I explore three critical considerations for integrating AI into your organisation: workforce adaptation, marketing and discoverability, and software product development. Each area presents unique challenges and opportunities for growth.

Key AI Considerations for Company Leaders

So as a company leader, I'm sure you're already thinking about AI. For me, there are three key things you need to consider. Firstly, number one, your workforce. If your workforce is resisting the use of AI tools, then I think you're going to be left behind productivity wise. For me, this is probably the hardest challenge of all, is to get people to use it, just not like a new version of doing Google, but actually introducing AI into your working practices. It can be done, but it's not an easy challenge. The second one is marketing and discoverability. Most companies these days are relying on Google search or AdWords in order to be discovered by new customers. But that is rapidly changing. We are seeing search generated traffic go down. However, AI is being asked to make recommendations. It just simply won't make as many recommendations as a search engine once did. So are you discoverable on search engines? I think is a critical question for now. And then the third one, I suppose, depends on whether you have a software product and how you're introducing AI into that software product, where historically it probably wasn't because it didn't exist. So at ScreenCloud, we're thinking about all of those three things. They all have their own merits and challenges and different timelines. I'd encourage you to do the same and let me know what you're thinking about.

Explore how ScreenCloud aims to integrate AI into its products to enhance content creation. Learn how large companies can leverage AI's power and magic in their workflows.

Unlocking AI's Potential in Content Creation

So when I speak with most of our customers at ScreenCloud, they are obviously aware of AI and the impact of it because they mostly work in very large companies. They haven't actually had that much exposure to it themselves or use it daily in their own workflows. I think it's down to us at ScreenCloud to introduce AI where it's useful into the product. And then by proxy, our customers will start to experience the power and magic of AI in content creation as we go forward. ScreenCloud. ScreenCloud. ScreenCloud. 

Discover how ScreenCloud supports enterprise customers beyond just providing a product. Learn about the specialised teams that help implement, customise, and optimise enterprise solutions for maximum impact.

Maximising Value in Enterprise Rollouts

ScreenCloud's enterprise offering is broken down really into two parts. Firstly, obviously, the product, we have a product which is suitable for small projects, but also big enterprise rollouts. And that comes with all the enterprise functionality that you've come to expect. But I think maybe where this is more interesting is in how we service enterprise customers, because having an enterprise product is really only the start point. It's how you use it, implement it, and set it up, which really counts. We have account management teams, professional services teams, and solutions engineering teams who help our customers maximize the value from the product. And that can take many different forms, from project managing the rollout to many locations, to customizing what can and cannot be deployed, custom permissions, and even design and custom applications and integrations that sit on top. So that is really where we specialize in enterprise. And if you're looking to do an enterprise rollout, you know who to call.

Discover how ScreenCloud has advanced its RDM features, unifying them into a streamlined screens manager. Explore improvements like faster interfaces, bulk actions, and HDMI CEC integration, enhancing user control over screen operations.

Enhancing Screen Management with New RDM Features

So at ScreenCloud, we've been building out our RDM feature set since the beginning of 2023. Before that, we just had fairly basic operations for the screens, but we've really doubled down since then. RDM features were in multiple parts of the platform. Recently, we have united them into one screens manager, made the interface faster and cleaner and more customizable. In addition, you can do bulk actions more easily. And we've also incorporated HDMI CEC, which means you can lock the screen to a one source port, and you can also control the screen's operating hours and turn on and off. There are many more features coming for screens manager and RDM at ScreenCloud, so please stay tuned for more.

Explore the 2025 product roadmap of ScreenCloud, featuring innovative solutions like the Pixy Android device and an AI-infused content management system. Discover how these advancements aim to transform your content and enhance integration with popular services.

Exciting 2025 ScreenCloud Product Roadmap Unveiled

So on the ScreenCloud product roadmap for 2025, we have three big, exciting things coming your way. Firstly, the low-cost Pixy Android device with full remote device management. Secondly, in early summer, there'll be a big unveiling of our vision for a feeds-first, AI-infused content management system, how we can transform all of your content into beautiful screen content. Look out for that, it's gonna be super exciting. And then along the way, we'll be improving the platform, and of course, we'll continue to integrate with the services you use the most, like monday.com, ServiceNow, and the Microsoft product suite.

Discover how our team is revolutionising digital signage solutions for retailers and offices. With over 10,000 customers, we're committed to enhancing screen communication and pushing boundaries in technology for the next decade.

Innovating Digital Signage for Retailers and Offices

The devs have been working on an interesting technology hack, and we think that there might be something interesting here, probably for retailers, large offices with multiple screens. It was exactly 10 years today that my co-founder, David, and I first publicly spoke about screen cloud, a prototype digital signage product that Luke, our other co-founder, and the team were building. We're trying to make it better, or easier, to connect up multiple screens and push content to them. So, in this case, we're looking to push HTML5 content, because that gives us the greatest variety of things we could then do with said screens, and really looking at a whole range of devices, from phones and tablets, computer screens, to just smart, inverted commas, because they're really not that smart when you get under the hood, TVs, and we think that there might be something interesting here, probably for retailers, large offices with multiple screens, and even small offices as well, I mean, just really any kind of company or retailer that's trying to get messages out there, and also maybe control them from the central point. So, definitely looking a little bit older, and certainly a bit wiser when it comes to digital signage. Developing that product was way harder than we could ever have imagined, but it's also been incredibly fulfilling. We have over 10,000 customers, a fantastic team of over 100 people, and every single day we get up and continue to innovate the platform and try and bring that vision to life. We're focused these days more on screens that communicate, this is a huge passion, and this year we want to educate our customers even more so they can get the most of those screens in their environment. So, we're excited for the next 10 years.

Join the ScreenCloud team as they gather in Thailand for a week-long deep dive into their product roadmap. Discover how they are innovating to serve the digital signage market in 2025 and beyond, and learn about the collaborative process that fuels their creativity and execution.

Collaborative Product Planning at ScreenCloud

So as you may know, at ScreenCloud, we have hubs all around the world. In January, I spent several weeks out in Thailand with the product and engineering team, and we also brought a substantial part of our Belfast engineering team over as well. For one week together, we did a deep dive into the product roadmap. We spent extensive time together, all in one room, going over our roadmap and all of our backlog of features that we've been working on, and coming up with new ideas for how we're going to serve the digital science market in 2025 and beyond. There is nothing better than getting everyone around together for several days to go really deep on this subject. It fires everyone up, the imagination goes really wild, and we came up with some amazing ideas, and now it's about execution time.

Explore why Pixii is a superior choice for your display needs compared to the Amazon Fire Stick. Discover the advantages for both new and long-term users, and learn about the ongoing improvements in the product's launch phase.

Upgrade Your Display with Pixii for Better Performance

So if you are a new or existing customer looking to add new screens on the Amazon Fire Stick, I would say that that is not a good option. You can look at the business version of the Amazon Signage Stick or consider the Pixii, which is perfect for your needs. Now, if you are a customer who's been using a Fire Stick for a long time, those devices will be getting a little old and are probably near their end of life. In that regard, I still think Pixii is what you should be considering and looking forward to using in the future. Let me know any feedback on this product. It's just the launch phase and we're going to keep making it better over time.

Discover ScreenCloud Pixie, our innovative and cost-effective Android device designed for digital signage. With enhanced features and seamless setup, it offers superior performance and security at an unbeatable price.

Introducing ScreenCloud Pixie: Affordable Digital Signage

We recently announced ScreenCloud Pixie, our low-cost Android device. This is an all-round perfect device for digital signage. Firstly, I love how well this has been manufactured by our partners. We've boosted up the heatsink and Wi-Fi signal, so it's even better for screens. And inside, we're running 4GB of RAM, 64GB of memory, Android 14, and we've bundled one of the latest versions of Chrome, so everything runs very smoothly, and of course, it's super secure. In addition to that, we have full remote device management capabilities built into it, and setting it up is a total breeze. You can get up and running in a couple of minutes just using the remote, plug it in, add it on the network, and it boots straight into ScreenCloud. And finally, because I'm sure you're thinking about this, it is indeed at an extremely affordable price point. We are so excited about the launch of this product, and I can't wait to get it in customers' hands. To find out more information, please visit us at ScreenCloud.com. Thank you.

Discover Pixi, ScreenCloud's new low-cost device designed to fill the gap left by Amazon Firesticks. Perfect for price-conscious customers, Pixi offers an easy setup and comprehensive features for digital signage.

Introducing Pixi: Affordable Digital Signage Solution

As most of you know, over the last 10 years, ScreenCloud has been running mostly on Amazon Firesticks. They've been a great consumer device that ran digital signage really well. However, as it was a consumer device, things changed. And Amazon decided that digital signage was no longer a good option for the consumer version. They have since released a business version. However, it left a gap in the market. We wanted to fill that gap with Pixi. Pixi is a low cost device that is super easy to set up and run digital signage on. We know that customers are price conscious about their capital expenditure when doing projects like this, especially when they're going to many, many screens. The Pixi is a perfect entry-level device that covers every single feature you required with digital signage, and of course, runs ScreenCloud really, really well. The little Pixi gives you a big bang for your buck. So if you'd like to trial a device, go to screencloud.com and buy one today.

In this insightful discussion, we explore the advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing product development, especially for startups with limited resources. Discover how outsourcing can provide accountability and talent access, but also the potential cultural misalignments and long-term challenges it may introduce.

The Pros and Cons of Outsourcing Product Development

Wow. Right. Yeah, big, that's a big topic. Okay. So I guess let's start with the advantages, especially in the early days. I'm like, I think it's actually quite advantageous to do this because growing a team when you're very small with limited budget, it takes a lot of time. Often, maybe there may not be certain technical skills in house. You might want to attract a certain level of talent, whatever it might be. So I think being able to like outsource some of your product build to another company who has those skills, who can kind of easily ramp up a team or relatively easily ramp up a team and tackle it. And who's also, you know, that team is kind of proven, like they, like, it's not the first time they've ever built a product, right. Whereas for a founder, it might, might kind of be, you never know like what their background is. So generally speaking, they can kind of apply a proven methodology, a proven team and get to work fast and deliver. They're also accountable, right? Like, so you've suddenly got this extra bit of accountability, like one throat to choke, as they say. Like if it's not working, you're like, right, come on, you know, to do that. And whilst you're also having to do a load of other things in the early stages, such as selling to customers and things like that. So I think it kind of spreads your risk a bit, increases the accountability a bit more widely. Yeah. And like, you know, there's a lot of talent out there in the world and it might be that you're also outsourcing to a team in a country that you have no personal exposure to, right? So in our case, we actually used the team in Ukraine for about two years in the early days. And the main thing we did there is we were actually rebuilding our main platform with our own engineering team and that the Ukrainian team were building kind of like integrations and add-ons to our existing platform. So that to our customers, it felt like we were still innovating on the platform whilst our core main team w

In today's fast-paced market, the expectation for first product versions has evolved. This discussion explores the importance of focusing on key philosophies rather than releasing subpar initial versions. Emphasising consumer-friendly features can set a product apart and buy time for further development.

Crafting First Products with Key Philosophies

Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. I think there's an interesting, I saw an interesting tweet the other day, which said like the days of like, you know, ship your first crappy, embarrassing product over. And I sort of agree, I kind of think that actually, no one really should ship anything truly embarrassing. I think the tolerance for like terrible first versions is pretty low, because I mean, like really life's too short to just be testing out terrible products and have them kind of fail on you. So I think that was a bit of an old trope. But what I think what how I think it really should be at the moment is that you should probably hang your first product on a couple of these key philosophies. So you know, what I was talking about there was works with consumer hardware, it's really nice and intuitive interface. And it has this real time magic moment. And then to be honest, the fact it had didn't support vertical screens, didn't support like zones, it was only full screen. And all of the other stuff, which was kind of table stakes didn't even work offline originally, which is quite important in that environment. But all of that stuff was like, to be added. And people were like fine with that, because they could see that your product philosophy stood out as something slightly different. So that bought you the time. At that point, apart from them saying you need to do the table stakes of work, which everyone just kind of usually intuitively knows, then you start getting that feedback loop.

Explore how top SaaS companies achieve rapid growth through strategic planning and innovation. Learn about the 'core and explore' approach to product development and the importance of anticipating market trends to maintain a competitive edge.

Mastering SaaS Growth with Strategic Product Development

like the very best SaaS companies, when they kind of start to generate revenue, they do the triple, triple, double, double, right? Tripling in revenue annually, tripling, and then doubling and doubling. That is kind of like, that's like the gold standard for doing SaaS really, really well. And we were on that trajectory pre-COVID. But we actually took the bold decision is whilst we were even tripling in size, to actually start rebuilding our whole platform to anticipate the needs of enterprise, knowing that probably the defensive moat around the SMB was going to end up being a race to the bottom on price once they caught up a bit. So we kind of got ahead of ourselves. And thankfully, we did do that. Product market fit is almost like, it's not like a single thing. It's like you have it for a period, and then you've got to almost like anticipate what it's going to be again. So you've got to both catch current product market fit, but you've also got to have one eye down the road for like, what are the trends that are coming? And I call it, I call this thing core and explore, right? And it's how we generate, generally divide our kind of design and development product resources, basically. So 80% goes on core, which is like what you're building now, your roadmap, and 20% goes on these experimental down the road ideas. And right now, one of our biggest products, which is our own operating system for screens itself, it was an explore idea for a first year for one year, just with a couple of developers on it, just working out the viability and testing it a bit with some customers. That's now one of our core. So it does move, explore moves into core, doesn't always do that. We've had other things which have kind of been dropped and not developed further.

Launchpad is our customer success onboarding product that sets clients up for future success. We audit your full real estate of future screens, professionally set up your account via API with proper permissions and workflows, help your design team create on-brand content optimised for screens, and develop training programmes. It's about taking a step back, planning properly, and using initial projects as templates for seamless scaling.

Launchpad: Empowering Future Success with ScreenCloud

Launchpad is a new product from our customer success team where we onboard new clients to get them set up for future success using ScreenCloud and digital signage more widely. So it focuses on a couple of key things that we've had success with with other customers and this is where us bringing this as a product from the learnings we've done elsewhere. Firstly we do an audit of the full real estate of the future screens. Now it doesn't matter if initially you're just doing 20 to 50 or even 100 screens. We're planning for future success so we will map out all of the locations and potential screen locations that you might have and then we pre-set up your account as if we were already working with all of those. So we're using our ScreenCloud API to professionally set up the account, build all the user permissions and workflows so that you're set up for success from day one. We then also look at your initial piece of content and our design team will come in and help make sure it's on brand, really popping for screen and using key concepts of how to communicate via screen from day one so the audience will receive it much, much better. And then we work on training programs with you and your future team so that when we onboard new locations they're inheriting the good work that started from the very beginning. So Launchpad is really about taking a step back, planning for future success, using that initial project as a template and learnings for how we can roll out hardware well, get content looking really good and train the team. And then in future it's going to be so much easier for other locations to come on and inherit all of that. So I highly encourage all brands that are coming on board with ScreenCloud to use Launchpad and actually even brands who are already using us, who have accounts which have been set up in more of a piecemeal fashion, department by department or location by location, they can actually re-onboard ScreenCloud, might even result in starting a brand

In this video, we explore the evolution of ScreenCloud's messaging strategy. Discover how we refined our focus from a broad idea to a clear software platform for digital signage, aimed at communicating important information within organisations and campuses.

Simplifying ScreenCloud's Digital Signage Solution

I don't think I was very good at explaining what ScreenCloud was at the beginning. I think one of the challenges is that you want to throw as many ideas out there in the hope that one or two of them stick, and it's really, really difficult to narrow down to something very simple. One, it makes the product seem a bit devalued because it's so simple, and two, you just feel that I might be missing out on something. So early stage, founders tend to say many, many things in the hope that something lands. As you get bigger and more confident in what you're saying, you tend to hone that down. So in the case of ScreenCloud, I really just say ScreenCloud is a software platform for digital signage. You'll know digital signage because out in the world, you see outdoor advertising screens, screens on transportation in the airport, you see those screens in retail, in quick serve restaurants, on the menu boards like McDonald's. We do that, but we don't tend to do it so much for that category. We're actually focused on screens that employees and students will see in their organizations and campuses, and we're using screens to communicate company information, employee information to them. So trying to keep it kind of analogous to what people will have experienced in their everyday life, and then honing in on what we're actually trying to achieve, which hopefully gets a bit of an aha moment from them. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 

I delve into the concept of positive deviance in behavioural science, where outliers within a group solve problems in unique ways. By examining these innovative approaches, we can transform them into policies or products that benefit a wider audience.

Exploring Positive Deviance in Behavioural Science

Positive deviance is a concept in behavioural science when you look at a group of people and you examine the outliers. So people with the same knowledge, the same resources, there'll be a handful of them which are solving problems in an unusual way compared to the rest of the group. So an example that's often given is if you look at a poor community where often children are undernourished, and then look for the families where the children are well-nourished, you'll see that there's probably some concepts or ideas that have actually been generated by the family in order to do that. And then when you take those concepts and turn those into policy or products, and then roll that out for the benefit of the remainder of the group. So when it's B2B SaaS, you look at the customers who are using your product in unusual ways to achieve outsized outcomes. So you study those, learn from those and roll it back into product for the benefit of your wider group of customers.

I discuss the journey of migrating from our original ScreenCloud Signage CMS to the new Studio platform. The process involved automating tasks, supporting customers, and addressing hardware compatibility challenges.

Navigating the Transition from Legacy to Modern CMS

So very recently, about one month ago, we end of lifed our original ScreenCloud product, a product known as ScreenCloud Signage. It was the first CMS that we developed for digital signage back in 2015, and served us very well all the way up to 2020 when we stopped taking new customers on board. However, we had many thousands of customers still using that old product. So we went through a long and painful process of migrating them over to Studio, which is our new CMS product, only four years old. And it was really interesting. It was such a long and painful process. And one of the key learnings is you've got to automate a lot of it, but you've got to really handhold the customer through that journey. But then you end up with a group of outliers at the end who are maybe using hardware that we no longer support, because that hardware is now almost 10 years old, and isn't supported on the new platform, because we have greater expectations of what that hardware can achieve, and we're pushing things a bit harder. And so in the end, you are forced to push those last customers over the edge. Unfortunately, no one likes to be pushed, but it's very difficult to maintain two platforms for that length of time. So a clear communication strategy, plenty of options for upgrading the hardware. We discounted our own hardware to help with that, ease the pain there. And finally, we got to turn the lights off, which is a big relief to everyone. And hopefully all the new customers are enjoying the new platform.

During a customer listening tour, I discovered the biggest digital signage challenges weren't software - they were physical. People unplugging HDMI cables, changing inputs, powering screens down. This changed our roadmap. We're now launching HDMI CEC integration to enable remote power cycling and input locking, eliminating the need for on-site engineer visits.

Revolutionising Digital Signage with Remote Management

So in the spring of last year, I went on a listening tour with some of our biggest customers in America and the UK. And I was walking around multiple facilities, particularly in manufacturing logistics environments, talking to the IT teams and people on the ground about what were their biggest challenges with digital signage. And repeatedly, it was a physical challenge, which is weird for a software developer to hear like me. This was people changing the source of the screen, unplugging the HDMI cable, even powering down the screen itself and showing something else. It changed our roadmap, actually, and we have decided to prioritize more assistance and monitoring around physical changes that go on in that environment. This month, we're launching HDMI CEC integration with a ScreenCloud OS platform, which enables customers to power cycle the screen remotely, but also lock that screen to certain sources and inputs. So after a period of time, it will push its way back to the digital signage and you don't need to send an engineer out to go and fix it in person.

Luke and I were shocked by the poor web experience on TV screens when we entered digital signage in 2014. ScreenCloud's founding principle is bringing modern web standards to screens, enabling the global army of web developers to build screen apps without learning new skills. We're opening up this small category to a massive software market.

Revolutionising Web Development for Digital Screens

So Luke and I have been developing products for the web for well over 20 years, despite appearances. And when we came across the digital signage category back in 2014, we were pretty shocked at the quality of the web experience natively on TV screens. And to be honest, it hasn't improved much. When you're actually trying to run a modern, fast, secure web environment, most of the screens don't work that way. And you'd actually have to build back several years, which is both insecure, but also very difficult for modern web developers to build their products. So if you do ask a web developer, how do I build a product for screen? Normally they'll just shrug their shoulders and say, we don't know. The founding principle of ScreenCloud is to try and bring a modern web experience to screen to enable this army of web developers around the world to start building their own products for screens. We're still on that journey. And I think we've now got to a point where utilizing our product, most web developers could now build an app for screen without having to learn something new. We want to keep on opening this up and bring in this huge part of the software market into our small little category, because when that happens, we can start to solve so many more problems using screens. Thank you.

Want to see how difficult digital signage is at scale? Walk through an airport past security and count the broken screens. Engineers need extensive security clearance to get airside, so failed screens just stay broken. It's the perfect manifestation of our industry's reliability challenges - fragmented hardware, different operating systems, and connectivity issues everywhere.

Challenges in Managing Digital Signage Networks at Airports

I often say to people, if you want to see how difficult it is to run a digital signage network at scale, just walk around the airport when you're past security. You'll see so many black screens, broken screens, error messages all around. In any other environment, you would never see this many broken screens. Why? Because it's really difficult to get engineers airside. They have to go through a lot of security protocols in order for them to go and visit. So you're seeing just the number of screens that fail and need some kind of physical assistance. It's a really good manifestation of the problem that we're trying to solve. Screens need to be way more reliable, but they're not. It's a hugely fragmented hardware landscape, all running different operating systems, and connectivity issues are also rife. The airport is a really good example of this, but it's actually true for every environment we work in. So next time you're in the airport, have a look around, see all those broken screens, and think there needs to be a better way, because there really does.

Employees see communication screens 20-30 times daily, so static playlists become stale incredibly quickly. We've built automation through our feeds platform and Bob (our design language) to pull content from business systems via API, categorise it, adapt it for screens, and apply on-brand design automatically. This keeps content fresh whilst empowering small teams.

Revolutionising Screen Content Management for Businesses

When we consider screens that communicate rather than screens that sell in retail or McDonald's-type restaurants, we're thinking about employee-facing or student-facing screens that the people in front of them may see 20, 30 times a day, every day of the week. Now, that is a lot of exposure to screens. If the screen is just showing a playlist of images and videos rotating around, they are going to become out-of-date and over-saturated very, very quickly. So we need content to be more automated in terms of how it's delivered up to screen. In addition, the people who are responsible for screens, even in really large companies, 100,000 people, might only be 5 to 10 people. So there's not a huge number of them, and normally they're not really designers, they're communicators. And finally, most of the content people want to see on a screen already exists. It just lives inside of business systems, siloed behind IT logins and accessible to only a few. So what we try to do at ScreenCloud is bring all of that automation together through our feeds platform and Bob, Bob the Builder, which is our design language for screens. What we do is we take those systems and hook it up via API, farming out the information, categorizing and sorting, and sometimes changing it slightly so it's screen-adapted, then pushing it out to the relevant screen and audience, but also giving it an on-brand design look and feel that's automatically applied, so you don't need to worry that it's not going to look good on a screen. This means we can automate most of the content so it stays fresh, that we can support that little team and give them superpowers, and that we can also reutilize the great content that lives inside of the business and now get that onto a screen so that everyone gets to see it and it has maximum exposure.

Canva integration was one of our most requested features, and it's brilliantly simple. You can now create or update designs in Canva and have them instantly replicate to ScreenCloud. Canva is actually a customer of ours too, which makes the partnership even better.

Streamlining Content Creation with Canva Integration

One of our most popular requests for an app integration was, unsurprisingly, Canva, one of the biggest platforms in the world that enables marketers and content creators to easily create beautiful-looking graphics. Usually, that's for social media or print, but now it's also for screen. So we've partnered with them. Canva's actually also a customer of ours, and we have done an integration, which means you can just change your content inside of Canva and have that replicated straight to ScreenCloud. It's nice and simple and works really beautifully.

Digital signage is vital during emergencies - chemical leaks, extreme weather, imminent danger. We've integrated with CAP (Common Alerting Protocol) and emergency providers to ensure fail-safe screen takeovers. Our Stream Deck integration even lets security teams broadcast alerts with a single button press.

Enhancing Safety with Digital Signage Solutions

So an extremely serious use case for digital signage is when there is an emergency situation. So that could be an imminent danger, extreme weather, or could be like a chemical leak, like a gas leak or something like that. So you need to take over those screens, warn the people in that environment what's going on, and then provide them information so that they can get to safety. This needs to be fail-safe. This needs to work all the time, every time. And so as a result, we've partnered with multiple emergency alert providers, because it won't just be the screens that are being utilized here. It will also be going over SMS and other alarm systems. There's an international standard called CAP, which is the Common Alerting Protocol, which we have integrated with and all of these other providers use as well, so that we can make sure that we're receiving the right information and pushing that out to screens quickly. In addition, we've also done integrations with things like a Stream Deck, which allows security teams to just hit a button and do a full cast takeover of ScreenCloud as well, which is quite an interesting innovation on top of our API. But yeah, sadly, this is one of the very important utilizations of screens. But because they're very big and very prominent in public spaces, it's an important part of getting out of an emergency situation, hopefully with everyone safe.

QuickPost lets comms teams publish messages to screens instantly without pre-planning. Just add a title, summary, image and link, and it automatically formats everything with company branding and QR codes. We're adding AI features soon to make this even faster and more powerful.

Effortless Messaging with QuickPost App

So comms teams usually have a content calendar and have planned out all of their creative work, but sometimes they just want to put a message up on the screen quickly. This is especially true if that content manager is local and maybe is running the facility and just wants to get a message out to colleagues that day. So the QuickPost app is a simple way to achieve that. You put just a title, summary, an image or video, a link, and it will repurpose into a really strong, screen-friendly format using the company's branding and turning links into QR codes and things like that. So it makes it very, very fast to publish content. And then that can be managed inside of ScreenCloud with expiry dates, et cetera. This is just the first version, and soon we'll be applying more AI-enhancing features to make this even easier and more powerful in the future. But now you can just get your message up to screen nice and easily.

Emergency alerting is one of the most serious use cases for digital signage. We've integrated with the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) and emergency alert providers to enable fail-safe screen takeovers during crises. When seconds matter, screens are vital for getting people to safety.

Ensuring Safety with Emergency Digital Signage

I used ScreenCloud at my dad's 80th birthday, and whilst setup was brilliantly simple, it reminded me how much work we still have to do on usability. Watching family members engage with old photos on screen was magical, but I was still fiddling with too many buttons. This is where AI will really help.

Reflections on ScreenCloud at a Family Event

So I've seen influencers do videos in their car as they're driving along it's probably a bit of a flex because they've got a nice car but this one's from 2007 and it's full of junk and dog hair from Fergus. Anyway I'm just driving from back from my dad's 80th birthday party where obviously I used ScreenCloud as part of the party and it was really good it worked really well a few really good observations came from it firstly setting it up was dead easy ScreenCloud OS I use ScreenCloud OS and it really was just so simple so we've done a great job there you know doing that I think also shout out to Casey on our success team he built a really nice little workflow and you'll see examples of that where people could upload images on a Google form with a message and that pushed out to the screen using OneDrive which was really nice so people like that that was fun and then I think probably the biggest thing as well was just the impact it had and I'll put a video in here as well you can see like members of my family looking at old pictures from my mum and dad's wedding day when they were growing up as kids you know holidays memories of my grandparents who've passed now and it was incredible to see the power of the screen for triggering memories and thoughts and that was really beautiful so they're really proud to be able to use a product to kind of make these little moments happen where it didn't go so well is I still think if I'm honest and as much as I love our product it's still too difficult to use I was fiddling away with my laptop you know at the end of the table trying to get just quite basic things really just trying to get a gallery of images up there that people could add to and things like that and I think we've done a good job with ScreenCloud Studio and things like that overall but it's still too fiddly there's still too many buttons to click and I imagine there's the same for everyone in our industry too so yeah I think this is where you know AI is definitely g

I recently heard Kunal Shah discuss his Delta 4 framework for evaluating startups, and it really resonated. When a product delivers a 4+ point efficiency improvement, it creates irreversible behaviour change and natural advocacy. I'm thinking about how we can apply this lens to ScreenCloud as we enter the AI era.

Exploring the Delta 4 Framework for Startup Success

So I was listening to an interview recently with extremely talented Indian entrepreneur called Kunal Shah, and he was talking about his Delta 4 framework for assessing new startups. Let's say I asked you that, what do you think is the efficiency score of booking a cab through Uber on 10 or versus the old method that existed of booking cabs, whatever that method was, most people would say, maybe this is seven, eight on 10. That is maybe two on 10, one on 10, three on 10. So the framework was very simple that every time the Delta of efficiency score is greater than equal to four, three things happen. Uh, it's an irreversible behavior. Once you experience a Delta 4 product or service, you cannot go back. Uh, there is obviously very, very high tolerance. Uh, that's the second thing that, uh, you will hate Uber, but you're not going to like, dammit, I'm going to delete this app and I'm going to move to a more inefficient behavior. The third thing is what I call a UBP, a unique brag worthy proposition. Humans, when they discover something Delta 4, they can't stop bragging about it everywhere. So there's several things I like about this framework. Firstly, I think it's true. Um, and that actually we probably don't try and stress test new companies against something like this, uh, anywhere near as much. And he also goes on to talk about how this is local and how something that's worked very well in America hasn't necessarily worked as well as in India, because the way that people operate is just so vastly different. Um, but what really got me was that, um, we could also apply this to our own products. So ScreenCloud isn't a startup anymore, but we are about to go through a massive period of change, um, with AI and generative technologies. So the ways of doing things previously through content management systems, uploading files and all of that, probably is going to look pretty archaic quite soon, however, um, although we are all aware of AI being around us right now, we're 

In this video, we explore an unconventional use of PowerPoint for real-time updates at an airport. Despite its simplicity, this approach allows immediate communication, outperforming traditional systems. It also highlights the need to consider non-traditional competitors in product development.

Innovative Use of PowerPoint in Real-Time Updates

So on the ScreenCloud Slack group, the team shared a viral video going on Twitter of a screen in an airport being powered by PowerPoint. Let's take a look. So I think you'd probably be expecting me to slam this, but actually I quite like this use case. Obviously, it's not exactly a slick update of the screen, but it is done in real time. And it is being done by the person who knows that this flight boarding is getting delayed. So compared to other systems, which sometimes take upwards of half an hour to update, at least the customers are fully aware of what's going on. And the person managing the screen is fully capable of doing so. This could obviously be much slicker, but actually I think this is quite interesting. And it reminds me of one other thing. We often think that our competition is just literally our competitors, our brand competitors. But in fact, our competition is usually a homegrown solution like this, the PowerPoint or Excel, or even doing nothing at all. And it's always worth remembering that this is the kind of use case that we need to be thinking about as much as whatever our competitors are building as well.

I explain why we built our own hardware, inspired by Alan Kay's principle that serious software requires serious hardware. To create truly enterprise-ready digital signage, we developed ScreenCloud OS in 2019-2020, partnering with a Chinese manufacturer to flash it onto the Station P1 Pro. This vertical integration approach is now our second-most popular device and growing exponentially.

The Journey to Building Enterprise-Ready Digital Signage

My co-founder, Luke, the CTO of ScreenCloud, is a big fan of Alan Kay, who's the father of personal computing. And one of his famous quotes is, people who are really serious about software should make their own hardware. And now, most software developers have an allergic reaction to hardware when it comes up. But the reality is, if you're going to produce a digital signage platform that is really going to be enterprise-ready, scalable, and powerful all the way through the stack, that means you need to go down to the very lowest level, which means getting involved with hardware. Originally, we only worked with third parties, and we will always do that, because we want to give our customers full choice. But when it was clear that there weren't great options out there exactly for the kind of use case that we were prioritizing, we had to go and do it ourselves. So, back in 2019 and 2020, we did an R&D project which resulted in ScreenCloud OS, which we then ran on a piece of hardware called the Station P1 Pro, which was actually a gaming PC that was already very popular and being manufactured in China with a really wonderful manufacturer with a great relationship with them. And so, we then flashed our operating system onto that fantastic device at the factory level and then started to sell it ourselves. And it's now, rapidly, it's the second most popular device that runs on ScreenCloud. Given that that's relatively new, there's a huge exponential graph that it's going on, and I think probably, within a year or two, it'll probably be the most popular device that we have running. And with a new version of ScreenCloud OS 3.0 coming out this month, it opens up the possibility of working on an even greater variety of hardware, so we can give many more choices to our customers.

I think consumer screens and USB sticks get unfairly criticised in the digital signage community. They're actually brilliant for testing use cases cheaply and getting content up quickly to see what works. Yes, you'll hit scaling challenges eventually, but you're proving the concept first and winning over internal sceptics.

Exploring Digital Signage with Consumer Screens

The professional digital signage community tends to frown upon the use of consumer screens or even USB sticks stuck into the back of those screens playing a playlist of images. I actually think they're fine. Here's why. Customers are trying out the use case. They're experimenting very cheap and excessively, getting their content up onto screen and seeing if that has actually got the impact on their customers or their employees or their students. And there is nothing wrong with that. They will soon hit a stumbling block in terms of scaling out that network, making it easy to swap out the content. But what they're really doing is showing that the screen can work in the first place and maybe winning over some of the naysayers in their own business to show that screens is actually a great communication platform.

I reflect on 10 years since David and I first publicly discussed ScreenCloud. What started as a simple prototype has grown into a platform serving over 10,000 customers with a team of 100+ people. Whilst building the product was far harder than imagined, it's been incredibly fulfilling to see our vision of screens that communicate come to life.

Celebrating a Decade of Digital Signage Innovation

So, an exciting milestone. It was exactly 10 years today that my co-founder, David, and I first publicly spoke about ScreenCloud, a prototype digital signage product that Luke, our other co-founder, and the team were building. Let's take a look. It's a cloud trying to make it better or easier to connect up multiple screens and push content to them. So, in this case, we're looking to push HTML5 content because that gives us the greatest variety of things we could then do with said screens. And really looking at a whole range of devices from phones and tablets, computer screens, to just smart, inverted commas because they're really not that smart when you get under the hood, TVs. And we think that there might be something interesting here probably for retailers, large offices with multiple screens, and even small offices as well. I mean, just really any kind of company or retailer that's trying to get messages out there and wants to maybe control them from a central point and then try and do some clever things about it. It's pretty early, but we'll probably have some kind of demo by the beginning of next week or just after Easter. So, definitely looking a little bit older and certainly a bit wiser when it comes to digital signage. Building that product was way harder than we could ever have imagined, but it's also been incredibly fulfilling. We have over 10,000 customers, a fantastic team of over 100 people. And every single day, we get up and continue to innovate the platform and try and bring that vision to life. We're focused these days more on screens that communicate. This is a huge passion. And this year, we want to educate our customers even more so they can get the most of those screens in their environment. So, excited for the next 10 years. Start thinking about what the next 10 is going to bring. With that in mind, have a nice Easter.

I explore how we're leveraging AI at ScreenCloud to transform existing content into screen-friendly formats. From automatic summarisation and translation to generating custom dashboards from spreadsheets, these AI features are designed to make digital signage more accessible and powerful for everyone.

AI-Driven Content Transformation in Digital Signage

We are embracing AI at ScreenCloud. First and foremost, it's about content transformation. Most of the content people want to put on a screen already exists, but not in a screen-friendly format. So AI can easily understand that content and reformat that up the screen. In addition to that, we can summarize content, so we can condense it so it's easier to understand. We can also do things like translation as well, and even upscale and create images to associate with that content if there isn't any available. Finally, we're actually looking at ways in which we can generate code and screen apps automatically for those screens. So that could be taking a spreadsheet and dynamically building a dashboard of those numbers ready up onto a screen. So stay on the lookout for loads of AI features coming from the ScreenCloud product team.