via Holiday Inn ‘Green’ Signage Yields $4.4M Savings Annually · Environmental Leader · Green Business, Sustainable Business, and Green Strategy News for Corporate Sustainability Executives.

In the 1890′s many business people thought the telephone was a passing fancy… until everybody got one. Same with the fax in the 1980′s and email in the 1990′s. Its all about meeting the customer’s expectations. Unfortunately, you cannot change the expectation of an entire society, especially if you are trying to cling to the past.

Part of running a business is doing what works. The other part, the leadership part, is anticipating what will work in the future and preparing for those opportunities.

If anyone out there thinks putting your head in the sand is a good option, I’ve got a long line of your competitors waiting to kick your butt while your head is buried.

Things are changing, whether you like it or not. Conspicuous consumption is tacky. If clients notice you aren’t recycling, or making any attempt to be more efficient, they tend to wonder if you are up-to-date in any of your business affairs. They may even question themselves “Why am I still doing business with this troglodyte?”

The article below talks about ways some of the bigger, slower companies are finally getting around to “greening” their meetings. However, you will note, they are still throwing food away while people in town go hungry.

“This is becoming a standard,” said Allyson Wagner, project manager for event management firm Meeting Consultants Inc., which worked closely with IBM, the host property and other suppliers to incorporate environmentally friendly practices at the 5,000-attendee Information on Demand event. “It’s something that clients expect now. They’re starting to look for this in their RFPs. If it’s not already there, they’re adding it in. They’re expecting not only venues but their other vendor partners to bring something to the table.”

via Research: More Meetings Cutting Paper, Energy, Wasted F&B.

“This is a critical phase in the evolution of the business. We’ll see acceleration, but there are still issues out there including fragmentation, scalability and measurement.”

Growing pains aside, DOOH continues to capture a larger share of the out-of-home market, accounting for 34 percent in 2009, up 13.9 percentage points from 2004. DOOH is forecast to gain another 7.5 points by 2014, expanding to 41.5 percent of the OOH market.

via DOOH Forecast Dims.

If they can beam dynamic, digital video data to the surface of your eyes, there are going to be advertisers willing to pay for THAT space. I’m telling you, no place is sacred anymore. Signs, signs, everywhere a sign. So, what do you do? Fight the future? Embrace change? Pursue happiness? Rock & Roll! Happy Friday …

“A contact lens that harvests radio waves to power an LED is paving the way for a new kind of display. The lens is a prototype of a device that could display information beamed from a mobile device.”
‘Our hope is to create images that effectively float in front of the user perhaps 50 cm to 1 m away,’ says Parviz.

“Future versions will be able to harvest power from a user’s cell phone, perhaps as it beams information to the lens. They will also have more pixels and an array of microlenses to focus the image so that it appears suspended in front of the wearer’s eyes.”

“Despite the limited space available, each component can be integrated into the lens without obscuring the wearer’s view, the researchers claim. As to what kinds of images can be viewed on this screen, the possibilities seem endless. Examples include subtitles when conversing with a foreign-language speaker, directions in unfamiliar territory and captioned photographs. The lens could also serve as a head-up display for pilots or gamers.”

Contact lenses to get built-in virtual graphics – tech – 12 November 2009 – New Scientist.

Remember this? >> Tesla \”Signs\”

His proposal, Better Bikeways, calls for a simple, cost-effective overhaul of bikeway signage instead of the pricer options of paving new routes or marking dedicated lanes on the streets.

Read the full story @ Designerati | Fast Company

More good news from the signmakers and people who hang out with them!

In that distance one can find an internationally known casino, gleaming new buildings, shuttered old ones, historic sites, pawn shops, high- and low-end bars, two no-frills nude dancing joints and enough neon to read the sports pages at midnight.

And now it’s a National Scenic Byway.

The designation, reserved for roads with historic, cultural or scenic significance, was bestowed Friday, capping off a nine-year effort to join the program. The Strip south of Sahara Avenue was already a designated byway.

In naming the road to the byways program, the Federal Highway Administration noted its importance in Las Vegas’ development and the vintage neon on hotels and wedding chapels that makes the boulevard one of the more unique U.S. streets.

There soon will be more of that neon. Rep. Shelley Berkley’s office has announced a $300,000 grant to pay for restoring two more signs from the Neon Museum.

Three other signs were recently restored and put on display in the median of Las Vegas Boulevard north of Bonanza.

“Neon is to Las Vegas what skyscrapers are to Manhattan,” said Berkley, D-Nev. “These signs along Las Vegas Boulevard enchant visitors and locals alike, and each tells the story of our past in its own way.”

Eventually, restored signs will decorate the median all the way to Sahara.

The byway designation doesn’t impose new requirements on properties along the route, according to a city spokeswoman. It’s expected to make Las Vegas’ grant applications for work in the corridor more competitive.

The city has imposed its own rules, however, saying that new signs must have at least 75 percent exposed neon or animation.

There’s more to the byway designation than neon.

The old Mormon Fort sits at Las Vegas Boulevard and Washington. Originally built in 1855, it was the first permanent non-native settlement in the valley. It’s now a state park.

Farther south is the Fifth Street School, which opened as the Las Vegas Grammar School in 1936 to serve a population that was growing because of Hoover Dam’s construction. It was restored and reopened last year, and is now used for office and meeting space.

And there’s Wee Kirk O’ The Heather wedding chapel at Bridger Avenue that has been open since 1940 and served as a minister’s house for 15 years before that.

Chapel manager Michael Lambermont said Las Vegas Boulevard is different from most scenic byways, but it deserves its place among them.

“It’s a little obscure, but it’s part of the new American arcana,” he said.

There’s new stuff too, such as the striking federal courthouse just across the street from Lambermont’s chapel.

There’s also plenty of evidence of tough times: vacant lots, empty storefronts, homeless people passing the time.

This stretch of road offers Las Vegas in microcosm, including half-realized high-rise condo dreams, the glitz of the city’s temptations and the pawn shops some turn to when ends don’t quite meet.

And, because it’s Vegas, you’ll find young women doing what they can to make the route more scenic.

Talk of the Town, a combination strip club and adult video retailer, has swings and a mechanical bull in the parking lot that female employees use to draw attention.

A few blocks down, Showgirl Video has gotten into the act too, with scantily attired women standing out front to advertise its nude dancing booths.

One of those dancers, who goes by the name Georgia Peach, declared that Las Vegas Boulevard deserves the designation.

“Of course!” she said when asked whether Las Vegas Boulevard is scenic. “It’s lots of fun.

“We have (us). We have all the chapels and the hotels. I love it.”

Contact reporter Alan Choate at achoate@reviewjournal.com or 702-229-6435.

via The Scenic Strip – News – ReviewJournal.com.