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March 24, 2009
Now what?
We drafted an agreement with Four Winds that allowed us to install unlimited players (signs) and unlimited "content manager" installations within the pilot units.
This is when the actual hard work started - we had to make decisions about details.
First, we had to talk about the actual stuff that would be displayed on the devices. Who wants an interactive application, and what should it look like? What functionality should be in there? Do we try to prescribe a "look and feel" for the entire network, or let each group develop their own? Some of this was laid out in broad strokes within the project definition, but actually settling on these details is a complicated thing.
We had to begin preparing our individual communities for this deployment, too. For the most part, people are happy to let you do a bunch of work on their behalf, as long as you keep the progress transparent and appear to be on track to provide a high-quality product. Besides all of the tangible functionality, these systems will serve as a public "user interface" to the University as a whole - so it becomes a marketing tool, too. The devices need to say "leaders and best" before you read a word or touch a button. Who's going to create all this content? Who's going to vet the content? How and when do we train these people?
Third, our facilities needed to be prepared. Running conduit and cable is expensive. Hanging 42" touchpanels that weigh 125 pounds isn't trivial. Security, both physical and electronic, needed to be addressed.
I'll explore each of these topics in detail in the next few posts. These are the issues that have occupied us for the past six months or so, as we prepared ourselves to actually deploy this system.
Today, I got word that we actually ordered the first batch of touchpanels and the displays, as well as the mounting hardware, for the departments that don't have to do additional construction in order to deploy the product. Until this point the project's mostly been theoretical. I can't wait to get this stuff in!
Posted by dchase at March 24, 2009 05:00 PM