About Us

I started this company for two reasons … well, OK, three.

I wanted to be my own boss. I liked the commute from the kitchen to my home office. And there was a rather large, yawning hole in the digital signage marketplace for someone who understood the business and could also string a few coherent words together. I’m filling that hole.

Before I got pressDOOH going I spoke with several people I trust and respect, and asked them if my idea for pressDOOH was sound, or typical Haynes-kooky. Turns out it was sound. So here I am.

This is a boutique firm and I am the not-so well-coiffed owner-operator, with my only staff so far a 12-year-old spaniel named Smudge, who wanders into my office now and then to lay down and have a good snore.

I write for people. Sometimes that’s a press release. Sometimes a white paper or two, or a case study. I craft the copy for company Web sites and I do the wording for sell sheets that companies use to drum up business.

I help some clients figure out where they sit in the marketplace, and perhaps suggest they find a different, better chair. I am not at all reluctant to tell a client they are making mistakes or heading for trouble. And I am entirely disinclined to tell clients what they are up to is sooper-dooper, unless it actually is.

Clients come to me because they appreciate the honesty, and (I think) my sense of humor. But they also know they are handing off really important work to someone who actually “gets” what they’re up to and can assume their point of view when writing things up. I write copy that flows, is not riddled with stupid buzz phrases and cliches, and turns complicated material into passages that are accessible.

You can hire a freelance writer who will write exactly as you suggest, and probably do nothing more. You can hire a public relations firm that will have barely a clue about your business, and wedge your needs in between work for the agri-fuel and accounting firms also on retainer. Or you can engage a guy, on flexible terms, who’s probably already up your particular learning curve, and understands the spin that will work with the industry and customers.

DEEP INDUSTRY EXPERIENCE

I have held executive and senior operations management and business development positions with some of the biggest names in the digital signage industry. I have also conceived, launched and operated a successful digital out of home media company, though not so successful I relocated to a beach.

I am also well-known and (I think) respected as one of the more widely-read industry authorities in the industry through a blog, Sixteen:Nine. That’s been going for more than four years and I started another one on good writing: BUZZ, NOT BUZZWORDS.

Before getting into the digital signage industry, I was among the first major daily newspaper editors in North America to take a newspaper online. That followed 15 years as a reporter and editor, doing everything from covering the late 70s and early 80s rock music business to national politics.

The pressDOOH business is happily busy, but with partners I also have a consultancy, The Preset Group, serving this industry, as well as an interest in a content production firm, called Five Second Media.