Later today I will be boarding a plane in Montreal and heading back to Europe for the International Scala Conference, which is being held next week September 14-15, 2011, in Noordwijkerhout (near Amsterdam) in the Netherlands.
[1]If it is anything nearly as good as the Scala Connected Signage Conference (CSC) – Americas & Oceania [2] that I attended back in May in Philadelphia, then the attendees are in for a treat.
Scala CEO Gerard Bucas [3] will open the conference and he will immediately be followed by our own editor-in-chief who will deliver the keynote.
Adrian is an interesting choice as keynote speaker by Scala. While Scala have steadily worked its way back up our DSTop10 list – in 2010 Scala were number four in our list [4], in 2009 number five and in 2008 (the first year we compiled the list number seven) – it’s no secret that there has been no love lost between him and many of the Scala people in Europe over the last few years.
Adrian won’t let on what his keynote will be about but whatever the subject matter, it is bound to be a hands-on look at the product and the company, and in front of Scala’s partners too this could be fun!
Adrian often laments at our way too rare face-to-face staff meetings (usually only happening two or three times a year) that we, as a company, are often criticised for being ‘armchair critics’. That couldn’t be further from the truth and it can only be a criticism levelled at us by people who don’t know us that well.
Adrian and Andrew and Jorge have worked with more digital signage software solutions and hardware displays than many people ever will.
Andrew tells me that Scala was chosen by the team, narrowly ahead of Omnivex, as the software solution to run the MicroTiles at the London Stock Exchange [5]. I know that Andrew has been working pretty much full time on that installation since the beginning of the year, so no doubt that real world experience of Scala will play a central role in Adrian’s keynote.
Scala is flying me in to cover the event so I will be there for both days. Andrew will also be there for both days, but as Adrian is wrapping up the 5th Digital Signage Conference in Munich [6] on day two of the Scala event, he will be flying off later on during day one.