The Daktronics Video Summit – Outside and In

The Daktronics Video Summit offers an excellent opportunity to learn about exciting, new (or maybe new-to-you) features in the Daktronics control system world. It’s also a great chance to meet and network with other Daktronics users, learning tricks and techniques from fellow peers in the business.

How do I know this, you might ask? It turns out that I have a pretty unique perspective on the Daktronics Video Summit. I’m one of the select few who have both attended the Summit as an operator and presented during the Summit as a Daktronics employee.

From 2006-2013, I had the pleasure of attending many IDEA Conferences and the corresponding Daktronics Video Summits. The Summits gave me a chance to talk shop with other Daktronics users in a group setting, as well as receive instruction from Daktronics employees, which is WAY more fun than just reading user manuals (though I could consume a user manual with the best of them). Another key benefit was that those of us in attendance could provide feedback on our experiences, sometimes directly to product managers, which affected changes and updates to the user-facing software that we all worked with on a day-to-day basis.

In 2014, as a newly-minted Daktronics employee, I was one of several presenters at the Video Summit in Dallas. My presentation that year covered the integration of non-scoring data, such as Closed Captioning, Twitter, and 50/50 Raffles. I talked about what those data sources might look like, how we could ingest the data into the Daktronics system, and how the data could be displayed. As a group, we got to dive into how many of the users were utilizing such data, providing a beneficial knowledge-sharing discussion for those in the room.

2014 IDEA Video Summit

On the subject of data, there were additional conversations on more advanced topics such as automation and triggering off of data sources. We also discussed creative visualizations of data through Daktronics software via scorecards and spray charts for baseball, shot charts for basketball, and drive charts for football. If this all seems like valuable information for a Daktronics user to have, you would be 100% correct! But that’s not even the best part. All of the topics I’ve mentioned from 2014 were centered on data – which was just one of the focuses of the Summit. There were also presentations and discussions on Show Control, video signal flows, system maintenance and support resources.

It’s interesting to see how the topics from 2014 have stayed very relevant to Daktronics users in 2017. Looking at the list of presentations for this year’s Summit, it’s funny to me how they mirror the topics from 2014. Yet I also know that the topics will be discussed in much different ways.

Daktronics technology has grown by leaps and bounds since 2014, offering even more dynamic and visual ways to engage audiences year after year. The discussion of new features and technological advances will provide a fruitful learning experience for all those in attendance at the 2017 Video Summit at IDEA.

If you’re unable to attend the Summit this year, you can always request more information on advanced control system topics and solutions by reaching out to the Daktronics Professional Services team at ProfessionalServices@daktronics.com.

Written by Mike Cruz, Daktronics Applications Engineer.