At the dinner table the other night, nine-year-old Erick looked at me, twisted his face and whined, "Can you tell me why we have to study history in school? I mean -- what possible good does it do to learn about all that old stuff?"
I felt for him. Remember those days? The school days when history teachers taught only dates and dead guys?
For me, history didn't become interesting until high school. That's when I learned (and not from a schoolbook) that Benjamin Franklin was a womanizer. I also liked the story alleging that Sam Houston, the honored Texas general, marched his troops all night to surprise attack Santa Anna, Mexico's general of Alamo fame.
Tradition has it that Santa Anna, another womanizer, had camped his army alongside the San Jacinto River so he could romance a Native American hottie. Houston -- who wasn't at the Alamo (he saw it as indefensible) -- marched his troops through the night and caught Santa Anna's army at dawn. Santa Anna, the story goes, was rousted in his pajamas.
I gave Erick a watered-down version of these and a couple of other stories, then repeated the classic axiom: "Those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it." He liked the stories, but I learned that the history-repeating hypothesis is difficult for a kid.
As it was for the buggy-whip guys in 1908, the radio-tube guys in 1963 and the brush-lettering guys in 1983. However, some forward-facing buggy-whip makers did find jobs at Ford, and some radio guys did learn transistor technology, and, as you well know, thousands of handlettering shops transitioned to computer graphics.
Still, it's hard to face forward and really see the future coming. The first obstacle lies in human nature itself -- we enjoy being comfortable -- and the second is that reading the future is akin to looking up at a pepper shaker.
One can begin with the automotive industry because of its size, scope and competitive need to constantly reduce operational expenses. Unfortunately, finding business-related auto information isn't easy, because most auto-related reports regard the cars, not the manufacturer's business or fabrication practices. Nevertheless, in business and manufacturing innovations, the automotive industry has led this country -- and the world -- for the past 100 years.
Ford initiated assembly-line fabrication; the Japanese initiated robotics, and you'll certainly remember that GM, Ford and DaimlerChrysler joined forces to initiate Covisint, the first grand-scale business-to-business, Internet-linked purchasing system.
In the sign industry, the preponderant new technology, today, is in electronic digital signage (EDS) systems: LED, OLED, LCD, CRT, plasma, e-ink, digital-ink and projection systems, but the signs themselves are only a small part of the opportunity.
For example, in January, ST's "Moving Message" columnist, Bob Klausmeier, wrote about Lamar Outdoor Advertising's LED billboard, the Smartboard, an EDS sign similar in concept to LED screens you've seen for years in sports stadiums and Las Vegas spectaculars. Bob referenced a Cincinnati-based LED-screened billboard that stands alongside southbound Interstate 71. Lamar Outdoor has similar boards in Pittsburgh, Baton Rouge, Los Angeles and Las Vegas.
Bob wrote, "For all locations, the Lamar ads are programmed through the company's wholly owned, Baton Rouge-based Lamar Graphics Div."
In other words, Lamar's customer is forwarding its billboard artwork by e-mail, and Lamar is feeding it into the electronic board through a common telephone modem. Five years ago, this was rocket science.
There's more. Did you read Shannon Reinert's feature on Purchase, NY-based ANC Sports Enterprises (see ST, January 2003, p.88)? ANC produces both rotational and LED signage systems for sports and entertainment facilities, worldwide. This company, Shannon reports, working with Mediapolis Inc. (New York City), created a Web-linked extranet so its clients can access a private directory to view their artwork, specifications, timesheets and signage schedules. The result, after upgrades, allows ANC clients to send files, receive immediate notification, set up individual profiles and receive online profiles. Also, clients can monitor projects from inception to completion.
It isn't just LEDs. In last month's "ST Update" (page 6), Sean O'Leary reported on the Magink/Mitsubishi digital-ink billboard. This unit is presently available in 10 * 20-ft. sizes. Mitsubishi licenses color digital-ink technology developed by Israel-based Magink Display Technologies Inc. To quote Sean: "Rather than crank up the grand-format inkjet machine, you only need a 200KB JPEG file as artwork to display an image on this billboard. Rather than dispatching a crew and crane with a new vinyl-graphic wrap, you can refresh the image by simply clicking on 'Send.'"
In the "Fashion Show" article I wrote last month (page 78), I detailed the LED systems devised by Barco Media (Kennesaw, GA) and software drivers created by New York City-based R/GA Media Group. In researching this story, I found it difficult to obtain information on a dozen or so 61-in. plasma screens installed in the shopping center because, once the R/GA-linked telephone-type connecting lines were in place, installing the plasma screens was no more troublesome than hooking up a home television. In fact, unskilled workmen accomplished the task.
There's not much more to LED installations, except handling the size and weight of larger mechanisms, once the software and wiring work is complete.
Karl Boldt, of Visioneered Image Systems (Lake Forest, CA), says his company can install its "electronic vinyl" changeable systems over a billboard frame in less than a day (by attaching adapter brackets to the upright frame, then hanging the sign).
The New York Times, on December 12, reported on AdSpace Network's (Burlingame, CA) Coolsigns plasma screens, which are found, according to the company, in more than 1,000 locations. It also discussed the Regal Entertainment Group (Knoxville, TN), a movie chain, that's working to build a digital network that links flat-panel lobby displays and, someday, will become a digital electronic system for transmitting feature films to theatres. Regal's theatre circuit, comprising Regal Cinemas, United Artists Theatres and Edwards Theatres, operates 5,663 screens in 524 locations across 36 states.
Cox News Service recently reported on an LED billboard that stands over the Long Island entrance to New York city's Queens Midtown tunnel. Adspace developed the 165-ft.-high sign that is owned by FreshDirect, an online grocer. It's visible for two miles.
Tune next to Thinking Pictures, the New York City-based creator of the ThinkPix Smart Display that offers thinking, talking and acting flat-panel movie posters. It also captures information on how many people approached the poster, how closely they stood and how long they stayed. The plan for ThinkPix is to capture demographic information, from coded cards the patrons carry, in exchange for movie discounts.
The message here is that you don't need rocket scientists to install EDS systems -- but you do need them to design and run the software systems. You need them even more to create and implement the programs, meaning the images that appear on the screen.
I asked the Outdoor Advertising Assn. of America's (OAAA's), Washington, D.C., chief marketing officer, Steven Freitas, about the LED billboards. He sees LED billboards in the future, but not as a strong competitor to today's digitally printed billboards. For a few years, anyway.
Steve and others, however, are paying attention to Tom Langeland's 10 billboards spaced along northern California's freeways. Langeland's company, Alaris Media Network (Sacramento, CA), designs and installs car-radio sampling "billboards" that change messages as they analyze the prevalently tuned radio stations in approaching cars.
For example, the boards may present Budweiser ads to an approaching pack of country-western listeners, or Lexus ads if Mozart rules the majority.
The listening system, built by MobilTrak (Chandler, AZ), detects radiation leakage emitted from a car's radio -- it tells the receiver which station is being heard.
A third firm, The Media Audit (Houston), works with Alaris to instantly provide marketing data on passing drivers. The San Francisco Chronicle says each (radio) station has a typical listener profile derived from detailed consumer surveys, and The Media Audit has these profiles in its databank.
Back to the Mitsubishi Magink system. Steve has a high interest in this system, because, he says, it's possible to encode these boards to receive radio-frequency signals that measure the viewing audience. Verifying the viewing audience establishes a per-billboard demographic and thereby justifies and influences the rate a customer will pay for the exposure. He doesn't believe EDS signage will hurt digital printers in the near future, but he sees a growth curve of, say, 10 years.
"At first," he says, "we'll see activity in smaller, specialized signs." Such as the Alaris billboards, which are smaller than the 30- or eight-sheet billboard-type posters, and more in the (varying) bulletin class of outdoor display.
Where do you think the money is in these systems?
Sean answers this question in last month's "Digital Sign
Technology" column (page 50). Of EDS, he says, "The content
may be a moving-test message, a chronological succession of static
images, or an animation or full-motion audiovisual, but someone needs
to create, administer and otherwise assume responsibility on an
ongoing basis. This reality simultaneously represents the greatest
challenge and the greatest opportunity for incipient vendors of
digital signage."
