If Your Company Delivers Corporate Comms, You Need To Hire This Guy

March 15, 2018 by Dave Haynes

Brad Parler drove up from Houston to Dallas to catch the Samsung Revolution Tour event I was speaking at Wednesday, and he filled me in on what he’s up to with the amazing corporate communications network he put together at Blinds.com.

Short story – he’s no longer there, and he doesn’t totally know what’s happening with his baby. The company, now owned by Home Depot, had a staff trimming session and Brad’s role was cut.

He’s now actively networking, looking around for a new gig that takes advantage of his ideas and skill-set. He’s married, with four kids, and freelance/contract work won’t really cut it. Needs benefits. Predictable pay periods.

If you are wondering who Brad is, he’s the guy who took a basic employee recognition and communications program for a company that sells window coverings online, and put it on performance-enhancing drugs. By green-screening customer-facing staff and marrying those video pieces with broadcast-level graphics and dynamic data, he pushed out an employee recognition program that looked right out of a Fox Sports show, and had staffers WANTING and competing to be on the screens.

There’s a lot more to what Parler put together, as well, and you can see some of that in this video – which I think I described, after I saw it, as FREAKING BRILLIANT.

If your company does corporate communications and makes money on creative services, or if you are doing work in venues likes sports and entertainment, you need to look at this guy.

He’s a video nerd. Technically sound and highly inquisitive. But unlike many hardcore nerds, he totally GETS the viewpoint of the audience.

I’ve introduced him around to a few companies in the past and remain a little boggled that none of them have seized the opportunity to pick up a talent who can open up a nice new line of recurring business through great creative – which we all know is the key to successful digital signage jobs.

The closing point on all my talks on this Samsung tour is that display tech is beautiful and awesome, but it’s just really expensive wall covering unless there is a sound content strategy, and quality material that delivers on the strategy.

When it really comes together is if the content strategy is sustainable because the produced material is updated dynamically using data and templates.

Parler will be at DSE in a few days, and doing a keynote session on Wednesday morning. Reach out and have a chat. There’s a small handful of go-to people I’d bring on if I was starting a company (I’m not) and he’s one of them.

He’s talked to a few companies about sales and sales engineering gigs, which has me rolling my eyes. I get that they’re trying to help and do a round-peg, square-hole thing they hope might work. BUT GOOD CREATIVE PEOPLE SHOULD BE HIRED TO DO GOOD CREATIVE!!!

That is all. :-]

Oh yeah … podcast we did:

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