Thanks To Many, Many, And Merry Christmas!

December 21, 2016 by Dave Haynes

I’m still at it today and tomorrow, and maybe even Friday – but my guess is a lot of industry people are already in holiday mode, or imminently so. With that in mind, I wanted to get a note out while there are still people at their desks, and reasonably sober.

First, thank you to the many companies that have supported 16:9’s efforts in the past year, and in some cases, for many years. Those include (I stress include because I’ll forget someone): Capital Networks, Screenfeed, CE Labs, Inlighten, Armodillo, BroadSign, OnSign TV, SIGNSTIX, ONELAN, Visix, GoGet, Milestone, ComQi, IAdea, Screenscape, Starmont, Freshwater Digital, Digichief, Woven Media, Datacall, YCD and Clever Digital Signage.

A lot of hours and cost – hosting, backup, security, custom development and on and on – go into this thing, so the support is welcomed and pretty important to sustaining this thing. I think I made about $80 a year in AdSense ad returns the first two years of 16:9, and this year was way better than that. Screenfeed stepped up, without me asking, to offer to sponsor the podcast, which is, crazily, already at Episode 35. I get the podcasts sound-engineered by a guy in Namibia (no, really) and the costs were adding up, and financial support to offset that was/is awesome.

Thank you, as well, to consulting clients – and there’s a bunch. But smart consultants do their work quietly and don’t rattle off end-user and vendor client names.

Thanks to my writing clients. If you read a white paper in the past year that actually made sense and wasn’t hard work just to read, there’s a half-decent chance that was the ghost of me.

Thank you to all the readers, and that number has grown by more than 50% this year. I keep having new record readership months, which I think speaks to the industry’s growth and how Sixteen:Nine sets itself apart from the other online resources. The Bullshit Filtering and Why You Should Give A Crap add-ons to industry happenings and tech advances are evidently valued.

Thank you to my entirely unofficial editorial advisory board – people who send me tips and others like BroadSign’s Bryan Mongeau, Silver Curve’s Bryan Crotaz and Signagelive’s Jason Cremins, who I seek out for advice, insight and decoding of technical stuff that’s over my head. They help make me sound vaguely smart.

Thank you to all the people who have kindly given me time to stop and chat for 30 minutes on the 16:9 Podcast. Someone asked me the other day about my master plan for that thing, and I honestly said it was a Seat Of The Pants effort that was working out better than I’d imagined. Podcast stats are a little elusive, but it looks like about 2,000 downloads per episode. I’m up around 70,000 downloads, which is hardly Serial numbers, but more than I expected for people listening in about a niche industry.

There should be some podcast news in the new year, as it looks like there will be a companion podcast done by an old industry friend, with a different focus but under the general 16:9 handle. I talk about people and their companies. This one will dig into how projects came together. It should be great.

Thanks to Pat Hellberg, my Preset Group business partner for the last many years. We’re winding that gig down this month, as we’ve been so busy doing our own things we’ve rarely tag-team anything. Pat, at least, is in a glorious position of being able to seriously slow down. Instead of advising digital signage end-users and knocking out corporate videos for Fortune 500s through his own content shop, Pat’s near-future is about his hobby: drinking.

OK, that sounded bad. I should clarify that he’s a serious, serious wine hound, and is going to just enjoy Wet Coast life writing a blog about great Portland wine finds, undoubtedly focused on his passion – Oregon Pinot Noir.

I’m very jealous, and very happy for the guy.

So Preset will be no more, but I’m still consulting to end-users and vendors, and doing my various other things (unless I win Lotto Max on Friday night).

The 2017 DSE Mixer will be the Sixteen:Nine Mixer, which is no stretch, since that’s always been something I did pretty much on my own. A lot of people thought it WAS the Sixteen:Nine Mixer, and that’s how it started in 2009 amid the red velvet and flaming fire pools of the Peppermill Lounge. It was also the first and only meeting of the Digital Out-of-home Professionals and Executives Society, or DOPES. It’s a way better acronym than the other trade associations out there.

Enjoy the holiday season, whatever your faith. It’s good to take the foot off the gas pedal for a few days, and also very necessary. 2017 already looks like another big year, so take a breather, eat too much, have an extra glass of wine or beer, and enjoy your family and friends.

Merry Christmas.

PS – No podcast next week.

  1. Damon says:

    Hi Dave! I found your podcast this year and I have found it to be very insightful. I’m excited for the launch of the new podcast you mentioned. Keep up the great work and happy holidays!

  2. ion says:

    Merry Christmas from Spain! 🙂

  3. Evan says:

    Great job, Dave. Keep up the good work – and happy holidays.

  4. Bryan Mongeau says:

    Dave – Very merry xmas to you and yours this holiday season. Keep up the great work!

  5. Tony Scott says:

    Have a very Merry Christmas and certainly a Happy and prosperous New Year from the team at Wallflower in New Zealand, India and Europe

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