Section 5: Content Management for Digital Signage
Visit Us At The Supply Management Tradeshow – April 21st!
If you would like to see some digital signs in action, come on down to the Supply Management Tradeshow on April 21st from 10am to 4pm at War Memorial Gym.
We’ll have some live signage, demos of the CoolSign software, and team members there to answer all of your questions.
Check Out The Client Directory
As we onboard new clients we’ll add them to our Client Directory. This is meant to be a place to allow other signage managers to connect with their peers across campus and for UBC community members to navigate our nebulous structure to find the right person to contact if they have messages that might be appropriate for campus digital signage.
Service Launch – April 1st, 2011
We’re excited to announce that the Digital Signage service will be officially launched on April 1st, 2011 (after 12pm, no joke). We are now ready to start on-boarding new users. To sign-up for Digital Signage please head over to the IT Service Catalogue. To learn more about the service, please see our about page.
The Search for Content, Part 3
Another source of great content has been student photography. From the start of January 2011 we’ve had pictures from two student photogs – Rabi Sun and Tim Blonk. (Photo Credit: Rabi Sun (Top Left, Top Right, Bottom Middle), Tim Blonk (Top Middle, Bottom Left, Bottom Right))
Here are a few words from Tim on why he’s into photography:
“For me photography is all about freezing the present and defining a moment in space and time. When that satisfying ‘click’ of the shutter is heard, I know that no one else will ever be able to make that exact same picture.
Since I was 8 years old I always wanted to get my hands on my parent’s camera, though they rarely allowed me to even come within a metre of it. Three years ago I bought a point-and-shoot camera, and in February of 2010 I decided it was time to upgrade to a DSLR. It opened a whole new world to me, and within a couple weeks I had watched hundreds of ‘how-to’ YouTube videos all about photography.
Today I am a photography-addict and there is no changing that. There is so much to learn about photography and there are so many things to try out, making it a truly infinite hobby. I hope to start a project soon in which I can sell my own pictures and donate part of the returns to charity. Photography allows me to express my experiences and ideas in the form of 10MB .JPG files.”
-Tim Blonk
The Search for Content, Part 2
On Tuesday, December 21, 2010 we played a full length film, Time Being, by UBC Film Production Associate Professor Chris Gallagher. The film started at 4:16pm and played 1-minute clips for an hour. Here’s an excerpt from the promotion of this special winter solstice screening.
The obliquity of the ecliptic, a 23.5 degree axial tilt of our planet, is the anomaly that gives us our seasons. This tilt positions the North Pole farthest from the sun on December 21 at 23:38 this year and produces the shortest period of daylight for the year.
At sunset (4:16) on that day, Chris Gallagher will screen a silent one hour version of Time Being on the outdoor digital screen at UBC’s intersection of University and Wesbrook Blvd.
This winter solstice version of the film presents sixty one-minute images of time, many of which are summer images at the official beginning of winter as a kind of optimistic celebration of the fact that the following day will have one second more daylight than the previous day, seven seconds more for the next, 13 seconds more for the next etc. So on the first day of winter things start to move toward summer, no wonder it is difficult to experience the present.
Playing a full length film is a new way that we can utilize digital signage – in this case it was as an art installation. We often think of spaces on campus as having a multi-use aspect to them, I think it’s great to think of digital signage in the same way.
Here’s the trailer for the film:
Time Being (Trailer) from Chris Gallagher on Vimeo.
-Jamil Rhajiak
The Search for Content, Part 1
Collectively, the Digital Signage team recognizes that the quality, variety, and interestingness of content that appears on displays will be what determines wether they attract attention, or are ignored as background noise. Of course, we want to see each display have a connection with its environment and the people who work, live, and study in those spaces.
As we move forward with the project we want to work with the UBC community to generate and try new types of content. In this series of posts I’ll share the different things that we’re trying out.
Connecting with the revitalized UBC Film Production Program.
Over the past few months I’ve had some really good interactions with UBC Film Production Associate Professor, Chris Gallagher around some ideas for the large outdoor sign at University Boulevard and Wesbrook Mall. Specifically, we thought that it would be really great to involve the students in his FIPR 233 class and some of their project work.
We ended up adapting around 10, 1 minute pieces from an assignment to create a 1 minute short film. Some of the pieces didn’t quite work without audio, but the students were pretty accepting of the limitations that the large outdoor sign poses. I had a chance to visit the class and the students were really happy to learn that their work would be showcased in such a prominent way – what was more exciting was heading out to the sign in the evening after I had visited the class to see a few of the students watching the clips. I distinctly remember one student on the phone with his friends, urging them to come check out his piece…that’s some really encouraging stuff to hear.
The videos played for the entire month of November. They were interspersed between our regular content at the top 15 minutes of each hour. This was done to avoid inundating passers by with non-stop video content as well as to see the “shelf-life” of the content extended.
Overall, I feel that this experiment with using students’ for-credit assignments was a success. Not only did we have more interesting content displayed at a major traffic hub on campus, we also bridged a gap between the operational and academic sides of the University. We also engaged students in a way that really enriches both their experience at UBC (normally these clips would only be marked – not showcased in this manner) and adds to the community at large (yes, i’ve been brushing up on Place & Promise).
Stay tuned…there’s more to come about our partnership with Chris and the Theatre & Film Dept.
Sincerely,
Jamil
Signage Showcase: The Centre for Student Involvement
The Centre for Student Involvement (CSI) is new space located in the main concourse of Brock Hall. The space itself is dedicated to supporting the many students who are working hard to improve the student experience here at the Vancouver campus.
The digital sign installed in the lounge area provides information to everyone who comes through Brock Hall. It’s a place where student groups can have the messages about their programs and events shared with a large audience. The sign also plays the content from the GSAB sign as well as a dynamic Twitter feed of the CSI’s Twitter account (@UBC_CSI).
Feel free to swing by Brock Hall and check out the installation (performed by UBC Media Group) – If you want to learn more about it, just email me, Jamil Rhajiak (jamil[dot]rhajiak[at]ubc[dot]ca), and ask for a quick demo of how the sign works. While at the CSI you can also ask for a quick tour of the space from the front desk staff member – it’s a really wonderful space!
-Jamil