In golf's Ryder Cup, each team selects a captain that serves as the adviser and coach for the other 12 members. The captain is usually a veteran and has had some great achievements in his career. If the kiosk industry had a Ryder Cup team, Alex Richardson would be its captain.
One of Richardson's great achievements came this past year when he helped develop an interactive store window that combined projected digital signage and touchscreen interactivity. The window helped earn him the Innovator of the Year award, which was granted at the Self Service Expo in Las Vegas on April 25.
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The "interactive store window," as it has been dubbed, was first used by a luxury apparel brand at its New York store in August of last year. The retail brand has deployed the window in other stores across Europe this summer for a Wimbledon promotion.
For Richardson, attracting consumers to a store is all about relevance. He compares shopping to doing a Google search. Consumers pass the store windows; if it's relevant to them, they go in. If its not, they pass by.
"Interactivity makes the window relevant for each customer," Richardson said. "But store window design can be deceptively complicated. You can't slap a TV behind a store window and expect a good customer experience."
Richardson works as the managing director for Selling Machine Partners. He consults with companies that either use self-service or digital signage or are considering adding them to their business model. He said the consulting approach reduces the cost of these types of deployments because the applications are being developed within the company, rather than hiring several outside agencies for hardware, software, installation, etc.
"We help retailers use technology to build their brand. We analyze the company's needs, create a strategy, then execute it," Richardson said.
To date, he has managed more than 200 large technology deployments for customers such as Microsoft, Yahoo and the Special Olympics World Games.
Richardson believes that the best innovation is sparked by ideas and action. "We are constantly coming up with new ideas by rallying teams and asking ‘How do you make these digital signage applications work?" Richardson said.
"Alex has been a driving force in evangelizing the power of self-service to the marketplace," said Brian Ardinger, senior vice president and chief marketing officer of Nanonation. "Whether it's putting together marketing programs or speaking at industry events, he has given a lot of himself in the pursuit of communicating the benefits of self-service."
After graduating from Yale's School of Management, Alex worked in Congress with then-Rep. Christopher Dodd and at Ogilvy & Mather Advertising/New York, where he was introduced to interactive advertising.
After several other consulting positions Richardson founded Netkey, which now serves as an industry standard for deploying and managing large-scale self-service projects. He said the core mission was to "turn the monitor around," or let customers do check-outs themselves to cut wait times and improve experience.
Richardson was granted two patents on the Netkey software application, which modified a standard Internet browser to be retail and kiosk hardened. In addition to the patents, Richardson received the Frost & Sullivan Market Engineering Award in 2000 for outstanding contributions to the kiosk industry.
"At that time, people were trying to use Netscape as their kiosk Web browser, and it just wasn't working," Richardson said.
Richardson has served on the Advisory Board of the Self-Service & Kiosk Association for five years and is now serving in his second consecutive term as president of the Association.
"Alex's background in the self service industry and his reputation as a marketing genius have served him admirably as the president of the association," said Greg Swistak, director of the Custom Solutions Group for Elo Touchsystems and former executive director of the SSKA. "We are fortunate to have such a dynamic individual at the helm, and such a darn sharp dresser, too."
Richardson is married with a 10-year-old son. When not working he is an avid snow skier and is a member of the National Ski Patrol. He also spends a lot of time with his family.
After growing up on a farm in Virginia, he received a BA in physics and economics from Connecticut College and later earned an MBA in marketing and finance from Yale University.
The man who is out to "change the world of store windows," as he says, is already looking to the future. "I continue to ask myself ‘how do we attract that next generation of shoppers for our clients — that's what keeps me up at night."
