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James Game
James Game, CEO of Digital Media Technologies Group, discusses his extensive expertise in the technology solutions space, and the importance of continuous improvement, empathy in the workplace, and spectacular displays.
Tech-Exec sits down to talk with CEO of Digital Media Technologies Group James Game
AHEAD OF THE GAME
JAMES GAME
Can you tell us about yourself your experience and career?
I’m the CEO of Digital Media Technologies Group which specialises in the design, delivery and ongoing services for super large format displays or as we would say, Spectaculars. We offer technology and creativity alongside a huge amount of passion delivering unforgettable experiences for our clients and their audiences.
To generate this passion we focus on people, culture and innovation with a drive for continuous improvement. This blend sees us highly focussed on the career and skills development of our staff, which ensures we sit at the forefront of technology, always innovating and embracing the challenge.
After all, very few good ideas are born out of unchallenged or familiar concepts. To be new means to be different and to be different means to stand out. So, while I don’t want anyone to fail, I encourage my staff to push the boundaries and not be afraid to slip up because failure is sometimes the only way we learn to break through and overcome fear.
I have been a business leader for almost 23 years within this industry. I have had an exciting and rewarding career where I have been fortunate to work on a huge range of projects across multiple sectors.
One of the largest projects early in my career was for Volvo Car Corporation, and that was a global deployment of digital signage into their retail stores. I caught the eye of Volvo’s HQ following a full roll out of digital signage into every UK showroom and we were quickly appointed to deliver the solution globally as part of the Dealer standard. The project was hugely successful, quickly integrating the sales and customer journeys delivering huge insight and value for the corporation, the dealerships and of course the customers.
Over the last decade or so, I have found myself working at what I see as the pinnacle of the industry in terms of large format and spectacular displays.
I’m very proud of the achievements we’ve been able to make, which have included iconic projects such as Piccadilly Lights, The Outernet and some of the most prestigious sports venues in the UK.
How has technology evolved over time and what do you think have been the key drivers or trends behind it?
The evolution of technology is a perpetual and rapidly accelerating process, consistently ushering in new opportunities. Some of the key, pivotal technologies shaping our endeavours are LED Displays and graphics processing, along with playout engines.
These technologies are rapidly advancing, enhancing our ability to create immersive digital canvases with resolutions surpassing 8K. Our strategic investments and focus have positioned us to harness these advancements, exemplified by the creation of extraordinary experiences like Piccadilly Lights.
These developments come from human nature, completely necessary and created from our desire and need to make things bigger and better and at a higher quality and more immediate than ever before.
“Immersive video presentations captivate audiences, transforming engagement profoundly.”
We see this technical evolution in film, computer games, on our phones and online but it is also a reality in the physical world and this in turn drives further innovation. This trend is unstoppable and will accelerate quicker than ever with the introduction of technologies like AI, which are now disrupting and enabling the creative space more than ever.
Despite this acceleration there is one thing that does not change and I believe it’s the most valuable of all; integration, and more specifically how you integrate technologies to work together, fusing and blending them to deliver unique highly valuable outcomes. This, to me, is the most important aspect of what we do and it’s the key to unlocking value.
For me, features, and functionality are super important, but our biggest differentiator is our holistic approach to projects. This means that when we start to investigate a concept, we have to understand its purpose and the stakeholders expected outcomes, whether that be commercialisation, return on investment, fan, spectator or consumer engagement or a unique blend.
Arguably the most important stakeholder in any project is the audience; they must engage. This is why we analyse how and why they are likely to interact and how they will consume the content we are providing. This requires a deep understanding of what works and what doesn’t and this is only gained through experience and experimentation.
Keeping those elements in sharp focus is imperative but we also need to understand, structurally design and integrate into the fabric of the buildings, spaces and structures and then deliver the projects. We need to develop the content and interaction as required before combining all of these considerations, processes, creativity and technology together. Quite the task and I would certainly say we are very unique in this approach!
How does Digital Media Technologies approach technological advancements to ensure a spectacular experience for clients?
In this area, we see partnerships as key to the business. We create and develop technology in-house, but we also harness the great technology being created by some of our partners.
Many of these companies are some of the largest blue-chip organisations in the world and at the forefront of their fields and products.
We like to work with our partners to ensure we’re developing our technology based upon their platforms and indeed leveraging their technology in the right way. It is this commitment to working with partners that helps us to deliver extremely complex solutions with confidence.
The concept of invisible technology is intriguing.
Could you elaborate on how Digital Media Technologies incorporates this idea into its solutions?
Throughout my career, I’ve explored and experienced a variety of technologies that have changed how we, as humans, communicate and interact with each other. In some cases, it has been very difficult for people to understand or learn those new technologies.
Ten to fifteen years ago, online banking was probably one of the best examples of where certain demographics, particularly amongst older age groups within our society, were really challenged by its introduction. Now, with more and more physical closures of bank branches, this problem has been exacerbated for that same group and as a consequence, they see technology as a barrier rather than an enabler and one that at its worst can isolate whole segments of society.
So, when we say invisible technology, what we mean is that it should never be a barrier to an experience. Instead of the users walking away thinking about the technology, we want them to remember the brand they just interacted with and the emotions it made them feel. Tech enables these activations and connections to the brand, but it should be an invisible and seamless interaction in that regard. Ultimately, this brings benefits with usability to consumers, and gives high value to the brand.
How
You mentioned a focus on continuous improvement and a specific interest in the four types of human behaviour.
does Digital Media
Technologies foster a culture of continuous improvement within the company?
People and culture are extremely important as I’ve mentioned, and as a business, we are ultimately only the sum of our people and their skills. The nurturing, mentoring, shadowing, personal development, and training is crucial to the growth of the business, so people benefit from continuous improvement. We’d love everybody to always work for us, but we’re consistently focused on people’s careers as well.
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I feel if we do the right things for our people and support them in the right way with their career ambitions, then ultimately that only benefits the business in the long run, too.
We’re very proud of the culture we continue to promote within the business. However, continuous improvement goes beyond just people, which is the first and most important layer within any organisation. We’re a company that recognises there is always room for improvements, which keeps us on our toes and focused on moving forward with purpose.
People and culture are extremely important as I’ve mentioned, and as a business, we are ultimately only the sum of our people and their skills. The nurturing, mentoring, shadowing, personal development, and training is crucial to the growth of the business, so people benefit from continuous improvement. We’d love everybody to always work for us, but we’re consistently focused on people’s careers as well.
I feel if we do the right things for our people and support them in the right way with their career ambitions, then ultimately that only benefits the business in the long run, too.
We’re very proud of the culture we continue to promote within the business. However, continuous improvement goes beyond just people, which is the first and most important layer within any organisation.
We’re a company that recognises there is always room for improvements, which keeps us on our toes and focused on moving forward with purpose.
Having said that, there are some elements where we go very deep with people, like behavioural analysis, which can be seen as quite contentious. It’s a structure you would usually encounter in much larger corporate companies and is used to understand how people will interact and interface with each other, our processes and change, and of course our clients.
Consequently, we use a lot of different analysis tools to achieve that aim. As an example, disk profiling is something we have been very keen on employing and that process is applied to everyone in the business, including me.
From the top down, we are essentially working out the different behavioural styles of each individual. For those who may not be aware, DISC profiling categorises behavioural style into four different areas, often leading to an identification of a particular style or behaviour.
You will have people like myself, who in a DISC world, would be classed as a “High D” (Dominant) – a very typical profile for a CEO – who are task-focused and very much like a challenge.
At the same time though, my secondary trait is compliance which dictates the standards that I work to. We introduce and onboard people to the businesses by having them understanding the expectations I put on myself, which demonstrates how this business has been built over the last 13 years. We do like a challenge and we like to deliver it to the highest standards!
When it comes to the team we are also looking at their individual profiles. Some people will have a steadier nature. These individuals like a process, want to own that process and to understand the role and they will flourish within a well-defined working framework.
With the wrong approach those people will be very hard to change but they remain high performers, so it creates an interesting juxtaposition for management.
Using behavioural analysis, we understand how to approach them, explaining the change and most importantly explaining why and how the change will occur and the benefits it will bring to them and others around them.
That’s just a brief example but I think it illustrates the benefits of this deeper thinking for our business and the importance of empathy.
Can you share more about how you tailor your Recruitment process to identify and align with the four types of human behaviour?
Our recruitment process typically starts either with standard advertising or through agencies and head-hunters, as we look for the best in class for their relevant fields. As part of that, once we start our process, we look at the people’s personal desires and ambitions alongside some light behavioural analysis.
We are going to invest in them and as far as possible we look to ensure they are investing with us and that will only happen if they attain job satisfaction and a rewarding culture that they can feel a part of.
We have found this to be extremely successful. We haven’t always hired in this way but we get the benefits of this through long tenure, dedication, and lots of passion from our staff, which feeds all the way out to the solutions we provide for our customers and their audience.
And what ways do these insights into human behaviour influence the dynamics of teams within Digital Media Technologies?
The biggest benefit we see is a lot of empathy within the business – people consider each other and our customers and instead of just forcing tasks or issues, there is a much more collaborative approach because. In short, it is all about the fundamentals. Understanding how we talk to each other and thinking about how that person could respond to the task or question that’s been posed to them.
Involvement
in projects like Piccadilly Lights and being the LED partner at Royal Ascot is impressive.
Can you share some key aspects of these projects that showcase Digital Media Technologies’ expertise?
As mentioned previously It comes down to the integration, the tech leverage and how we utilise that technology within these deployments to create the most spectacular displays in the world. If we take Piccadilly Lights for example. It is arguably the most well-known billboard in the world.
It is an enigma and an anomaly in out-of-home advertising. This site sets itself out way above any other, including Times Square. Piccadilly Lights has an impact on the London skyline. It makes a mark on everybody that sees it. It is one of the greatest tourist attractions in the UK.
Advertising and the consumption from this billboard are incredible, both physically in person and across social media. It’s a privilege to be involved with. It’s probably the pinnacle of my career. I’m extremely proud of the company and everybody that’s been associated to the project.
And again, with Ascot, we take that similar approach and recognise who our audiences are. Ascot is a great case, as it focuses not on fans or spectators as we have in many other sporting venues, but on customers.
It means a different method of presenting your messages, of offering interaction, information, and entertainment to people. At Ascot, it is a truly interactive solution.
It’s constantly telling people the activities of the day, what the last race result was, when the next race is coming, showing the live broadcasts through to interactive experiences such as singing around the bandstand, where our systems are responsible for displaying real-time lyrics as played by a band. This offers a much higher level of engagement and creates valuable customer loyalty.
From start to finish, our engagement with the customer was key to the success of the Ascot project. Understanding both what the team was looking for and what they hoped to achieve were crucial to delivering the right solution in the right location for the right audience. As a customer-based business, their digital activations and visitor engagement narratives differ in many ways to a fan-based sport and this needed to be realised on our part to ensure the project was successful.
What is the future of digital media products?
For us, 2024 is truly going to be an incredible year. We are now underway with a new immersive Spectacular being installed in central London and have several other very high profile sports projects in the pipeline, including something different altogether heading out on the high seas.
“Partnering with Samsung for LED displays has been an invaluable choice for our company. Their commitment to innovation, reliability, and cutting-edge technology has elevated our product offerings and enhanced our customer experiences.
Working closely with Samsung has streamlined our supply chain and allowed us to deliver unparalleled quality to our clients. Together, we’re setting new standards in visual excellence and transforming how people engage with our products. It’s a partnership I’m proud of and one that continues to drive our success forward.”
James Game
James Game, CEO Digital Media Technologies Group
