Article

Honors and numbers

The kiosk industry hands out its first excellence awards at KioskCom's annual trade show, while seminars looked at the industry's standing within the business and government sectors.

March 5, 2002

ORLANDO, Fla. - Minutes after the inaugural Interactive Kiosk Excellence Awards began on March 5 at the Rosen Center, St. Clair Interactive Communications president Doug Peter gained the unwanted distinction of being the first person to drop the award.

But Peter could laugh about it later. The glass, diamond-shaped trophy did not shatter, nor did it land on something it could break, like a toe.

"I'm just so glad to receive this and not drop it on my foot," Peter joked after the awards ceremony.

It proved a humorous beginning to what KioskCom officials expect will become an annual tradition at the organization's industry trade show and conference, which kicked off earlier in the day at the Orange County Convention Center next door to the Rosen. With about 200 people in attendance, KioskCom presented awards in six categories based on excellence in software, enclosure designs, and applications.

St. Clair was one of several industry veterans feted during the ceremony. The Canadian developer won first place in the Best Retail Application category for its FootJoy golf shoe kiosk, which includes a digital scanner for custom designing shoes.

Kiosk Information Systems president Rick Malone, right, receives an Interactive Kiosk Excellence Award from Compaq's Steve Bellinghausen.

Other longtime industry figures to take away first-place honors included Apunix Computer Services in the Most Creative Software division and Kiosk Information Systems (KIS) for Most Innovative Kiosk Enclosure for the Title Sleuth kiosk it designed and manufactured for Borders book stores.

Other winners included nanonation for Best Public Communication Kiosk for its Arizona State University kiosk, Kosmo Studios for Best Hospitality, Travel, and Entertainment Kiosk for its kiosk at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, and Fidelity Investments for Best Financial Services Kiosk for its automated deposit machine.

Fidelity was also runner-up in the Financial Services category. Other runner-ups included Asys Communciations (software), Kitchen Aid (retail), Arts Tribe (public communication), Deep Video Imaging and Showorks Entertainment (hospitality), and Frank Mayer and Associates (enclosure).

There were between 30 and 40 awards applicants, according to KioskCom executive director Lawrence Dvorchik. A panel of consultants and kiosk media members were on the judging panel, which sorted through the nominations in February, chose finalists, then evaluated the finalists on the KioskCom exhibit floor on March 4.

"I think people were genuinely happy and I was pleased to see their enthusiasm," Dvorchik said. "It was a little bit of the old and the new. It was just great to see someone who's an industry veteran like St. Clair win, but also new groups like Kosmo and Arts Tribe."

Apunix co-founder Sylvia Berens viewed the awards as a sign that the industry is maturing.

"It's exciting that the industry has developed enough that we can honor the outstanding projects," Berens said. "It will help the industry move forward. Hopefully this will help lead to more deployments and exciting projects and frontiers for the marketplace."

Survey says Â…

Earlier in the day, the opening day of sessions at KioskCom's annual show concluded with Kiosk Businessmagazine publisher Michael Kachmar discussing the findings of his publication's first benchmark study of the kiosk industry.

The study, "A Market Reaches Critical Mass," was distributed to the magazine's subscribers in December. The results, based on questionnaires returned by 105 end users with current or planned projects, showed that 36.2 percent of businesses that are deploying kiosks are retail oriented, while 43.8 percent budgeted less than $50,000 for their projects.

Those findings were among a group of about a dozen statistics that Kachmar focused on during the 40-minute seminar. Working without a Power Point presentation due to computer problems, Kachmar winged it, using his copy of the study to explain the results before a group of about 60 session attendees, who were given copies of the study.

As a sign the industry is still maturing, Kachmar pointed out that 59 percent of the respondents said their kiosk deployments included fewer than 50 machines.

"A lot of people are testing the waters," Kachmar said. "The kiosks were trials for potentially bigger projects later. They were minimizing their (initial) exposure."

The purpose and definition of a kiosk is also a difficult concept to grasp, Kachmar said. More than 50 percent of those surveyed said it was extremely important the kiosk serve any of five different functions: improve customer service, generate revenue, provide information or promotions, keep pace with the competition, or reduce operating costs.

"The more we involve ourselves in the kiosk industry, the more we wonder what it is," he said. "Is it a point-of-sale terminal? Is it a Web terminal? Is it a pay phone? Is it a vending machine? It seems like a whole bunch of different things."

Passing the buck

The future of kiosk projects at several government levels was discussed during the government and non-profit tracked session on KioskCom's opening day.

Sam Gallagher, departmental Web manager for headquarters operations with the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), painted as optimistic a picture as possible on kiosks at the federal level, but admitted there have been cutbacks.

He pointed out that HUD currently has the largest kiosk deployment within the federal government, 105 machines that offer agency information in locations where Web-based services are generally not available.

"We originally thought we'd do about 30, but as the project rolled out we put more and more out," Gallagher said.

But other agencies are eliminating their projects. What had been the biggest deployment in the federal sphere, the Officer of Personnel Management's 173 federal job listings kiosks, was phased out in 2001 because of upgrade costs, and the General Services Agency abandoned its 51-strong public access kiosk program due to the lack of a sponsor. Those two deployments represented more than half of the federal government's kiosks, Gallagher said.

But various federal government agencies are discussing the possibility of creating an interagency kiosk. Gallagher said between 12 and 15 agencies meet about once a month to discuss the viability of creating a kiosk that would link various agencies; funding plans are in the discussion phase.

Later in the day, Marty Chakoian, chief technology officer for the city of Seattle, discussed the city's plan to install three city services kiosks in the front lobby of Seattle's new city hall when it opens in mid-2003.

Chakoian said the city, which began discussing kiosks about a year ago, has yet to choose its strategic partners in the venture, but has budgeted $200,000 for the project. He said the kiosks, which will offer information off the city's Web site, fit the area's level of technological expertise.

"We have a technologically literate community and that's good for us," Chakoian said. "It creates support for us to move forward with technology."