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March 10, 2009
Getting Started: Summer 2007
It didn't take much Googling to realize that there was a large and growing group of companies building signage solutions - some with proprietary hardware, some that promised interactivity, some that looked great, some that looked terrible, some that didn't bother spell-checking, and some that didn't even have any images on their websites. In July, we decided to submit a Request for Information to as many suppliers as we could quickly collect addresses for. We wound up sending the following to about 40 companies.
The University of Michigan School of Dentistry seeks a comprehensive, robust, scalable, and state-of-the-art Digital Signage solution for rapid deployment to seven locations within the School, and for possible future deployment to additional locations. This communication is an informal request for information regarding your concern’s solution for such. You were selected via Internet search to participate in this request. The replies will be assessed and a Request for Proposal will be prepared. By replying to this request, you express interest in being considered as a bidder for this contract. Replying or failing to reply to this communication will not affect the final bid process.The timeline for your reply to this request is short. We require that the information requested below be provided by 12:00 noon EST on Thursday, July 12, 2007.
I. Required functionality.
Please provide a detailed description of how your solution will fulfill these requirements:It must be possible to utilize Internet- and Intranet-based RSS content.
The capability to provide different content to different displays is required.
Multimedia content of various formats (please provide a list of available formats) must be available.
The ability to divide the display into “panes” in order to simultaneously display diverse content is required. II. Additionally, please provide the following in your reply:
A detailed end-to-end description of the content delivery system.
Any available diagrams, white papers, case studies, and multimedia demonstrations.
Because of the nature of this deployment, it is impractical to run additional cable to each display. We do, however, have LAN-connected wireless access points at each location. Please provide a detailed description of a method in which to stream your solution’s signage content over the LAN and transmit it to the display locations wirelessly. III. Provide any additional information that may assist the School in selecting a Digital Signage solution, including functionality and advantages not explicitly mentioned in this Request, and suggestions regarding ways in which your solution could be used in research, graduate and postgraduate educational environments.
IV. If possible, provide a proposal for an on-site and/or Web-based demonstration of your solution.
It's pretty naïve, in retrospect. Doesn't even mention interactivity and wayfinding, which would later become centerpieces of the project. And at this point, we were just beginning to consider working with other campus facilities. In August, we started talking within Dental Informatics about presenting our thoughts about the benefits of interoperable, campus-wide digital signage to the campus IT community. We envisioned the two possible paths that signage solutions might take at the University:
1. Every department separately researches and buys a signage solution.
If we assume for the sake of argument that half of the facilities in Ann Arbor want digital signs, and that half of those wind up purchasing different products, that's over 100 installed signage systems on the Ann Arbor campus alone.
100 groups separately installing and configuring servers, separately researching what the best solution might be, separately learning separate software packages, separately deploying player PCs with different configurations. 100 siloed installations, with 100 separate sets of content that can't be shared, and 100 separate interfaces for Public Safety to implement for emergency messaging.
This prospect is pretty terrifying, especially from an IT pro's point of view.
But surely everyone doesn't need the same functionality!
This is probably the most compelling argument against collaborating on this project, so it was our job to find a solution flexible enough to fit as many sets of desires as possible. We had to keep in mind that everyone's needs are different.
2. Get a single (or very small number of) solution(s) for deployment across the entire campus.
This sounds kind of crazy too, at first, especially in a strongly decentralized environment, where every school and college has its own IT staff, and its own editorial board, and its own administration, who all have opinions about what "digital signs" are and should be. But in the interest of providing the greatest benefit to the community in the long run, it was well worth it to at least shoot for this type of outcome.
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Comments and conversation are encouraged!
Thanks for visiting and check back often. (There's a "syndicate this site" link around here somewhere, too.)
Interested in participating? Need digital signs in your facility? Have specific questions? Post a comment here or contact the author.
Posted by dchase at March 10, 2009 03:25 PM