Michael suggests, in response to Dave, that the tools of information
storage and presentation may be categorized on the basis of their
purpose, and that some may be better than others.
In our experience that is a very true statement. We firmly believe that
there are instances where large wall displays are indispensible to
effective dialog. Still, since nobody has patented or copyrighted large
wall displays (to my knowledge), they are less widely-promoted than
hardware that lends itself to corporate profitability.
It is too bad that more people don't adopt Michael's viewpoint and ask the
question as to what kinds of issues require what kinds of displays, and
look outside the corporate catalog now and then for solutions that really
are congruent with the requirements.
P. S. A good source of thought on this is Harold Lasswell's writings on
what he called "decision seminar", first brought to his mind, I believe,
by his experience in a remote village in Peru, where graphic
communication on the walls of a cave turned out to be the only effective
means for the purposes, in the given situation.
-- JOHN WARFIELD Jwarfiel@gmu.edu