DSF Plans Four Networking Mixers, Inc June Event In Toronto

March 12, 2013 by Dave Haynes

dsf-pintIt has been almost a couple of years since I last organized a mixer in Toronto, and I get fairly regular emails asking when that would be revived.

Well, left to me, who knows? Between business travel and spinning a whole bunch of client dishes at once, it’s enough to do the Preset one in Las Vegas each year … and that now has an event planner!

Fortunately, someone else is stepping in – at least for a one-time thing this June.

The Digital Signage Federation will be hosting four regional networking events this year, including a June 26th session in Toronto. I chatted with Lauren and Brian from the DSF while at DSE, and have since provided the name and location of a venue that worked pretty well for the last mixers in early 2011. Whether that place is the home has yet to be nailed down. Some other locals are also pitching in to help organize the evening session.

The DSF says the vision behind these events is “to provide an opportunity and  low-key environment to further foster community within our industry, as well as to offer an opportunity for industry vendors and integrators to hear directly from end users and network operators what they are looking for in, and their biggest struggles with, digital signage.”

That is FAR fancier than how the core Toronto group regarded mixers, which was largely an excuse to get out for a couple of pints and show off our royal family spoon collections.

The Dallas event next month will actually have a speaker – Randy Dearborn, the wicked smart and blunt (yay) VP of Guest Technology & Multimedia for MGM Resorts in Las Vegas.

Assuming there are plans for a speaker in Toronto I’ll just strongly urge the DSF to NOT revert to the usual suspects list. Lovely people, but enough … My suggestion – Denys Lavigne of Arsenal Media, whose team won 11 (repeat, 11) content and project awards a couple of weeks ago. He’s from Montreal, but he’s allowed across the provincial border for short visits.

Or maybe Royal Bank or TD Canada Trust, which now have significant and very nice looking deployments in branches. But whoever talks would actually need to know about the project, which doesn’t always happen (I’ve noticed).

The DSF board of directors will be attending these events, which the organization says “will also create a forum for our members and other digital signage constituents to voice their thoughts and opinions on the direction that DSF should move in to help the advancement of our industry.”

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