The interactivity with information is becoming ever more prevalent, with the average American spending 44 years of their life staring at a screen. With screens providing information at our finger tips we as a society have trained ourselves over the last 10 plus years that this is the way we’re meant to interact and receive information. With the pandemic speeding this up, many are looking to bring the digital interactions into their store fronts to make our experiences seamless. We meet up with Gene Halsey of Micro Touch as he shares with us his 26 years in the touchscreen industry and what he sees for the future of Cannabis.
Video Transcription
Harry Brelsford 0:07
Hey 420MSP. We’re diving deeper into the cannabis vertical and meeting a lot of interesting organizations. I’m with Gene Halsey, from Micro Touch. Gene, introduce yourself introduce Micro touch. How you doing?
Gene Halsey 0:21
Very good. Thank you for a Monday. Yeah, pleasure to be here, Gene Halsey. I’m the Vice President and a product and business development for Micro touch. I’ve been in the touchscreen industry for a long, long time, about 26 years now. I’ve seen the the touchscreen industry evolve over the years. And as we’ve migrated down to the cannabis industry, I think there’s a lot of interesting things that touch can bring to this conversation. So thanks for having me
Harry Brelsford 0:47
Yeah, no, absolutely. So let’s just play What’s your story? I mean, what are you hearing? What are you seeing? How do you how do you play in the cannabis space?
Gene Halsey 0:57
Sure, thanks. As far as we’re what we’re seeing, right? The the interactivity, the interactivity with information is becoming ever more prevalent, right, we’ve we’ve trained ourselves over the last 10 plus years, with our handheld devices and our digital screens that we carry around with ourselves every day, that that’s the way that we’re meant to interact with them with information. Right, so as we move into the cannabis space, that same information needs to be there at the consumers ready, right. And the way that they’re used to seeing that is in a format that they interact with, with their fingers, right, that that behaves the same way the devices that they use everyday do. So we keep pushing that forward, whether that be at the point of sale, space, whether that be at the point of information, whether that be back at the grower, right and controlling the actual growing environment in a way, all of our digital information today needs to be packaged in such a way that it’s very easy for the person that’s interacting with the to understand, right, all of our students that have come out of of high school have come out of trade schools that come out of university, this is the methodology touches the methodology that they’re used to interacting with information with and we need to present it in such a way that it’s it’s very simple for the user to use. And that’s what Micro ouch is all about. How do we make that interaction as simple as it possibly can be?
Harry Brelsford 2:22
You know, I concur. And here’s why there’s a little bit broader conversation, forgive me. But back when the sound speakers first hit, and you know, there were selling at high rates, and I’m sure they’re still selling, I’m looking at one over to the left, that I won’t name. But the I really got into this four or five years ago, some some time ago. But I really got into the business side of sound speakers, right that you would be maybe interacting with your accounting system. Now clearly, you can make purchases with your voice. But Jean, it just, you know, the word, sometimes there’s a solution that’s out there that there’s not a problem versus touch. Here’s why I’m does. I don’t order from my sound speaker, right? I mean, that’s the story. Touch I’ve really come to adore, especially in the pandemic, I’ve worked very hard to keep it safe and healthy. And I really like it with with whatever transaction. So
Gene Halsey 3:25
I couldn’t I could not agree more. I think those other technologies like voice will pick on voice for a second, I think voice is a very good ancillary technology, support technology. Right? I mean, look at our phones, right? All of the whatever voice assistant you use on your phone is not the primary means that you use, right, yeah, it’s it’s supplemental, and I think voice has a place, right. But it’s not that primary interface touches the primary interface. It’s the way it’s a natural way to interact. You see those videos of of infants and toddlers picking up their parents iPad, they just intuitively know what to do. Right? So whether we’re a software vendor or hardware vendor, or someone playing in this space, it’s up to us to provide that same methodology to make it seamless for the consumer. Right? Yeah, that’s what this is all about. How do we make transactions faster, more profitable, less prone to error easier, all of those different things? And Micro Touch strives to kind of bring that all together.
Harry Brelsford 4:27
Yeah. Yeah. And once again, safer. I’ve just felt really good about, you know, kind of being a little ways away and tripping and signing and what have you, but hey, last couple questions would relate to you, you participate up the supply chain. So that’s very interesting to me. Coming into this call, I would have thought you’re just sort of down at the retail level, the end of the supply chain, but you’re talking about information gathering any quick hitters on how that might be on a manufacturing floor or at a grocery
Gene Halsey 5:01
Sure, again, it comes down to the user experience, it comes down to the control of the data that you want to have there, right? If I’m a grower, and I’ve got a machine control there, I need to present all that information on how, what the best conditions are, right, I don’t need to do that in a way that’s very cumbersome or hard to use, I want to do it in a very simplistic methodology, again, that the user or the operator that’s running that that machine can interact with, right, so our goal is to bring that iPhone like experience to any interaction with information wherever that may be, right at controlling a machine at purchase, you know, at point of information, whatever that is, I need to make that as seamless and trouble free as possible. And make it as naturally intuitive. For the person using it. I don’t do this software, right, I do the hardware, but I make that hardware sing so that the guy that is writing the software can really make this the best possible user experience they can have.
Harry Brelsford 6:03
Yeah, and then finally, I’m looking at your site so I love that you’re a member of the rspa the retail solution provider Association because they have a very active cannabis. What we used to call special interest group it’s called the cannabis community. In fact, it’s just in a couple days will be the the monthly meeting. And then it also looks like you’re participating in events big assumption, assuming events are allowed to happen. But it looks like you embrace events is that is that fair trade association event sets that’s a good marketing motion.
Gene Halsey 6:38
Absolutely. And and you’ll continue to see Micro Touch in a lot of different places, right? We want to get out there we want to evangelize this message I appreciate yourself and others giving us the opportunity to do that we want again, it’s it’s about user experience, the best way to to experience our hardware is to touch it, play with it, feel it right make sure that it does load your software on it, test it and make sure it does the kind of things that you want it to do because we’re very confident that when people get a chance to really drive that experience home, they’re going to say this is what I need for my business. This is what I need for my store we’ve had those success stories we want to see more of it we’re excited about what micro touch has to offer and like I say for these chances to evangelize through throughout lives like yourself All right,
Harry Brelsford 7:25
well Gene Keep up the good work. Thank you.
Gene Halsey 7:27
Thank you. Thank you.
