings. It seems like you’re, you’ve found a way to give more variety and more choice for people to kind of buffet style a little bit this enterprise level system.
Sean Matthews: Yeah. I mean, that’s our goal is to make it simple to fund, simple to deploy, simple to onboard, right? I mean, all of those things, you know, factor into the overall experience, particularly on the end user side. So yeah, we’ve incorporated all of those things, as you’ve noted. You know, we have one of the most robust media player solutions out there in terms of, you know, what we support from a Windows appliance perspective.
And, you know, that added to all the other things, we have a really good, widely accepted enterprise platform that is now extending into and beyond just signage into the ecosystem, which now includes room sign offerings that are quite unique, creative service offerings that are unique as well, all sort of tied into a sustainable space management offering as well.
Derek DeWitt: Right. Obviously in addition to room signs, you now have a pretty wide variety or array of EPS signs, electronic paper signs, which use E Ink and are just like super, super, super low energy. They only use power when they change the image, so when the image is just sitting there, no power is actually being used at all, which is fantastic. And they’re small, or they can be different sizes, but some of them are quite small and they’re very flexible solutions.
And now you’re pairing that with this Choros product, which is actually an appless, contactless space booking solution that uses native AR on the phone. All you need is your smartphone and a camera. And you can then combine that with EPS signs, and then availability lights, which are ultra-low-power. So it’s this real whole, like, again, pick and choose which of these things do you want? Do you need a room sign? Do you just need an EPS? Do you want to use Choros? Do you want use Choros with lights, without lights, with EPS, without EPS? Like, it’s just a whole bunch of possibilities have opened up.
Sean Matthews: Yeah. And so, you know, Derek, we’ve been in the quote unquote room sign business for, you know, almost 20 years. And there are about 50 different companies that offer some type of digital room sign. And so, our approach, you know, is to really start to pivot away from, you know, these digital signs as room signs, because they’re just much more efficient ways to deliver the same experience and in fact, improve upon that experience.
As you noted, we have a bring your own device space booking product, right? Which is based on the augmented reality technology built into everybody’s phone. We’ve paired that with some ultra-low-power availability lights. These things consume 0.6 watts, right? Which is a tiny amount of energy.
Derek DeWitt: I don’t even know if I’d feel it if I got shocked by it.
Sean Matthews: Well, I mean, to put it in perspective, 0.6 watts versus 30 watts per digital room sign, right? I mean, that’s just an extreme difference. And now we’ve paired the BYOD device, the availability lights with electronic paper signs as you noted. And not just signs like the size of a sheet of paper. We have a wide variety of signs, you know, that are 4.7 inch diagonal, 2.7 inch diagonal, 7.4 inch diagonal. So, you know, various sign sizes so that you can incorporate them not just at rooms.
You can take these signs all the way down to a workstation or desk or anything that you consider to be bookable. Could be a ping pong table, could be a game room, could be a parking space, it doesn’t matter. And so now, you know, you can book any of these things with just your own device and get the instant feedback knowing whether or not it’s available or not, and or whether or not you’ve booked the space.
Derek DeWitt: Right, right. Yeah. And these EPS signs, I mean, they’re, like you said, you can put them anywhere ’cause they’re easy to mount, they’re really lightweight. And this year you now have the new EPS 27.
Sean Matthews: Yeah, so this was designed specifically to mount to a desk. So, if you think about the lip of a desk, there’s a little mounting bracket with about a 30 degree angle so that you can see it as you, as you walk in the space. And it’s designed specifically for hybrid work environments where you’re going to incorporate hoteling or hot desking or some other booking approach for hybrid work. And so, yeah, this is a cool new feature and we’re looking forward to the feedback.
Derek DeWitt: So, when you kind of combine all these things together when you’re scheduling things or booking things, I think it’s fair to say that you now have four real ways to show schedules. For example, obviously you can stick a schedule up on a digital sign, or you can have the digital signage CMS talk to a calendar behind the scenes and automatically pull data and put it up there on the screens for people to see so that it’s always fresh and up to date. And then you have these three different types of room signs as well that can also show schedules.
Sean Matthews: Yeah. So, you know, we have the complete package, a true enterprise solution. We’ve been in the event display business since our inception. That was the original impetus of this type of technology, which was to show event schedules. That’s what people wanted to see because they wanted to know what was going on. And so, yeah, I mean, just as you noted, the three types of room signs that we have is a product that we call Touch10, a product that we call Connect, and then electronic paper signs. So we have the complete solution there. And, yeah, you can see it all in the central hall at InfoComm in Las Vegas.
Derek DeWitt: If you’re interested in maybe expanding your idea of what digital signage means, because you know, it really did start out as a fairly simplistic product. And now it’s this whole broad, as you call it, an ecosystem. And maybe get some more information on what sustainable space management is really all about and see what is possible to make the hybrid workspace concept fit your specific location or organization, then you should certainly pop by the Visix booth in the central hall.
It is booth C8135. And if you haven’t already got your exhibit hall pass, you can use the Visix VIP code, which I’m gonna tell you right now. It is VIS465. And in addition to everything else, I think you guys are also gonna have refreshments throughout the day.
Sean Matthews: Yeah, stop by at any time. I think it’s easier to understand what sustainable space management looks like in person. And of course, you can then have the experience of seeing our entire ecosystem. We’ll have free drinks and snacks throughout the day. Stop by and see us. And if you want some more information about what we’re gonna be showing, you can certainly find it online at visix.com/infocomm.
Derek DeWitt: All right. And that’s InfoComm with two m’s. And for those of you who are hardware people, don’t worry, there’s hardware as well. As we said, obviously you have mounting brackets, but we also have the players, the media players, and the hardware as a service option as well. This helps you be more adaptive in everything that you’re trying to do.
So, if you want a real idea of all the possibilities that currently exist for digital signage, you should certainly stop by the Visix booth at InfoComm in Las Vegas. That is again, June 12th, 9:00-5:00, June 13th, 9:00-5:00, and June 14th, 9:00-4:00. Plus, it’s in Las Vegas! And in this particular case, what you do in your free time may stay in Las Vegas, but hopefully what you see at the Visix booth you will take home with you.
Sean Matthews: Very good sir.
Derek DeWitt: Well, very exciting. I know you guys put a lot of effort into this each year, and I know you’re looking forward to it. And, so, you know, bonne chance as the French would say, and uh, break a leg as the people in the theater world would say. Have a great show!
Sean Matthews: Great! Thank you. We look forward to seeing everybody there. Thank you, Derek.
Derek DeWitt: Thank you. Again, that’s booth C8135, and you can use the VIP code VIS465 to get your free exhibit hall pass. Thank you for listening to this episode of the podcast. Thank you Sean Matthews, president and CEO of Visix, for talking to me today. And I remind you again that you can read along with a transcript on the Visix website of the conversation that Sean and I just had.
Sean Matthews: Awesome.