About Rotman School of Management
The Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto is redesigning business education for the 21st century with a curriculum based on Integrative Thinking. Located in the world’s most diverse city, the Rotman School fosters a new way to think that enables the design of creative business solutions. The Rotman School of Management is the #1 business school in Canada, ranked #1 in the world for intellectual capital, and consistently places in the global top 10 for faculty and research. It has over 1100 Canadian and international students participating in its MBA program annually and over 2,000 people (staff, professors, students, and guests) in and out of the schools two primary buildings on any given day. The school hosts over 100 events a year in its event spaces including book launches, panels, and speaker series on a wide range of topics.
The Scope
The Rotman School of Management recently doubled in size, expanding into a second building in 2012 with a $93 million dollar expansion. Prior to the construction their digital signage was comprised of 6 screens. With the expansion Rotman wanted to provide effective navigation in the campus buildings and also keep visitors informed of what was happening that day. They also wanted to update the technology in their original building as part of the project. Rotman had already invested in "vertical" directory signage so it was important to stay with that style as part of the project. Special consideration also needed to be given to the location of the signage, housing of the players and running of cables due to limited server room space and other infrastructure such as utilities and elevators.
The Solution
Currently, Rotman has 16 players running 27 screens across the campus using Omnivex Moxie. All of the screens are managed by the multimedia department, with content being created either by the marketing department or media team. "Omnivex Moxie provides a really robust platform to work off of. It enables me to efficiently create and manage a wide variety of content for our diverse departments," said David Whittington, Multi-media specialist at Rotman School of Management.
Several admin staff use Omnivex DataPipe to update the information on the signs. The screens are located in a number of different areas across the three buildings. There are 7 vertically mounted 46” monitors displaying a directory, as well a data driven SWF file which pulls data from Omnivex DataPipe regarding events. The screens are located in key areas like the main entrance, foyer and by the elevator. One of the entrances to the school has recently been upgraded to an 80” display. Areas such as the Career Centre, admissions office and executive area all have screens showing content customized to the space.
Rotman also has a video wall comprised of nine 60" monitors arranged in a box layout. Currently it runs a playlist of event advertising, video, and promotional material 5 days a week, 8 hours a day. The video wall sits directly in front of the school's event space. On days when events are being run the wall is scheduled to interrupt its current playlist and display an event image created by the marketing team. The video wall can display 9 different sources at once, including signage PC, live video feeds from the event space, multiple cable TV boxes, and laptop inputs.
A new addition to the Rotman digital signage network are the displays in the BMO Financial Trading Lab. The lab has a wall of 8 monitors, with each cluster of 4 monitors functioning as one screen. During non-class time they push cable TV to the left cluster and digital signage to the right cluster. The lab signage is also used to display real-time financial information such as the current price of gold, Canadian dollar, best and worst stock performers, and stock ticker. Rotman’s takes full advantage of the graphing features in Omnivex Moxie for several of their layouts.
The Results
The Rotman School of Management has received overwhelming support for their signage solution. Omnivex Moxie has helped the school improve building navigation and the communication of relevant information and events to building visitors. "The new digital signage around the school gives us a voice in the physical space and allows us to deliver relevant messaging at the time it’s needed the most,” said Eugene Grichko, Brand Experience and Engagement Specialist Marketing at Rotman School of Management.
Teams such as events have been able to increase visibility and advertising of their events. In the past the marketing team leveraged print media heavily and most of their signage was static images. With the digital signage they have been able to move into flash videos and are looking at adding live content such as twitter feeds on the media wall. “The Rotman Events Team organizes about 100 events annually. Throughout the year the digital signs in the Rotman School help keep our events in the minds of students, staff, faculty as well as visitors. Furthermore the digital event posters guide registrants while in the building,” said Jennifer Hildebrandt, Associate Director, Strategic Communications & Audience Development at Rotman School of Management.
The school is also looking at adding additional displays in the future and transitioning an existing touch screen directly to Omnivex Moxie to leverage its interactive wayfinding.
