The story has been told so often that it’s attached to Bradley Walker like one of his favorite bow-ties.
He went into a cybercafé in Eugene, Ore., in the late 90s and was struck by the utter lack of ingenuity. There were no directions for how to use the PCs, and the clerk wrote down his name and starting time on a piece of paper. Walker instinctively knew more was possible, that the computer itself should handle those tasks. And he began to see how he could create a company to help harness that technology to enhance customer experiences.
Not long after, Walker, 42, helped launch Nanonation in his hometown of Lincoln, Neb. A short decade and just more than 50 employees later, the company is considered a leading software-development firm in the digital signage and self-service industries, and Walker is its iconic face — and recent inductee into the Self-Service and Kiosk Association Hall of Fame.
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Nanonation's Bradley Walker receives his Hall of Fame award from David Drain, executive director of SSKA, at KioskCom in May. |
Walker says he is humbled by the honor, which requires nomination by a past recipient or member of the association’s advisory board. He also was surprised: Nanonation’s staff knew Walker planned to attend the KioskCom Self Service Expo and The Digital Signage Show in Las Vegas, where the awards were presented, so there was no reason to tell him about the nomination in advance.
“This is a great industry, and there are a ton of people who’ve made it their careers,” he said. “To be honored in a relatively short period is a big privilege.”
Walker, part of his family’s fifth generation in Lincoln, earned his undergraduate degree in speech communication at the University of Nebraska then went to work for the state’s department of labor as an economic research analyst. He knew early on that it wasn’t his future, but he was struck by how data and business rules could be applied to computers.
In 1989, he joined Healthcare Communications, which provided computer systems for small healthcare clinics. Six years later, after the company spurned his efforts to buy it, he started Unident, which did the same sort of work on the dental side. That company merged with Infocure, which spun off separate companies — Practice Works and Vital Works — to service doctors and dentists. The enterprise was eventually acquired by Kodak.
As Walker’s involvement wound down, he turned his sights to Nanonation, which he’d formed in 1998. “We began our R&D while we were going through the roll-up, and 90 days after the sale of Unident, we turned Nanonation on,” he said.
Walker attributes Nanonation’s success to understanding its niche. The company sits near the point where hardware and software meet: “Our premise is that companies use computers in a variety of ways,” he said, “whether it’s a kiosk or a desktop or a digital sign. It’s all really the same thing — a single-purpose computer platform that delivers a customer experience.”
Big-name clients include Harley-Davidson, Royal Caribbean cruise lines and Alamo Rent A Car. Nanonation recently developed a system for Royal Caribbean’s new luxury ship, the Solstice (part of the company’s Celebrity division), which uses one central point to control and link the myriad screens on-board. Walker said the deal, three years in the making, was particularly gratifying because of the client’s willingness to push the envelope of innovation.
The Alamo connection illustrates Nanonation’s aplomb, said Francie Mendelsohn, president of industry consultancy Summit Research Associates Inc. Alamo had an in-house check-in system that was simply disastrous, she said, and eventually turned to Nanonation. The company delivered a new system that works beautifully.
Mendelsohn said Walker is a worthy hall-of-fame inductee.
“He really put (Nanonation) on the map,” she said. “They produce really good work. They’ve got a really good team; Bradley surrounds himself with good people. And without sounding too corny, he is a really good guy. He is a businessman, but also caring. He is the kind of guy who, if you shake hands with him, you don’t have to count your fingers when you get your hand back.”
Walker still loves the challenge of product development and said he doesn’t see himself going anywhere for quite some time. He laughs now at how some people thought the Internet was a passing fad in 1998 and says he’s amazed at how it’s grown. He’s also stopped speculating about the future of technology, though he did say electronic medical records are long overdue.
His hardest lesson in business: “You can be absolutely wrong about your decisions, primarily as it relates to people. Anyone can make a wrong call. You have to be OK with that.”
For fun, Walker enjoys reading about military history and playing golf, though with two young children, he finds Frisbee golf more suitable to his schedule. He and wife Kimberley, a senior scientist for the Gallup polling organization, have a 10-year-old daughter, Cecilia, and a 6-year-old son, Raef.
He also enjoys being known for his signature sartorial touch: the bow-tie. He has 60 or 70, he said, and though they can be hard to find, he receives many as gifts. His father taught him to tie one when he was five, and he was hooked. He still wears a suit to work at least three days a week, always with the bow-tie that he said is easier to tie than it looks. “It’s a shoelace — two loops and pull them tight.”
