Part III: Get the most out of TVs you already have.

There are a few of unfamiliar benefits and advantages, which we don't normally recognize from workplace TVs. Increasing Employee Morale and Saving Lives. For obvious reasons, most TVs at work do not provide any useful information relevant to our needs. People start to ignore or acknowledge all that exists. Turning workplace TVs to a dynamic communications tool can add another dimension of communications in working environments. Audiences can feel personally affected by positive information and useful messages within a few seconds. If we look around business offices and working environments where we work everyday, we usually find that corporate are trying to create a working environment that could connect to their employees both work and non-work related. Beautiful artworks create a welcoming and relaxing ambience. Motivational and inspirational posters give a feeling of teamwork for a higher achievement. Simple reminders and tips could save lives. If only workplace TVs could be used for some of those reasons, corporate might find a new way to their employee's liking. Static messages can become lively. Employee morale is very important in today's corporate world. To those working environments, at where everyone is working on fast-paced, no time, high-stress, and multi-cultural, communication has become a critical part of organizations. 

How does your organization send a simple but meaningful message which most people can see and understand without reading? 

Part II: Get the most out of TVs you already have.

Are your traditional methods of communications working effectively in today's working environment?

We are seeing a trend of this whole idea that getting corporate information and messages across is becoming more and more ineffective. Regardless where messages come from: public-relation, marketing, human-resource, risk management, or safety departments, it is critical for corporate to deliver those messages to visitors, employees, staff and contractors. In corporate environments especially public areas, relevant messages are matter for targeted audiences to create an expected result. By turning existing TVs to a dynamic communications tool, corporate can benefit from economies of scale and save on the overall cost of re-creating and disseminating all information, allowing employees and personnel to focus on their day-to-day mission. Furthermore, using TVs as a dynamic communications tool adds a benefit of immediate personnel interoperability.

Needless to say people are busy, audiences are on the move and personnel are overloaded by their normal workloads. Keeping that in mind will help you select a suitable platform to achieve your goals: operational, financial and strategic without becoming a burden afterward.    

Part I: Get the most out of TVs you already have.

Whether TVs are at a lobby, hallway, waiting-area, locker room, break room or assembly line area, it must engage your audiences.
A thorough consideration of goals and expectations will help corporate get the most out of their investment, and help them save money while using it.
Those TVs should improve and complement working environments to be more welcoming, informative, useful and relevant for everyone who is walking by. Communication  is a fundamental of everyday lives. Working people spend time outside home whether on the roads or at business settings. Getting messages across while audiences physically moving requires a delicate balance of understanding human-interaction.

Instead of traditional return of ROI, innovative communications can help engaging customers & employees, lowering operating cost, improving employees morale, increasing productivity and so on.  Different locations mean different purposes for different audiences. Workplace TVs can independently deliver information and dynamically  disseminate  communications throughout corporate cultures anywhere anytime.

Business applications:

• Corporate Headquarter & Branch Offices
• Local Authorities & Government
• Healthcare
• Education & Institution
• Manufacture & Factory

Messages:

• Welcome Messages
• Corporate Information
• Corporate Announcements
• Tips and Awareness
• Safety Information and Policies
• Real-time Emergency Announcements

Audiences:

• Employees, Staff, and Contractors
• Visitors, Guests and Customers 
• Students, and Faculties

TV at a workplace.

Reality of TV utilization.

Sadly to see the incident in Canadian parliament yesterday.

Circumstances change all the time regardless how we prepare. Like everybody else, I witnessed the real situation through television. With all TV news, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Ambler Alert and Siren, I still can hear people asking: "what do we do?, where do we go?". All they got is information. I often ask myself, what more do they need to deal with such a horrific moment?

“Information is a source of learning. But unless it is organized, processed, and available to the right people in a format for decision making, it is a burden, not a benefit.” William Pollard. 

How people react to an unforeseen situation mostly come from experience and human-nature. My extensive experience of traveling, information & technology, and communication helps me to understand human-interaction, at where situations are unfavorable. We don't know what we don't know but we can plan. Data processing is needed because corporate could benefit from fact based on available information they have. Picture worth a thousand words. Modern TV makes it even easier to deliver fact, that illustrates a thousand times better than any other media. It is big. It is colorful. It is lively. The question is whether we can see such an advantage from using TV or not. To answer that question, business-people already see it as a tool to get the financial benefit instead of value-added to corporate. Every business and corporate in the world equip themselves with speed, technologies, ideas, information and more. While they are busy focusing on business strategies, misallocation of resources could affect the bottom line.

A new purpose of modern TV.

Technology of TV is amazing nowadays. It accepts almost any type of plug-in devices through regular signal feed, wire, or wireless. TV is getting to be like a hybrid computer monitor. We live among all the greatest inventions, and innovative ideas, which could pave the way for a farther, further and better thing. 

 

"The day will come when the man at the telephone will be able to see the distant person  to whom he is speaking" (1906) (Alexander Graham Bell).

In today's world, information is at our fingertips and around us everywhere. There are many ways to get and turn information to fact and knowledge. TV is another medium, from which we can get information by watching and hearing. Typically, what we get are either entertainment, advertising or news information from TV. But, with all available functions and features that come with modern TV, we could potentially utilize them for greater purposes. First we must understand that TV is a passive object. It follows your commands to show things. It is a one-way communication. Certain thing can communicate back and forth naturally but TV is not. Understanding basic limitation of TV helps us to better use, and turn it to a useful communications tool. TV could add another dimension of how corporate communications efficiently connect to staff, employees, and visitors. An effective communications tool requires very clear objectives and goals. Radio is great medium of mass communication. TV is even greater medium with visual and audio capabilities.

Future TV vs TV Future.

Future TV is endless at the moment. Physical TV will look better and prettier. 

TV future is what interesting to me. TV will be used for what, at where, and how.

I grew up around business, where engineering is importance and beauty is matter, which is probably why I care so much about engineering and architecture. At engineering school, professor would teach me how to turn my ideas into something practical, effective and efficient. Later, when I start working, corporate environment introduces me to new terms such as value proposition, customer and user. 

At home, people is getting used to with turning on TV and then something shows up. However when TV is not used at home, its purpose is changed out of commonly used. Even though it has been seen everywhere for a long time, business is still struggling to use TVs at a workplace and working environment. Regardless whatever it is we call TV, monitor, digital screen or display, it give us futuristic feeling and the 21st century atmosphere. It is part of the game for business to stay competitive. It is part of communications to stay connected with audiences. 

Generally, innovative solutions help to solve social problems while the world keeps turning and time keeps moving forward. People already saw changes from railroad to bullet train, telephone to Skype, mail to texting etc. My parent would say technology changes too much and too fast. Indeed it does. Tools are easier to use. Communications are beyond imagination. Despite the fact that it might sound scarily amazing for some people, I personally enjoy all innovative ideas out there. I, however, think it is getting harder and harder to use or even apply to the real purpose. Drastic changes to cope with business survival potentially contribute to unprepared conditions. With all bells and whistles that come with technology stuffs today, I somehow think who is faster: high-speed communications or Superman? Future TV can handle crystal clear and realistic contents which tempt you to touch the screen whether it is real. At the end of the day, TV itself still relies on what contents are for, where contents are shown at, and how contents get there, then we can decide whether it is useful or useless, engaging or boring etc. 

TV utilization.

No...no...no...I am not going to discuss something technical here! 

Let's talk about TV like what it is. Have you seen my new TV? Wow...look at that screen. TV is getting bigger, thinner, lighter, nicer, more features and functions. However, nobody is going to look at TV without turning it on. At the moment that awesome TV is turned on, wow, ooh and aah sounds of excitement light up the whole room. Whatever is on TV, it takes us to an interesting and unknown world. It is the beauty of TV. It galvanizes us. Whether it is a show, program, or news, TV contents give us visual and audio pleasures. TV may not mean much without high-quality and wonderful contents. Today's most advanced technology make it easy for TV to receive different kinds of contents through variety of sources and providers such as traditional antenna, satellite dish, cable box, Internet streaming etc. 

There is no doubt, financial opportunities generated by TV are enormous. Because TV can persuade human-behaviors, business ideas around TV are visible both inside-home and outside-home. Engineer is typically taught to create ideas, develop and implement things, which can improve everyday-life things. Engineers have come a long way from being a nerd, haven't they? Financial success motivates an engineer to think like an entrepreneur. Thinking for the improvement alone is no longer enough. When engineers got into a business meeting, they must understand what ROI (Return On Investment) means as well. What is TV nowadays? When TV is used outside home for whatever reasons are, it is not watched by traditional audiences any more. As a result, new challenges of TV utilization must be adapted to suit new needs and requirements. This approach has been adopted by many businesses to attract their audiences. It is even more mainstream when it comes to advertising than entertainment and news uses.
Can TV be more than just revenue generating ideas for business?

TV everyday.

TV is everywhere nowadays. When it is not embedded with tuner, it can also be referred to as digital display, monitor, electronic board etc. in different sizes. Based on Wikipedia, TV was invented back around the late 18th century. It is awesome how TV becomes part of our everyday lives. It gives us all laughs, joys, funs, excitement, dreams and imagination. And since then, it has been a vehicle for entertainment, advertising and news. 

I used to think which one I'd prefer between watching TV and listening to music. I could not decide which one I can live without. I can easily get lost of time by watching anything on TV and comfortably relax by listening music. 

In the past 15 years, TV is gradually crawling out of the living room, bedroom to boardroom, meeting room, store and everywhere. More and More. What more can we get out of so called TV????