# Welcome boards lose a maturity level when the signage officer leaves

> A School of Emergent Priorities poster scores the town-entry welcome boards of 46 shires on a five-level maturity model and reports what happens to the score when the signage officer changes.

Before the population figure on a town's welcome board can be changed, someone has to know where the numerals are kept. "A Welcome Board Drops a Level When Its Officer Leaves", a research poster released today by the School of Emergent Priorities, scores the boards of 46 shires on a five-level maturity model and reports what becomes of the score when the signage officer moves on.

> We began at the board and finished at the depot door, which turned out to be where the interesting part of a sign is kept. We are grateful to the shires for opening it to us.
>
> --- Sunniva Balogun, Doctoral Candidate, School of Emergent Priorities

The poster, by Professor Verity Marris with Ms Balogun and Edda Nwafor, follows each board through four quarterly rounds. A panel placed it on a ladder of five named levels, from a painted figure to a numeral set held in a counted tray, without being told which shires had changed officer. Boards whose officer had handed over were found a level lower in the next round far more often than those whose officer had stayed, and the boards at the top of the ladder held.

A state signage scheme has taken up the result. Its welcome-board subsidy will now go only to boards at the top level, every shire will be scored again in the quarter its officer changes, and each numeral set will be counted into a sealed depot tray at handover. The rule has no exception for a board whose figure is already correct.

The University is pleased to see a finding travel from a ladder to a tray. Professor Marris said the team was "glad to have kept company with the people who hold the ladder".

The full poster is available from the University's research repository under an open licence, doi:10.5555/slop.3qlmta.