Digital Content Circle ramping back up; looking for contributors

August 3, 2010 by Dave Haynes

This went out as an e-mail blast this morning to a pile of people I know, but it occurred to me I could also spread the word a little more broadly here …

You may recall last year an announcement about something called the Digital Content Circle, a largely virtual forum intended to get digital signage and digital out of home content specialists sharing their expertise and insight. As someone who’s been active in this space, you know there is a lot of education that needs to be done to raise the overall quality of content.

The DCC was started by the founders of Arsenal Media (Canada), Show and Tell (USA) and Dagobert (France), not as a way to market their services but to get more people in our sector talking about and sharing best practices in content development and project management for digital signage programming. Smart folks like Bill Gerba, Laura Davis-Taylor and Adrian Cotterill are also involved, as well as some not very bright people (ok … me).

The DCC is intended as a central hub for the user community to learn what and what not to do, and celebrate great work.

They’ve asked me to help pull some of the thinking together and give the DCC effort a base foundation of ideas and guidelines. I will also be helping them craft some papers on content production and technology, based on their input.

Collectively, we know there are a lot of other people out there with good ideas and strong opinions, and we’d like to roll those views into a DCC site that is well on its way to becoming an information portal. The beta landing page (http://www.digitalcontentcircle.com/) you may have seen last fall will give way soon to something far more substantial.

We’re not asking you to drop everything and write up a piece. You may well have some guidelines, or a blog post or two you would like to see replicated. If you are one of many who have strong ideas, but consider themselves weak on writing skills, put your ideas together and the old newspaper editor in me can pretty quickly make a jumble of ideas organized and flowing.

Specifically, we’re looking for blog posts and Points Of View related to:

  • Project modeling: Aligning business goals, technologies and content strategies
  • How to create a content grid and manage programming for a digital signage application
  • Budgeting and content production
  • Step-by-step guide to project conception and implementation
  • Effective content planning and scripting
  • Production and development software
  • Interface and interactivity
  • Content, ROI and performance measurement
  • Branding, continuity and content
  • Advertising: Networks and the role of digital signage
  • Going multiplatform: DDS content for Web, mobile and TV applications
  • Content development: Technology and innovation

Here’s the deal. Your piece will be posted, archived and searchable on the DCC site. You get a writer credit, as well as a short – repeat short – bio at the end of the post, that can link back to your company or your blog. So you will get profile in a resource positioned as expert advice, and you’ll be help the sector as a whole get better at what it does. Ultimately, that helps your own business.

The DCC is not a commercial enterprise, and in fact the founders are putting in their own money and resources to get this going, and then sustain it. They see the importance, and we’re hoping you do as well.

Specific needs

Contact me – dave [at] pressdooh.com

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