Project Summary
Until recently, they did not have a very efficient way to communicate the menu to the students and building staff. “We would post a small 8″×10″ sign board on the wall in several spots, with the full week’s menu. The students would have to walk to the sign, check to see what was being served in each line and then go to that line. This caused crowding at the cashier stands and delays in the lines.”

What they needed was a better way to display the menus to the students to avoid crowding. Their solution to this problem was to hang a large digital menu board on the wall where all of the students could see the menus without blocking any of the busy lunchtime traffic. “We needed to convey the daily menu for each of the lunch lines, and we also wanted to be able to reach the students at the Senior High School in a ‘techie’ way that they could relate to.”

The Solution
The department selected Rise Display to supply them with everything that they required to implement their plan. “Rise had what we needed and it didn’t look too complicated to run or set up or change,” said Ms. Maas. “To piece together a solution by myself was just not feasible — time-wise, product-wise or content-wise.” The display solution that Rise provided to Wayzata High School included not only the large LCD screen itself, but also the user-friendly Display Wire software that lets Ms. Maas change the menus herself from day to day.

Results
“We are very pleased with both the sign and its content. The district maintenance staff installed the screens, the district electrician installed the Rise engine and the district carpenter built a box around each screen to match the wood in the rest of the building. The whole setup looks very sharp. One major advantage is that there are no visible buttons. We have received many compliments on the set up.”

And the Display Wire software they use to run the sign? “Once everything was up and running, it all ran smoothly. It has been great. It’s very easy to learn and maintain.”

According to Ms. Maas, their new LCD display is a huge hit with both staff and students. “The staff loved the high school signs. Now the kids don’t crowd around the cashier stands to look at the menus — they can look above the lines and tell very quickly what is being served on each line. Some start looking as they are coming down the hall.”

“And best of all, the kids are constantly commenting on how cool the signs are.”

Business schools aren’t the only educational institutions that are turning to digital signage to help them get their messages out. For example, New York City’s famous Juilliard School, the country’s pre-eminent performing arts academy, recently updated their campus communication strategy by installing large LCD screens in the central lobby of their main campus at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

A private performing liberal arts college, The Juilliard School has roughly 1,900 students in its college, pre- college, music advancement and evening divisions.

Project Summary

According to Tunde Giwa, the school’s chief technology officer, the decision to add digital signage to Juilliard’s main lobby came about as part of their Juilliard/Lincoln Center Redevelopment Project, an ambitious undertaking begun in 2007 that involves major renovations to more than 50,000 square feet of existing campus space, and adds an additional 39,200 square feet of new theatres, studios, classrooms, practice rooms and specialty spaces to the arts school’s expanding downtown premises.

“We wanted to add digital signage to our lobby as part of our redevelopment project,” Mr. Giwa explained. “We needed this to communicate to our internal and on-campus audiences about events, along with news and weather.”

After first trying a consultant’s recommendation, which called for a digital signage setup that Mr. Giwa characterized as “a very complex system,” the school sought out and contracted the services of Rise Display, mostly because they found Rise’s recommendations and software to be much easier to understand and use.

The Rise Solution

“This was our first foray into digital signage,” explained Mr. Giwa. “The system that a first consultant designed for us would have required a lot of people to have learnt a very complex software product, to allow us to design and schedule our digital signs. We did try to learn how to use it, but it was much too complicated.”

Simplicity then became one of the main requirements in their search for a better digital signage control system: “It had to be easy to use, and attractive.” Rise’s combination of high-end display hardware and web-based sign content management software — called Display Wire — fit the bill. In contrast to their confusion with the first consultant’s system, Mr. Giwa said, their experience with the Rise solution was much more rewarding. “Rise’s software was much easier to implement, and much easier to use. It’s a quality product.”

The Final Result

The performing arts school’s new digital signs opened to rave reviews on campus. “In general everyone likes the Rise system,” continued Mr. Giwa. “Users comment on how easy it is to use and members of the community seem to really like it. We’re very happy with it. Very satisfied.”

Founded in 1842, Villanova University is a coeducational Roman Catholic institution that welcomes students of all faiths. Villanova University is the oldest and largest Catholic university in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, with more than 6,300 undergraduates enrolled in a wide variety of degree programs. For more than a decade, Villanova University has been ranked #1 by US News and World Report in the Best Universities-Master’s category in the northern region.

With a reputation for high-tech leadership that earned it PC Magazine and Princeton Review’s recognition one of the top 20 “Most Wired Colleges in the Nation,” Villanova University was an early adopter of digital signage, having installed its first LCD display in the business school’s applied finance lab several years ago.

Project Summary

Now, as more and more schools are equipping their own trading labs with digital signage, Villanova is busy creating a networked, campus-wide information system. With 17 large screens already installed on campus, and approximately another 35 planned, Villanova’s digital signage network is expanding rapidly, a testament to its popularity on campus.

“We wanted to introduce a better method for disseminating information throughout the University,” explained Michael Hoffberg, Villanova’s associate director of media technologies. “We were looking for an elegant and affordable way to convey up-to-date information — events, special activities, schedules, emergency notifications and so on — to students, staff and faculty in an attractive, timely, and eye-catching manner.”

The Final Result

Rise’s Display Wire gives University administrators complete control over the composition and timing of all content. Distributing information via digital signage enables the University to limit paper postings and is intended to cut down on the volume of emails sent to the Villanova community. In addition to displaying information about campus events, schedules, and emergency notifications, Villanova also sells advertising to local merchants that accept the school’s Wildcard debit card.

All members of the Villanova community use the Wildcard identification card to enter and check out books from the library and use campus resources such as vending machines, dorm laundry facilities and the bookstore. The Wildcard can also be used as a debit card that is accepted at a growing number of off-campus vendors including retail stores, restaurants, and fast-food chains. The Wildcard office is now selling advertising to local merchants that accept the Wildcard.’

“In each of the buildings that we’ve equipped with Rise engines and software, our clients now have a method for displaying important, current information critical to the students, faculty and/or staff,” said Mr. Hoffberg. “Based upon their feedback, this method of distributing information via digital signage far exceeds previous use of paper postings. It has also cut down on the barrage of emails that’s sent each day to the Villanova community.

“The big ‘payoff’,” he continued, “is the effective dissemination of information. It’s an effective, low- maintenance system that did not impact heavily on our limited staffing resources. Many of the current signage users have expressed interest in adding more monitors to their systems.”

The College William & Mary might be the second oldest in the nation, but it is still a cutting-edge research university. The college is highly selective, but also public, offering a world-class education without the sticker shock.

The college is known as a “Public Ivy” — one of only eight in the nation. That means the college offers a superior education that’s accessible to everyone. Situated in Williamsburg and the amazing Commonwealth of Virginia, the college is proud to be one of the reasons for the economic success of their hometown.

Project Summary

John Merrick, an associate professor of business at The College of William & Mary’s Mason School of Business, has had a diverse career in both academics and Wall Street. That was why, when he first came to the college in 2005, he was asked to provide a vision for how the school’s then- new Acuff Financial Markets Center could be developed.

“I had had some experience teaching in a trading room,” says Professor Merrick, “and wanted a room that would serve as a financial market lab and, at the same time, and really foremost, as a superior, technology-enhanced lecture space. I think that’s the difference in our room versus other layouts that I’ve seen: It is first and foremost a lecture space.”

The Acuff Financial Markets Center now holds MBA classes in corporate finance and financial markets. In addition, it is where the school’s Career Acceleration Modules are held. To simulate a live markets environment, the room has nine Bloomberg terminals for students to share, as well as eleven state-of-the-art Samsung LCD displays.

“I knew that Rise Display was the premium provider of these displays because I saw how things had worked out at Baruch College, [where I formerly taught],” Professor Merrick explains. “I had also caught up with [Rise] at an academic conference … so I introduced them to our building team … to see if they agreed with the decision.”

They did, and the results of the installation, says Professor Merrick, have been phenomenal.

The Final Result

“In terms of teaching in that [room], what you end up with is a very exciting environment,” he says. “You’re getting [students] to work in an environment of routine visual distraction … where they have to learn how to absorb what’s coming in and only be attracted by the important stuff, rather than distracted by the changing displays. The second part of [the benefits],” Professor Merrick adds, “is being able to put data into our playlist that’s relevant for the topics we’re teaching that day.”

Among the information presented on the two video walls lining one side wall, and the two LCDs flanking the front of the room, are live TV feeds, stock and bond market graphs, foreign currency exchange rates, and historical stock and bond market graphs.

“Everybody loves [the digital displays],” says Professor Merrick. “Not only our students, but our alumni who come back, especially those who are connected to Wall Street, are incredibly impressed. Some of our alumni are a little bit jealous,” he adds with a laugh. “They wish they had had these facilities when they were here.”

Established in 1967, the University of Toronto Mississauga provides undergraduate and graduate studies and is the second largest division of the University of Toronto, Canada’s largest university. The university is set upon a park-like campus on the Credit River, approximately 33 kilometers west of Downtown Toronto.

The Hazel McCallion Academic Learning Centre, UTM’s library, is a central place for the students to meet and study. Tucked inside this library is the Li Koon Chun Finance Learning Centre, a new, state-of-the-art facility. Programming is provided on a variety of topics related to the stock markets and financial literacy for students, faculty, and staff of UTM. The Centre offers 32 computer stations and four Bloomberg terminals for student use and training purposes. In addition, the Centre is used as a unique classroom for students in the department of management.

Project Summary

“There are a couple of finance courses and an international business course held in the Centre,” explains Michael Meth, the Centre’s director. “The management program is one of our biggest supporters, but because of our location in the library, we reach a lot of people on our campus.”

Because of this reach, it was important to the University that the Centre offered cutting-edge communication solutions. That’s where Digitals Signs come in.

The Solution

The University of Toronto Mississauga selected an AV integration partner to provide the Sharp LCD screens for the room, and asked Rise to help define the rest of the digital signage solution along with the LED ticker. Rise worked closely with IT to build a media player that would support running a 2×1 video wall plus a separate single LCD screen from a server room nearly 1000 feet away. After the media player, Minicom distribution system and LED ticker hardware components were defined, the creative staff went to work designing the content to give a broad overview of the markets worldwide.

The Final Result

The LED ticker, and all three LCDs, were installed and running for the Fall 2008 ribbon-cutting to greet the room’s donor and the media. A wall of windows lets library patrons see the technology from all angles. “The digital signage lets us push through market news, North American Exchange stock quotes and index data, and a live video feed from the Business News Network,” Mr. Meth says.

Mr. Meth has also found an effective way of utilizing the ticker at night, when the stock market is closed but the library is still open. “We keep the closing prices running, but we also start running sports scores,” he says.

“I think people are pretty impressed by the digital signage,” says Mr. Meth. “People will often stand by the window and watch what’s going on the ticker and displays. Overall, they’ve been very favorably received.”

Hardware, software, live data, and installation for this project was provided by Rise Display

The Blake School is a private, college preparatory, coeducational school serving approximately 1,370 students in grades pre-K–12. It is often described as one of the most prestigious prep schools in the Midwest with alumni providing leadership in a number of fields including service, business, medicine, education, entertainment, politics.

The Blake School is spread across three campuses throughout the Minneapolis metropolitan area, making technology a crucial factor for staying connected with staff, students, and families.

Project Summary

Desiring to further improve internal communications, The school first began looking into digital signage in 2006.

“We had been looking at methods to provide more information to both students and parents on campus,” says Cathy McLane, director of marketing and communications. “It started with a desire to promote our programs but quickly built with every conversation.”

At the time, Ms. McLane says that she envisioned a television or computer monitor. But when she came in contact with Rise Display at a local trade show, she realized how much more digital signage could offer.

“When I saw the size, quality and programmability of digital signage, I thought, ‘Oh, my gosh — this is something we would like to look at with an eye to the future,’” Ms. McLane recalls.

The Solution

Several factors contributed to The Blake School opting to move forward with Rise Display. Most importantly was the vision for the school to eventually have multiple LCDs across all three campuses including at least three displays in the main lobbies and, ideally, several in areas such as the cafeteria and performing arts center. Without a large staff, the ability to manage multiple LCDs from one location would be important.

“We looked at several vendors in the Twin Cities,” Ms. McLane says. “Rise was the one and only subscription-based option. We also appreciated the automatic upgrades. Knowing that we could one-stop-shop with Rise was a big plus.”

The school worked closely with Rise Display’s creative team to customize the digital signage. The final display boasts four content areas: an automatic weather feed, a ticker that scrolls news for and about all grade levels, a calendar displaying campus-specific events, and a campus-specific news stream.

The Final Result

In the fall of 2009, a 46-inch Samsung LCD was installed in the newly renovated lobby of The Blake School’s Hopkins campus.

“The digital display is very welcoming because it’s dynamic,” says Ms. McLane. “Also, we are a school that really embraces technology, and the digital display better reflects this than a traditional monitor would have.”

Ms. McLane is currently the system’s primary programmer. “The content management system is very user-friendly, very easy to manage,” she says. “We had a very positive experience with the Rise creative team, and the training was excellent.”

Though The Blake School has no timeline as yet regarding additional displays, Ms. McLane says, “We’re set up. We know exactly what we need and how to do it. I really think this is a great product for schools,” she adds. “It may not make sense for everybody, but we’re just delighted with it.”

Copenhagen City Museum has this saturday (april 24^th) opened a public interactive digital signage “museum”, allowing the public to view, touch and interact with thousand of years of history. Using multitouch the user can surf a timeline and/or geographical map and zoom onto pictures, stories and video clips. You can even add your own recording, if you have knowledge or comments, which then can be viewed by the next visitors to “The Wall”.

It also plays role in one of Copenhagens largest archeological efforts, as the 8-year construction of a new Metro City Ring, hopefully will bring lots of new and exciting finds, which will be displayed on “The Wall”.

Software is being provided by Gibson (New Zealand), content by danish bureau Spil af Tid. Hardware and installation is provided by danish vendor Pro Shop Europe, consiting of 103 inch plasmas and using laser technology to achieve multi-touch on the large displays.

Bentley University is one of the nation’s leading business schools, dedicated to preparing a new kind of business leader and one with the deep technical skills, the broad global perspective and the high ethical standards required to make a difference in an ever-changing world. As one of the first business schools in the country to establish a trading room for its students, Bentley University has quite a reputation to maintain. That means (among other things) making sure that the 4,300 undergraduate and 1,200 graduate students have fast and reliable access to the information they need to manage their financial portfolios.

The University prides itself on preparing its students “for the new realities of doing business in an information-driven, technology-rich global marketplace” and advertises “firsthand experience with the same high-tech tools that companies use every day.”

Project Summary

According to Richard Gibble, manager of the University’s Hughey Center for Financial Services, turning to digital signage to get that data is a natural choice. “We needed large amounts of varied financial data in real-time, and our previous solution relied on out-of-date LED wallboard technology.” Mr. Gibble is responsible for integrating the trading room into Bentley University’s finance curriculum at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. He also develops and delivers content for the University’s nationally renowned ‘Wall Street 101’ program.

“The Hughey Center for Financial Services is a cornerstone of the Bentley University educational experience,” he explained, “and it is imperative that the Center be fully functional at all times. We can’t risk having inaccurate data— or no data at all — on our display boards. ”

Before the start of the fall 2008 semester the University decided to update their more than 10-year old LED wallboard technology with new state-of-the-art LCD video walls. Each video wall consists of eight 46″ LCD displays in a 4×2 configuration and is powered by a computer utilizing two Matrox 4 output video cards to run each display at its native resolution while allowing content to stream from screen to screen.

In addition to upgrading to the video walls, the outdated single-color LED tickers were upgraded to tri-color tickers. The graphic interface ability allows logos to be shown with the stock symbols.

During the spring 2010 semester, the University added two interactive LCD screens for their Corporate Immersion program to recognize their valuable donors and business partners.

The Final Result

“The new LCD video walls get the attention of everyone who passes by the trading room,” said Mr. Gibble. “They display real-time information to our students in a manner that allows them to synthesize news and the effects of the news on

various securities and markets, as the events unfold.”

Mr. Gibble says the University is happy with the final result. “We needed a fresh look and more dynamic control of the information presented on our displays. Feedback related to the displays has been very good.”

Hardware, software, live data, and installation for this project was provided by Rise Display.

Last Friday, here in Zurich, we had a pleasure of taking part in the Night of the Research (Ger. Die Nacht der Forschung). This is one of those special events when the future of world’s science “shows off”, i mean – present their work. On unusually warm autumn evening, the visitors had a chance to take a glance at many of the research results that scientists from ETH, Zurich University, and Alstom prepared for sometimes pretty amateur and non-informed audience.

For me, the amount of displays used at this event was breath-taking! Under 19 tents, I’ve counted at least 80 screens (and I got distracted on couple occasions with the content displaying on them – so there might have been even more!).

Among other interesting things I saw there, guys from computing sciences captured the most affinity from the audience. They presented the software which was showing the content from 4 PC on 4 screens, that were placed as a video wall.

Next impressive thing was interactive relief of Switzerland, with a touch screen and many special effects.

And a robot relly, which I didn’t catch on the video for the history – but I managed to take a video of this magic balancing machine, which can take up to 1.3N of pressure and not fall!

Anyway, the night was great, to see and feel the science one-on-one was also great – and the number of screens, strategically placed all around was even better! Thumbs up for this digital signage, ooops, science event!

The wall has become a showcase for student talents, broadcasting their content-based videos to the public. The entire project is 100% student driven. School administration is happy because it really shows off the school and the difference it is making with the students. The project is so successful, that the curriculum in the next school year will be driven by the video wall and digital signage applications. Executive Director of Technology at Coppell ISD is Chad Branum. He says the application is so successful it practically runs itself. “Once it was up and running – it just goes. We are very happy with the solution.”

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