KioskCom follow up

KioskCom in Las Vegas was fun and there were lots of new things to see. Everyone's feet are tired but we all gathered many new leads and had opportunities to talk to other vendors in the industry. The show was unlike last year in that the flow of traffic and prospects was... how do I say it... not necessarily slower, but more evenly distributed. Instead of 80% of the leads arriving in the first 2 hours, it was fairly consistent throughout. Except for the last 2 hours of the final day, which is almost always slower. That's to be expected.

Many of the same industry vendors as always and a few new ones too, like Big Wave who has an online software service to help manage kiosk rollouts and kiosks that are out in the field. This is an important tool that can help make rollouts go smoother, allowing all of the players to login and see the current status, post message, see specifications docs, installation notes, all the way down to the tech on the ground who can make updates for each machine he touches. And post launch this can be used to manage the kiosks over time. It's an interesting product that you may not even think of when you are first putting together a kiosk project and planning for the rollout, but once you go through a large rollout, you'll understand the value of it. Check out www.bigwavesoftware.com for more information

Another lively booth at the show was a bit unexpected... and I'm not sure if it's really a kiosk, but it is a self service device. The company is Glenview Health Systems, and the product is BioMeasure. It measures your height, weight, and you grip some handles on the side where it can presumably get a good bit of information about your body and the final product is an analysis of your BMI body mass index, and other helpful information. It became a competition for everyone to get measured and see how they stacked up! I was pretty average, and leaning towards being overweight. But I think I dropped most of that weight by the end of the show from all of the walking you do at shows and in Las Vegas itself! Check out their cool product at www.biomeasure.net

There was a great seminar on PCI compliance that was presented by Fast Transact
that dealt with many great security issues when it comes to credit card transactions at a kiosk. It also spent a good bit of time talking about kiosk security in general, from the OS and application level all the way to the physical level which was very very interesting. I hope they continue to have these seminars at every show! The folks at Retail Solutions Providers Association www.goRSPA.org also gave out a great CD about this topic. There were several Ah Ha moments at the seminar where a white hat hacker gave his perspective and insightful observations.

Our company showed off it's new model of kiosk hardware, the EasyShip XL which you can see at our newly re-designed web site at: www.ElectronicArt.com

A fun side note, an employee of mine passed this link on to me, which is a blog entry from a self proclaimed "trade show virgin" who lists lessons she learned at a recent show. Check it out at: http://www.email-marketing-reports.com/iland/2008/05/nine-lessons-from-trade-show-virgin.html