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4/1/2007
“From the beginning, we wanted glitz, color, and pizzazz,” he says, noting that it didn’t hurt to have a little help: State Street Bank has sponsored the displays and they’ve been appropriately dubbed the State Street News Center. Was the “glitz” worth the effort? “We are very satisfied with the results,” Solomon says.
With all of these recent developments in digital signage, it’s hard to predict what will happen next. Sure, companies like Rise Vision already have 100 or so customers in their stable, but there are still hundreds (if not thousands) of higher education institutions that do not currently make use of digital signage technology, yet could see great benefits from the investment. Ryan Cahon, president of Rise, estimates that the world is “only seeing the tip of the iceberg” in the digital signage market, and that by this time next year, LCD screens with messages and news programming will be even more prevalent on campuses everywhere.
From the perspective of the technologist, perhaps the only challenge to this growth is interoperability. CCSN’s Shah Ardalan says (with an eye to partnerships like the one between NEC and Cisco) it’s imperative that vendors figure out how to make their technologies talk to each other. Luckily, no digital signage technologies on the market today have presented this problem.
Down the road, however, says Ardalan, vendors must be even more careful to make sure it’s effortless for customers to get on board. “This technology isn’t worth it if it’s not easy to set up and easy to use,” he insists. “Anything too complicated, and schools might go back to using paper.”
::WEBEXTRA :: Another way to go paperless on campus: document imaging! :: Two more digital signage case studies: Morton College (IL) and Saint Joseph’s University (PA) :: Browse our solution center on Presentation and Display Technologies for the Campus Enterprise.
Matt Villano is senior contributing editor of this publication.
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Mary Jo Gorney-Moreno didn't start out in IT. She joined San Jose State University (CA) in 1981 as an assistant professor in the school of nursing. But somewhere along the way, she realized her energy was focused on academic technology, and how it could help a variety of learners gain knowledge.