It is very likely that in the past few months, you arrived at an airport and checked your boarding gate on a digital display, or made a meal selection from a digital menu board at a restaurant, or learned about your bank’s new app capability from a digital screen as you were waiting in line for a teller. Today we encounter digital signs in most offices, lobbies, banks, gyms… just about everywhere. These signs are effective communications and marketing tools, which convey highly dynamic information on the surfaces around you.
Global “Arcade” screens distribute content and engage Bloomberg employees worldwide, helping build a global community.
Digital signage, if done well, is an important addition to your workspace. At Bloomberg, I am part of the employee communications team, and we use digital signage as part of our “multimedia mix,” an important aspect of our ever-expanding array of distribution platforms. We produce content for internal and external publication that informs, engages, enables, and inspires our 16,000+ employees (and job seekers who hope to soon be employees in our 190+ locations around the world).
In addition to our team’s internal newswire, email newsletter, and Youtube channel, our internal digital signage – some with business metrics, others with photos or Bloomberg terminal data feeds – assist us in sharing the information that employees need to know.
“Cove” metric screens in global offices display real-time operational metrics that boost morale, manage workflow, and provide feedback.
The digital signage screens I manage—which we call “Arcade” – help cross promote all of our content from our other channels and reinforce our editorial strategy. To manage the day-to-day flow of information, we work closely across business units, with Marketing for design, and Information Systems and Facilities for hardware and software installations and maintenance. Marketing also manages the large “Link” display, located in the lobby of our 731 Lexington headquarters, which pulls data from the Bloomberg terminal, as well as what we call “Cove” metric screens. These up-to-date, real-time, customizable metric screens keep employees informed of current business targets and productivity of individual groups.
Bloomberg is a data and information network, generating content and optimizing its distribution through all kinds of channels. Emanuela Frattini Magnusson, global head of design at Bloomberg, creates design direction for Bloomberg environments at the intersection of Facilities and Marketing.
“Our workplaces are a reflection of our brand identity and aim to provide immediate immersion into the Bloomberg culture,” says Emanuela. “Media displays are integrated into and strategically placed throughout our environments, while internal communications are placed on screens that are in common sightlines on the work floor, and become architectural elements. Content is always visible and accessible, without being overwhelming.”
Six synced LED screens of streaming data stretch across “The Link” common area in Bloomberg’s 731 Lexington Ave. headquarters in New York
On our internal Arcade screens, we display a variety of business-focused, volunteer, and people-specific content. These more than 3500 screens in our offices around the world are great tools to promote our content on our other platforms in a passive way. At any given time, an employee might pass by and see content such as the latest cover of Bloomberg Businessweek, a video from a recent intern volunteer project, or a photo of a new employee who started in London this week. If an employee glances up to an Arcade screen while on a conference call, he or she may be reminded to complete training or sign up for an upcoming volunteer project.
By sharing this wide variety of content, Arcade is a culture carrier, bringing our global community together by way of digital signs. Coupled with our Cove and Link digital displays, the screens assist us in capturing attention and creatively sharing relevant and important data and information with our employees and those visiting our global offices.
Author Danielle Cerrachio will be presenting an hour-long seminar at CorpComm Expo 2015 entitled, “Transform Your Workspace with Environmental Media Installations,” on Wednesday, September 30th from 10:00-11:00am at the Georgia World Congress Center. Her presentation will discuss how Bloomberg’s variety of environmental media installations across global offices builds brand equity and transforms the workplace. For more information about CorpComm Expo, or to register for this or any other educational seminar or workshop and learn more about digital communications technologies and strategies go to the CorpComm website.
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