From a workplace to a place to create.
That was the headline of the project from day one. DR Byen has been built by four different architects who has made four very different buildings.
Pictures from one of the four buildings in DR Byen

Our project was meant to deliver an integrated communication platform and to ‘bring the media’ inside these buildings.
As you can see on this images the last part in the project (the Concert Hall) is still more or less a construction sites (see the official site here). About three quarters of the building is finished and the digital signage project has been launch in three of the four parts of the building.

Number one: To connect the architecture with our corporate identity:
First of all, we needed to make a tighter connection between the architecture and the corporate identity.
Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR) is, as the name implies, a media corporation. And although it’s an amazing piece of architecture made by 4 different companies, it is not immediately obvious that it was the home of the largest Danish media corporation, that we are delivering high quality public service content, and that we are the de facto keepers of the Danish cultural media heritage.

Number two
Second, we are experiencing an increasing competition in the media business, and the most important competitive advantage is creativity. Therefore I believe that it is absolutely vital to create a pleasant and inspiring environment for creativity to happen. Of course we can’t do an ROI calculation on how much creativity this project will generate, but I believe that we are creating the ground upon which creativity may grow more easily than usual. And that’s why we have been focusing on the integration of different kinds of visual art in the project and creating an experience instead of just an information screen.

Number 3
Finally, our customers have ever changing needs, and therefore we must able to communicate very fast inside the organization and also be able to change our communication procedures very quickly, if needed. A fully automated digital platform, as the one we have created, is a big asset in this race. In the web-2.0-user-has-the-power communication world of today it’s very important to have non-intrusive way of pushing important communication to your stakeholders, employees and customers.

First of all, the Entrance.
When you step into DR at groundlevel, this is what you see. Three large video projections (one is hidden in this image) on the white and grey concrete walls.

We’ve been working closely together with the architects to create a coherent experience of the room. The content is very abstract and meant to supplement the room with depth, dynamic and a creative atmosphere.

I think it’s important, to be very courageous and to use an abstract and symbolic content that will activate the viewer instead of communicating in the usual corp-speak discourse. We should stimulate experiences with the use of symbols and montage-effects and not with the use the very powerful media to promote corporate taglines. See for instance how Jason Eppink is transforming standard commercials to street art.

The entrance from another angle:

The foyer from one of the side entrances. Four 19″ monitors placed on a white concrete wall.

The ‘Main Street’ on the 2nd floor:
The connection between the four buildings in the ‘DR City’ is a giant glass-covered street (12*18 meters) with a bridge crossing the water channel going through the area called ‘Ørestaden’.

In this part of the building we have placed 6 46″ screens. The content consists of news from our own news-channel and news from the department of corporate communicate. Besides that, there are breakers made by young visual artists. They we’re given access to our media archives and used some of the old material to make new artistic expressions.

The ‘Main Street’ viewed from the bridge on the fourth floor.
Every screen has it’s own unique flow of information configured to the specific physical context and user behaviour.

The Meeting Center:
In our Meeting Center we’ve made an integration to MS Exchange Server. In this way our meeting booking system is automatically updated on the screens next to each meeting room. The interface is based on Flash using xml-data from Exchange generated by AgendaX.

What’s next??

Well, this is just phase one of the project. In the next 1-3 month we will be creating a lot more content to the system, for instance the weather forecast, trailers, traffic information and of course more visuals. In february we’re having the first art exhibition with the project ‘Runner’ in collaboration with Illumenart and EPI. Hopefully, we be able to extend the system to the other parts of DR in Jutland and on Bornholm and most importantly we’re learning a lot about what it takes to maintain and use this kind of communication platform.

Besides this, we’re of course looking forward to completion of the concert hall and to the exciting task of creating the digital projections in and outside the concert hall See the pictures. That’s gonna be amazing!!

I will hopefully be able to upload some video soon. It gives a better sense of the look and feel of the displays.
Please comment if you have any good ideas or experiences with digital signage solutions.

/Lars Silberbauer

Tom Kelley: Ten Faces of Innovation.
A very inspiring book on how to beat the Devil’s Advocate and Driving Creativity Throughout Your Organization.

• Good:
  - All in all, it’s a very good book for anyone with an interest in generating creativity and innovation in their own company.
  - Kelley makes an very important distinction with his focus on faces and not phases. It’s people that drives innovation, not Gant diagrams and Project Management phases and schedules.
• Bad
  The next time Kelley writes about innovation, he should make up his mind whether he wants to promote Ideo or write a serious book about innovation. He knows a lot about innovation, no question about it!, but to much cheering about the wonderful successes of Ideo does not make him or his argumentation any more credible or convincing.

Tom Peters: Design

Tom Peters has the ability to get you pumped up with enthusiasm just by the way he writes and in this book the content is just as inspiring as well. This is a book with a message and you feel the commitment throughout the book.

• Good:
  What I like the most about this book is the radical all-or-nothing message that it sends out, for example this passage from the first chapter:

The harsh news: THIS IS NOT OPTIONAL. The microchip will colonize all rote activities. And we will have to scramble to reinvent ourselves – as we did when we came off the farm and went into the factory, and then as we were ejected from the factory and delivered to the white collars towers.
The exciting news: THIS IS NOT OPTIONAL. The reinvented you and the reinvented me will have no choice but to scramble and add value in some meaningful way.

• Bad:
  If you’re reading the book because you want to know more about design, you’re going to be disappointed, it’s not about design, it’s all about business and not about new colour schemes and design trends.

Martin Lindstrom: Brand Sense

The Danish Brand Guru Numero Uno has created a follow up to his previous bestseller Brandchild.

• Good:
  Basically, he’s making a point with his concept of branding for all five senses. It’s obvious that there’s room for improvement and that we need to consider all elements of human cognitivity when we are trying to make an impact on customers. But the way he’s trying to measure human senses is not convincing. It seems to me, that he’s got a point and he knows it, but in his ambition to prove his idea, he is crossing the line from giving proffessional advice and doing academic research. And there’s a very big difference!
• Bad:
  As in Tom Kelley’s book about innovation it seems to me that Lindstrom sometimes doesn’t know which one of his two objectives that’s most important. Is it to contribute to the shared pool of knowledge about branding? or is it to use his own branding abilities and tools to strengthen his own brand “Martin Lindstrom”? It’s not clear to me, but I would prefer a honest personal branding exercise without the want-to-make-ground-breaking-academic-research stuff.

Anyway, all three books are worth reading. Enjoy!

Right now there’s a lot going on in the field of digital signage and corporate branding. Some companies are leading the way and are using digital signage in their corporate branding and are redesigning their corporate HQ in order to make the ultimate corporate branding experience. They are closing the gap between architecture and communication and creating a more consistent and holistic branding experience than I’ve ever seen before.

One of the best examples is the new Bloomberg Building in New York (created by Cesar Pelli & Associates). When you visit the building it’s obvious that the architecture and digital signage have been merged to create a unique branding experience. The building is absolutely soaked with large digital displays and the architecture is stunning. The visitor leaves the building with the impression of an innovative, creative and open minded organization. I don’t know if this is the true nature of the Bloomberg Corporation, but the building itself gives the visitor this very positive impression.

For instance take a look at this large 3 tier displays which is one of the first large displays that the visitors encounter.

I know, it’s a short clip, but it shows how Bloomberg has made a combination of a large digital display that delivers news content from Bloomberg Media, but at the same time creates an branding experience. It’s not just a news ticker, it’s so much more.

Or have a look at this elevator area. Nice huh?
I can’t describe the entire visitor experience, you have to experience it by yourself – and that is basically my point.

The corporate headquarter is the ultimate place for making a lasting impact on your customers, the press or your stakeholders. You control all the elements and you can create an experience that will be able to push through our personal “ad filtering system”, that most people has developed by watching the estimated 86.500 tv commercials per year (Ries 2002). Instead of having your customer placed in the couch in a familiar environment, you got your customer immersed in a controlled environment, where you can create an experience by making a complete experience for all five senses. As Martin Lindstrom (Danish Branding guru) says in his book “Brand Sense”:

Brand Communication has reached a new frontier. In order to succesfully conquer future horizons, brands will have to find ways to break the 2-D impasse and appeal to the three neglegted senses. Superb picture quality won’t do it. Rather we should look to embrace all five senses in order to create a foundation for future brand strategies.

You cannot send out a press release, make an online ad, create a television commercial or making a blog posting that will be able to make the same impact as the well designed corporate branding experience in your HQ. I know that not all your customers will come and visit you, but you will be able to make a lasting impact on those who does. Bloomberg has definitely showed the way by using digital signage and architecture to communicate corporate values and goals.
Take a look the next time you’re in New York, it’s really really cool.

“Lets do some corporate blogging – that will definitely put us right up there with the big shots in the Fortune 500 (and if not, we’ll add a Wiki, that’ll definitely do it).

You need to change! By now, devoted bloggers have praised and glorified this new medium for a couple of years and even the most well defended stronghold of corporate communication have sensed that something is happening outside side of the outer defenses. You can no longer attend a serious seminar about corporate communication without stumbling over talks on how corporate blogging will revolutionize business communication and of course the general worshipping of wikis as the greatest thing since Post It Notes.

More and more companies are showing interest in adding blogging and wiki-tools to their ever increasing portfolio of communication tools. And it’s just great? or is it??…

In my opinion, there is still a huge challenge to overcome and we’re not their yet. In fact we’re not even close!

A couple of years ago the “MUST HAVE” of communication professionals and one of the most popular subjects on communication/intranet conferences was portals and personalization. Did that really help us? Did the promised benefits arrive or have we just silently agreed on that we’ll leave the past alone and move on??

Now we have some new exciting “MUST HAVE” tools and that is the problem in a nutshell. Most communication professionals are just not getting it, they are thinking: “Cool, a new cheap digital publication thingy”. They should be thinking: “Amazing, the world of communication has changed, I must change before I’m obsolete”.

The new tools will not help and will not improve the way your business works if you don’t change your mindset. YOU need to understand that if YOU want blogging to create value for your business, YOU need to know how and YOU need to change accordingly.
Blogging is just not a thing you put on a server or get hosted somewhere in India. Blogging is a strategic decision about your corporate culture and it needs to be aligned with your overall corporate strategy and integrated in your company’s knowledge/information management strategy.

And most importantly – If you don’t feel it, if you don’t understand the media and if your not ready to bet your job on your corporate blogging initiative, you’re not ready for it.