I advise. I write. I educate. I connect.

Each job and project varies, but the great majority of my work has digital signage as the common thread.

I have done advisory work for scores of companies – some end-users, some vendors. Clients have varied from start-ups and non-profits to several Fortune 100 tech companies. I have walked a huge bank through the vendor selection process, helped a multinational automaker figure out their plans for digital in showrooms, and advised several very large vendors about marketplace opportunities and challenges. I have also done advisory/market analysis work for Google, Adobe, Intel and Cisco.

You can review a presentation deck that goes into detail about the sorts of digital signage consulting services I offer, and the processes that get applied.

I write for many companies. Because I spent many years as a daily newspaper journalist, I know how to take complicated stories and make them accessible. I also know the right questions to ask, and how to rapidly convey expertise, even in things that were unfamiliar.

I’ve written entire books for clients, and single press releases. I write blog posts for some. I often ghost-write. I have wire-framed and written the marketing narrative for the websites of many vendors in this ecosystem.

I do a lot of speaking, and I’ve also organized and run successful tech-focused conferences.

In other words, I can do a lot. The question is: What do you need?

Vertical Media Consulting Group, Inc. is the legal entity that serves as the umbrella for a number of services and websites run by digital signage veteran Dave Haynes. You may notice the domain is pressdooh.com, which was/is a brand I used to market my writing services. I’m slowing trying to focus things under the Vertical Media brand, so pulling back on using pressDOOH was a start.

Vertical Media incorporates those writing services I was doing under pressDOOH. It also rolls in Sixteen:Nine, which started as a simple blog but has evolved into a broader, more rounded trade publication. It also includes Meeting Room Signs, a directory service about guess what.

On a given day, I’ll probably be writing on my blog, editing guest contributions, ghosting posts for other blogs and corporate marketing sites, advising a client on marketing and message strategy, updating a listing on my meeting room signs directory, and preparing a presentation for a company or conference that wants to know about signage strategy or where the industry is heading.

Two days are rarely alike, which is awesome.

Clients come to me because they appreciate great writing, fast turnarounds and the comfort that they’ve put the work in the hands of a pro, who actually knows their business. I’ve been writing on and off for almost four decades (yikes!) and I have been active in the digital signage sector for 20 years. I don’t just write about the business – I’ve run huge networks and started companies in this business.

I get asked, a lot, to write for companies because I don’t do things the same way as mainstream public relations and marketing communications firms. I try to tell stories, and totally avoid the buzzwords and empty, self-congratulatory passages that still infest many or most news releases I see.

I am based near Halifax, Nova Scotia, on the Canadian east coast. If you have no idea where that is, think across the water from coastal Maine. I work out of my world headquarters – a spare room in my house, which is not at all far out of the city but backs directly on 20,000 of protected wilderness. Yet I have fiber to the curb!

I had a separate partnership with digital signage creative god Pat Hellberg, called The Preset Group. Pat’s in Portland, Oregon. We wound that down at the end of 2016, as Pat wandered off to drink great wine. Lucky guy. So Preset is no more.

I work out of a home office in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on the Canadian east coast. I WAS in the Toronto area for many years, but moved in 2018.

I do just about everything by email, phone and Skype. I have clients on the other side of the planet – as far away as Seoul, Switzerland, Belgium, Italy, Abu Dhabi, India and Malaysia. I also have many in North America.

Things usually start with an email or call, and then we slot in some mutual time to chat and figure out if I can help, and how. If I need to come to you, for whatever the reason, that’s possible. But if it is not local, I’d need to charge for my time and the travel expenses.

Almost everything I do is project-based, with defined fees, deliverables and timelines. I sign Mutual NDAs so often I could use a rubber stamp. Your trade secrets and insider info is always safe. I tend to declare, up front, any potential conflict and am more than old enough to understand the importance of keeping my yap shut.

Email: dave at vertical-media.ca, or 169dave at gmail.com

Office Phone: 905.592.1612 — Mobile — 902.719.6594 — Skype: dhaynes