Lou Giacalone To Become CoolSign President
Adrian J Cotterill, Editor-in-Chief
Lou Giacalone told us over the weekend that he “will be leaving Titan as of next Friday to become President of the new CoolSign (CS Software Holdings LLC)”
Lou of course started CoolSign back in 1998 and so events have turned somewhat full circle since Clarity bought CoolSign, Clarity was bought by Planar and finally Planar disposed of CoolSign to BOTH Bally Technology and CS Software Holdings.
Lou is leaving Titan Outdoor on good terms and undoubtedly he will be looking forward to continuing work on the CTA and other deployments that he started (after all he was instrumental in Titan choosing CoolSign as the software system of choice).
February 14th, 2009 at 18:38 @818
Reminds me of this parable…
There was this poacher. He and his friends were not bad at poaching in the games estate but not as good in the OOH estate. So the poacher turned into the OOH gamekeeper. After a period the owners of the OOH estate forgot he used to be a poacher and let him get on with being a gamekeeper. The next thing the gamekeeper did was to grant exclusive hunting rights to his old poacher friends. He then went back to being a poacher and everyone looked at the big no hunting sign he had erected and thought that wasn’t a very cool sign.
February 15th, 2009 at 02:59 @166
A surprising turn of events? Didn’t Lou mismanage Coolsign so badly the first time around that he had to basically give the company to Clarity in exchange for assuming their debt?!
February 15th, 2009 at 15:29 @686
Wow Amazed, seems like your parable is authored By Mr. Sour Grapes. You must have been one of the 300 other digital signage companies not selected by the gamekeeper. I, on the other hand, am looking at this as a good opportunity to try to get myself back into the hunt. Of course, sour grapes are usually from those whose stuff can’t cut it so they knock down those that did.
February 15th, 2009 at 22:26 @976
Well Mr/Mrs SourGrapes as a gamekeeper who may work for a publicly traded estate I am AMAZED that this can happen without any due diligence or self searching at the very least.
February 15th, 2009 at 23:02 @001
Sour, Anonymous and Amazed… let’s be grown ups and use our names here, wish Lou good luck in his “new” endeavor, and set the record straight. Anyone who answered Titan’s RFP (including my company) was delusional to think that Mr. Giacalone was going to choose anything other than CoolSign, and has no reason to be bitter. That being said, many of us responded like sheep and gave Mr. Giacalone valuable market intelligence that will almost certainly leave Titan with him. Shame on us, although CoolSign has not historically demonstrated an ability to push the envelope, and many of their best people are long gone. The company lived off of AdSpace after AdSpace was spun off, and now what is left of it will presumably live off Titan, unless Titan management reconsiders based upon a potentially conflicted process. Don’t bet on it, since it is safe to assume that a certain someone made sure his new bed was made before he jumped under the covers.
A lesson learned for everyone? Perhaps it was put best by rock titan Pete Townshend in “Won’t Be Fooled Again”:
“Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I’ll get on my knees and pray
We don’t get fooled again
Don’t get fooled again
No, no!
Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss”
Best of luck, Lou.