The Minicom Interview

This week the Minicom Interview speaks to Jens Schindler, Managing Director of Digital Signage Expo 2008. With the show coming up soon, thought it would be good to speak to Jens.

A philosopher by degree, Jens founded hf media & events in 2002 after having worked in sales and marketing roles for major trade publishing and events companies in the UK and Germany. He has focused on high-tech markets such as electronics, automation, airports and digital customer communication.

Minicom Blog: Hi Jens. Thank you for joining us.
Jens Schindler: My pleasure.

MB: What do you think the highlights of the show will be?
JS: The center of the show is going to be devoted to content in the shape of the Digital Signage content center. After discussions with POPAI and our other partners, we felt that while a lot of traditional focus is placed on technology and networking, the real make or break issue is content and we wanted the floorplan to reflect that by making it our centerpiece. We want to highlight what can be done application wise with content and also want to show people how digital signage is different content-wise from TV and other audio-visual mediums.

MB: How did the show come to be?
JS: We started the Kiosk Europe magazine about five 5 years ago. It is a quarterly magazine and after a year we had feedback from clients and readers say that we should do a show and we agreed. We had a Self service interactive show last year and there was a thought that Digital Signage should be a part of it, but many from Digital Signage didn’t want to be part of another show – they wanted their own. So we got together with POPAI and that’s how it came to be. Essen is near the big retail center in Dusseldorf and this is a central area in Europe where no-one is more than an hour away which makes it convenient for everyone.

MB: Is there a theme?
JS: The left side of the floor is for interactivity and interactive devices while the right side is digital signage-related. We had the idea of wanting to showcase how digital signage and self service complement each other as well as showing people how to use digital signage as an interactive medium with which to communicate dynamically. If people have instant feedback on how successful their message is at a kiosk/touchscreen they can change it instantly which is huge.

MB: What has been the response of the Digital Signage community to the show?
JS: We will have 70 exhibitors on the Digital Signage side and 100 on the kiosk side. If we would have had 30 on the digital signage side, we would have been more than happy with that.

MB: While your show is Euro-centric, what sort of response have you had from the rest of the world?
JS: It’s been good. Most shows are heavily represented by the host country but this one has an even split from Germany and the rest of Europe. Additionally we have had some interest from the rest of the world from the likes of the USA, Asia and Australia.

MB: Besides the booths there is an extensive program of panel workshops and forums?
JS: You don’t need three days to see all the booths so the workshops and forums provide something else for the visitors to do as well as an invaluable way to learn more about the industry. The workshops are in the morning and payment is charged for those while the forums will be in the afternoon and are free of charge. The speakers are some of the top people in the industry and should make for some interesting discussions.

MB: You have any plans in store or innovations for the future shows?
JS: Yes but they can’t be announced yet. You’ll have to wait for the press conference for that.

MB: Nice speaking with you Jens and good luck with the show.
JS: Thank you