Aris Silzard

A Global Village… “Some time ago, I returned from a visit to a foreign country.” Factually, this is a correct statement. I had indeed returned to the USA from a trip to attend the International Display Manufacturing Technology Conference, IDMC 2000, in Korea. But how wrong it felt to utter such a phrase since at no time during my visit did I feel that I was in a strange land or among “foreign” people. From the moment I arrived at Seoul’s Kimpo airport, I could spot a few familiar faces. Yes, the crowds were large and the lines were long. But it was really no different than arriving at an airport in the USA. Most of the people I didn’t recognize, but several I did — just about the same as for a typical stopover in Denver or Chicago. On arrival at the Sheraton Walker Hill Hotel, I was greeted with the sight of familiar faces everywhere. Now, for sure, this didn’t feel like a “foreign” land. The warm greetings and friendly discussions made a certainty of that. There were the typical stories of delayed flights and missed plane connections. There were discussions of the latest career paths and technology developments. A few discussions turned more introspective, comparing opinions about the credibility of certain companies or individuals. Moment by moment and hour by hour, old relationships were strengthened and new ones formed. The next several days of the technical conference were filled with the absorption of as much technical content as we could possibly sponge up — while continuing to evaluate it all in yet more small-group and individual interactions. Early on the first day, we already knew that this conference was going to be a good one. The quality of the technical papers and the attendance figures soon confirmed it. The setting for the evening banquet was the outdoor garden court of the Sheraton hotel. The warm late-summer evening with a clearing sky — following an earlier heavy rain — made it seem that we were indeed the recipients of mother nature’s blessing. The winding Han river lay below us, with hills and city lights all around. In this setting, while sharing a meal with colleagues from all parts of the world, it was simply not possible to rationalize that in times past some of these friends and colleagues — based on territory or by political decree — would have been designated as enemies. The entertainment for the evening was a selection of traditional Korean music including string instruments, a flute, singing, and a drum quartet — not all at once, but in turn. To my classical-music-trained ear the music was a fascinating and interesting blend of ancient and modern. It seemed to bridge all time and aural space. The tonality was more western than what I typically associate with an oriental scale. There was, simultaneously, a simplicity and intricacy that could be appreciated on many levels. Music is the great expression of the soul of a country and a culture. Music causes the spirit to soar and emotions to surface. It becomes a great and positive unifying force among human beings everywhere. It was in this spirit that Prof. Sungkyoo Lim moderated the evening„s ceremonies. His closing remarks, expressing the unifying energy between the warm outdoor evening setting, the rousing effect of the music, the good food, and great conversation, for me captured the full measure of why we gather together — to build lasting relationships that cannot be built any other way. Now, before you conclude that I am a gushing sentimentalist, one who clearly does not appreciate the new world of electronic communications and the value of the Internet, let me suggest something I think is at work here that is creating a change of historic proportions — and yes, it is something to do with the Internet. Communications, thanks to the Internet, are becoming instantaneous, location- independent, and virtually free. That means we can reach anyone, anywhere in the world, at any time. Therefore, without much thought at all, our sphere of influence and sphere of communications is broadening to cover the globe. How do we decide with which of the six billion residents of this planet we should communicate? After all, most of us can’t manage more than a few hundred “serious” relationships at any one time. Clearly we do it based on common interests for business or personal reasons. What is so important about this is that new groupings of individuals are forming based on something other than geography. Think about the future impact of this. For centuries we have organized ourselves into cultures, tribes, societies, states, kingdoms, fiefdoms, empires, and countries, all based on geographical boundaries. Borders were the walls between these entities and the people were contained within them. But now? The European economic boundaries have already mostly disappeared. And in the future? Groupings by geographic region will make little sense. With worldwide communications and a global economy, what is there to protect? What is the value of a piece of land except as a place for one’s residence or a business location? Your neighbors become all those people worldwide with whom you communicate and exchange ideas. The new “countries” will be based on common interests or economic associations. However, we may each belong to several of them. This has to be a scary thought for our tradition-bound leaders and politicians. How do you “rule” a group of people when you can’t even figure out who they are, or where they are? For this reason, I am sure that geographically based government entities will survive for many years to come. However, they will have less and less influence on the operation of world society and the world economy. We will be driven by our interests and our ability to form those relationships that are most meaningful for us. They will span the globe. And that is also why we are likely to travel more rather than less in the coming

It Wouldn’t Converge… In my junior year of college, I took a class from a mathematics professor who was most likely a brilliant theoretician. Unfortunately, that brilliance did not translate into his abilities as a teacher. To this day, I remember him as the worst teacher in all my years of formal education. As it quickly became apparent, not only had he selected a text that was beyond the capabilities of everyone in the class, but with each passing day he convincingly demonstrated his own lack of ability to explain the material. The culmination of this miserable year was the last few weeks that we spent trying to learn how to prove that certain mathematical series, in their limit, either converged or diverged. Now, these were not the more familiar series that I later found useful in my graduate engineering education. These were the kind that only a dedicated mathematician could love. No matter what theorems I tried to apply, I couldn’t seem to come up with conclusive answers. On the final written examination, I covered the pages mostly with good intentions and was fortunate to escape the class with a mediocre but passing grade. The memory of this experience is so strong that whenever I hear someone talk about convergence or divergence, I am immediately transported back to this intensely frustrating and frankly miserable time. Given this, I’m sure you won’t be surprised if I tell you that I have a strong reaction whenever I hear or read about the “convergence” of computers and television, or the Internet and television. And never having succeeded at proving which of those mathematical series converged or diverged, I continue in my quest to arrive at an answer. Perhaps, if I can’t do those weird math series, at least I can propose an answer to the convergence or divergence of electronic media. For this analysis, I believe that I have “nature” on my side. And it seems that nature likes diversity (i.e. divergence) rather than combinations of dissimilar things (i.e. convergence). Therefore, by inference we can perhaps show that we too are more likely to appreciate divergence than convergence. The examples are numerous. In nature, we proliferate species rather than have two different ones come together. Of course, some go extinct, but then others evolve to take their place. We don’t have too many cats and dogs getting together to make cat-dogs. Bluebirds and robins pretty well keep to their own kind. Botanists and breeders sometimes work for years to create combinations that will make plants more disease resistant or animals that have superior capabilities. Even then the result is usually a new subspecies rather than a convergence of two distinctly different plant or animal types. Are we too far afield in using biological processes as examples for a discussion of technological convergence or divergence? After all, it does not require a procreation process to create a new Web TV or Internet appliance. But a look at some popular attempts to combine technological functions seems to lead us to the same conclusion already arrived at by “mother nature.” For example, the many attempts to combine cars and airplanes or cars and boats have only resulted in vehicles that performed both functions poorly. Their value was more in their novelty than in their functionality. Similar results have been demonstrated time and again in trying to combine appliances such washers and dryers, furniture items such as beds and sofas, and houses with vehicles. Even the simplest of combinations — such as a television with a VCR — has had only limited success. Now, before you get all excited and call to tell me about the sofa-bed industry, the recreational vehicle industry, the mobile home industry, and the great houseboat and clock radio that you own, let me state that I am not suggesting that these do not exist as viable products. What I am suggesting is that they have in no way replaced the products that provide these functions in their pure forms. In the same way that the proverbial Swiss army knife can be a useful device in special circumstances, while not replacing the tools that perform each of these functions, a sofa-bed is useful in a one room apartment or a guest room, a recreational vehicle is great for those who wish to spend their retirement years traveling around the country, and the houseboat is great if you want to be intimate with a body of water. However, for most of us, these are not the preferred ways of performing the functions for which we buy sofas, beds, houses, and cars. The mainstream products thrive while the specialty products serve a much smaller — although still important — segment of the market. So, when I am told of the plans by some companies to bring about the convergence of television and the Internet, and how we will all be glued to our TV sets doing e-mail, interactive shopping, and searching for information, I tend to be a skeptic. While I can see a few people doing it, for most of us I don’t think it will be that interesting. First there is a practical viewability problem. Sitting in front of a computer to watch television doesn’t seem all that comfortable. On the other hand, reading e-mails from two or three meters distance — the typical television watching position — seems even more difficult. At best, I can read a dozen lines of text on my television from this distance. If I must move closer, then I can just as easily go sit in front of my computer. Furthermore, given that watching television is an activity that often involves more than one person, will this social pattern carry over to reading e-mails or searching Internet sites? Not very likely. Finally, when I am watching television, I am usually looking for a way to forget about work-related tasks. The last thing I want is for the latest e-mail to show up on my television

Contrary to Popular Opinion… In a recent issue of Popular Science magazine one of the featured articles was a compendium of predictions about what automobiles will be like in 25 years. A futurist by the name of Amory Lovins from the Rocky Mountain Institute made the prediction that “Today’s auto industry will be toast by about 2020.” He went on to say that “Cars in 2025 will be molded from advanced polymer composites, they will be lighter by threefold, ultra-low drag yet more crash-worthy, durable, reliable, recyclable, and spacious, with electric propulsion powered by direct hydrogen fuel cells.” Do you think Mr. Lovins is right in these predictions given the huge investment in existing factories, the extensive and well-established supply chain, and the need to thoroughly test any new material before committing it to a cost-sensitive product that must pass all kinds of safety tests and government regulations? If you do, then perhaps you also believe in the tooth fairy? In the mid-eighties, there was much talk about the imminent arrival of the paperless office. After all, with desk-top computers evolving to provide all the storage capability that anyone could reasonably need, why continue to clutter up our offices with information on pieces of paper? At about the same time, we also experienced the first wave of promotion for teleconferencing as a substitute for business travel. But what do airports look like fifteen years later — in the year 2000? Are they peaceful, nearly empty havens serving only those pleasure-related travel needs that cannot easily be met through the widespread use of teleconferencing? Did even one of the technology-driven futurists envision (from their mid-eighties perspective) today—s reality of airplanes flying filled to capacity, with people squeezed into exceedingly small spaces, eating incredibly bad food, and frequently not even departing or arriving at their intended times? Maybe we can learn something by comparing these predictions to the actual outcomes. Just as television did not eliminate movie theaters and movie theaters did not eliminate live theater, perhaps we should consider that a new technology will often create a result exactly opposite to what a cursory observation might indicate. We all now know that instead of giving us a paperless office, the computer gave us the power to create vast new quantities of paper. Now, as we write, our word processors allow us to regenerate one or more pages with each minor correction, and we often reprint the entire document with just one thoughtless keystroke. In this context, let us consider what the Internet may be facilitating. We are communicating with each other more than ever before. We have continued our use of location-based telephones. We have increased our communications capability by adding wearable, location-independent telephones. Many of us now have home fax machines. And the use of e-mail and the Internet have added yet another channel by which we communicate. The Internet has proved to be especially handy for international messages. The price can be low, or virtually free in some parts of the world, and the messages can be sent without regard to time differences. Language barriers are also easier to manage than via telephone. If we have all this available to us, then why are we travelling more instead of less? Are we like the “paperless office,” behaving contrary to a “clearly obvious” conclusion? What I think is happening is that the world-wide relationships we are building through these new electronic media are becoming so useful that we wish to strengthen them further through face-to-face encounters. Within the technical community, we do this through conferences, seminars, and visits to companies. The electronic communications media have allowed us to increase the number of relationships that we can support, and have made them independent of location. Therefore, when we do want to solidify them through personal contact, or accomplish tasks that are too complicated to perform at a distance, we end up travelling — more than before. Last September in my column titled “Search and Acquire” I suggested that the Internet provides a near-instant world-wide capability for the acquisition of information and goods. However, certain kinds of information and goods are better suited to the Internet than others — an important but harsh lesson that many of the recently-formed dot-com companies are now learning. However, for the rest of us, it is comforting to know that most conventional stores will be in business for many years to come and, in fact, will benefit from, rather than be threatened by, the Internet. Similarly, the traditional mail-order businesses are learning how to use both printed catalogs and the new electronic media to defend their market positions. It seems that the benefits of the Internet to established information and commerce providers are far exceeding the competitive threats. The Society for Information Display is likewise beginning to discover how to do more for the world-wide display community through the use of the Internet. Our web-site is turning out be a highly valued and extensively accessed information resource. While we expected that www.sid.org would provide useful information to the display community, we did not initially anticipate just how well the Internet would be suited to many of the search-and-acquire activities that SID members and others find so valuable. By analyzing usage statistics, we are able to tell that many individuals access the site to check on conferences — and then end up registering for those conferences on-line rather than by mail or by standing in line upon arrival at a conference. Conference Proceedings and other publications are being accessed and papers are being downloaded in large numbers. People networks are being developed through membership searches. Employment opportunities are being explored. sid.org is becoming the focal point for timely information on all that is important to the display community. The Internet has also aided the internationalization of our Society. More detailed communications can be transmitted instantly. For example, paper summaries can be forwarded to technical-program committee members anywhere in the world with no loss of time or

The Best Product at the Lowest Price… It was a late Thursday afternoon at the Long Beach Convention Center. The bright overhead mercury arc lamps in the empty exhibition hall were illuminating a vast expanse of bare, gray concrete flooring. A few pieces of cardboard and styrofoam were strewn here and there. The room conveyed the feeling of desolate emptiness. It seemed that at any moment one could expect a tumbleweed or two to come bounding by. A few hours earlier, Jay Morreale and I had stood near the entrance door and watched as the exhibition of the Year-2000 SID Symposium had come to an end and the rapid dismantling began. For the previous two and a half days, the Long Beach Convention Center had been a bustle of activity as the venue for yet another successful SID Symposium with a record number of booths and exhibitors showing the full gamut of the latest in displays and display-related products. Now all the activity was focused on dismantling, packing, and moving out — for shipment back to the factory or perhaps on to the next show. The speed with which all this took place was quite amazing. The left-over sales literature quickly found its way back into the thoughtfully-retained cardboard boxes. The working displays were unplugged, disassembled, and repacked into their custom-designed crates. Other products, signs, and visual aids similarly disappeared with urgent efficiency. And somewhere in this process, the recently-carpeted floor reverted back to its hard gray concrete. Is this the modern-day high-technology version of a circus coming to town? Months of promotion, planning, and preparation all culminating in three-days of frenzied activity — activity focused on presenting the latest and greatest display-related products to a world-wide technical community. During their heyday, around the beginning of the twentieth century, circuses had mixed reputations. While serving the purpose of bringing novel entertainment experiences and occasionally even providing acts of skill and daring to a population that was far less mobile than today’s, they were also known for over-promotion and occasionally even for misrepresentation. A few perpetrated outright fraud in the sideshows and carnival areas that accompanied the main ring events. Eventually, even with limited long-distance communications, the word got out and at least the worst offenders were forced to tone down their claims. Of course, as the years passed, as people began to travel more, and as locally available entertainment in the form of movies and the new electronic medium called television became more prevalent, most of these circuses did not survive. Only the few that could adapt to match the higher standards of entertainment that people were becoming accustomed to seeing were able to continue their existence. Promoting, selling, advertising — really, who needs them! If I have a great product, people will find me and buy it. And if I have created this great product and can sell it at the lowest price, then why would anyone need for me to give them a “sales pitch.” Promotion and advertising should only be necessary for those who have poor products or those who want to run a circus. Right? Well, a few years ago I visited a microelectronics factory in one of the republics of the former Soviet Union. The factory was badly in need of some new production equipment but otherwise still had decent capability to produce low-complexity analog ICs. Up until the collapse of the Soviet Union, they had always built to a demand that was set by a central planning committee. These committees decided which products needed to be built, in what quantities, and which factories would build them. Since shortages were the norm, anything that could be produced was always accepted by the customers — in this case, the various other electronic equipment factories. Selling, advertizing, and promotion were neither necessary nor even understood as a concept. The government committees also decided where specific factories would be located, what they would produce, and who would be the recipients of their products. During my visit, I tried my best to explain the basics of marketing and selling and how world-wide competition determines the acceptable price and quality of the goods that customers select for purchase. After several hours of discussion, my hosts told me that while they greatly appreciated my explanation and could comprehend the theory behind what I was trying to convey, the strategy that they would follow would be to act like a spider that spins a web and then waits for a fly (or perhaps another insect-like customer) to stumble into it. As far as I know, several years later, they are still waiting for that first client-fly. No matter how excellent the product or how attractive the price, the information that describes the benefits must reach potential customers. And since many others are seeking to accomplish the same goal, the process becomes a challenging one. Selling products — high-tech or otherwise — is demanding work. Most of the time, it is not at all obvious that a given product is the best one or has the lowest price. In fact, most of the time it isn’t. And even while there may be an occasional optimum match with a particular customer, other customers will most likely have different needs and compromises will have to be made. Computers, wireless communications, and the Internet have not made the product selection process significantly easier. They have provided the tools for faster communications and for the ability to access a wider user base, but the basic process of identifying customers’ needs and meeting them with excellent products has not changed. It is still necessary to disseminate the information to as wide a customer base as appropriate. Brand identities and company reputations are as important as they ever were. Perhaps, the lack of personal service and sales expertise that the Internet and mail-order shopping inherently impose, places and even greater importance on a company’s reputation. For a technical client community, such as represented by the SID, what better

Toward a Common Language.. Suppose you are a display engineer from Sweden waiting for a connecting flight in the international area of Frankfurt airport, and a person from Argentina approaches you to ask for directions. What language are the two of you most likely to try first? Or suppose you are a pilot of a Boeing 747 on an international flight. What language is the accepted standard for communicating with air traffic controllers everywhere? The second question has only one answer, while for the first you might suggest English or perhaps German as possibilities. However, I think most of us would select English as the most probable answer even to this question. Over the last fifty years, as airplane travel, the telephone, FAX, Internet, and now wireless communications have increased our ability to connect with each other — anytime and anywhere in the world — the need for a common language has become increasingly important. No longer is it convenient, or time-effective, to have documents translated into a native language so that a response can be generated which is then reverse translated prior to sending. More and more international business is being transacted through a combination of personal on-site interactions and electronic communications. While it is certainly possible to continue to have such meetings and correspondence using skilled translators, the most intense and productive interactions occur when a common language can be used. What about computers and electronic data transmission? Compatible operating systems and formats become mandatory. Electronic data streams are unforgiving of even the most trivial of ambiguities. Therefore, precise standards must be established, or a common operating system must be used, to facilitate even the simplest of information exchanges. Let us now turn our attention to SID and to our own methods for world-wide communication. Our publications and technical conferences are our primary means for facilitating interaction within the global display community. What should we do when we have a magazine with readers, or a technical conference with attendees, from almost every European country, most of the Pacific Rim countries, and from all regions of North and South America? The selection of one common language becomes a necessity. For technical societies, as well as for many businesses, English has become that common language. No one forced it on us. No government told us that it was a requirement. In fact, a few governments have worked very hard to prevent English from becoming the dominant technical and business language, and/or from corrupting the “purity” of their own language. But is seems that once a common standard starts to evolve, it’s widespread adoption becomes inevitable. The more it is used, the more it suppresses other choices. Eventually, it becomes acceptable to hold only local meetings, which are not expected to have international attendees, in the local (non-standard) language. Recently, we have been able to observe this same phenomenon with computer operating systems, word processors, spread sheets, and communications protocols. The need for commonality to facilitate fast and easy data interchange has been a great boon for one company, Microsoft (in the operating systems and office tools areas), and a great detriment to potential competitors. The big difference, of course, is that Microsoft makes a nice profit from the use of its products while the use of the English language only requires that we learn the vocabulary and rules of grammar — not the easiest of tasks for a language with many peculiar and illogical usage rules. These trends will not go away. They will instead accelerate. We are in the midst of a major change-over from location-based to wireless (location-independent) communications. This transition is already well advanced for voice communications and is now happening for e-mail, data, and financial transactions. Once we can reach each other anytime and anywhere in the world, we will be pushed even harder to adopt a common standard by which we communicate. For the foreseeable future, the use of a common language will be more prevalent than the use of electronic language translators. While such translators will eventually become quite capable and will be able to accurately simulate real speech, I believe that they will be more popular for checking grammar and for aiding communications than for real-time translation ø with the possible exception of those people who have infrequent interactions with international colleagues. We can expect that person-to-person meetings will continue to increase in frequency, especially among those of us in the technical and business communities, as more world-wide cooperative business relationships are established and as the value of frequent technical interactions and information exchanges is reinforced by the participants. There are, however, a few unfortunate aspects of these societal behaviors that encourage one language, one operating system, and a common communications protocol that drive all others into oblivion. It results in the blending and eventual extinction of the cultural diversity that makes this world a more interesting place in which to live. It also appears to create an arrogance, a false pride, among those who happen to live where English–or the “Windows”! operating system–are the native languages. It creates an impatience and a lack of consideration for those who have had to struggle later in life to acquire these skills. Perhaps it is the demonstration of some of these behaviors that has created the less-than-desirable reputation of some Americans as tourists. Within the display community, we will certainly continue to encourage and appreciate the world-wide diversity of our membership while promoting open, frequent, and rapid communication among all. We must of necessity go along with the trend to one dominant language and hold our international meetings in English. However, we should all work hard to accommodate our colleagues who are still developing their English language skills. Having grown up in a bilingual home and, even today, continuing with the joys and struggles of trying to achieve a modest level of fluency in several other languages, I appreciate the challenges of communicating in a language not learned during childhood. There is so much

Are We Falling Behind?… It was the middle of the afternoon on a bright sunny day at 39,000 feet somewhere over the North Pacific Ocean. Inside the passenger cabin of the spacious Boeing 777 — except for the emergency lighting, an occasional reading lamp, and the soft glow of several hundred LCD video screens — it was dark. All the window shades were tightly drawn and the passengers were immersed in watching the video displays on the seat backs in front of them — or on the armrest extensions in business and first class. Not being a serious movie watcher, I raised my window shade a few inches to see out. The passenger across the aisle from me immediately complained that he couldn’t see his movie. I fussed, but grudgingly complied and put my window shade back down. I don’t like sitting in the dark! I like to see daylight when it’s available — bright sunlight especially. Nevertheless, I felt I should be considerate of my fellow travelers, closed my shade, and sat in the dark for the remainder of the nine-hour flight. Having thus been politely chastised by a fellow passenger and now being in a grumpy mood because I wasn’t free to satisfy my own preferences, I began to analyze the situation. No question about it. The LCD panels in this latest version of the “triple-seven” were just barely adequate even for this non-critical captive-entertainment application. This led me to recall an article that I had seen just a few days earlier in USA Today about the new portable devices that are aiding the evolution of the interconnected society. In this article by Kevin Maney titled “Wireless Option Opens Door to a New e-World,” the passage that caught my eye said, “There are caveats. Actually, lots of them. The screens stink. The access is slow. The offerings are meager. You have to work your way through menu hell to find things.” (Bold emphasis added.) As a longtime member of the display community, those words cut pretty deep. Unfortunately, as I thought about it, I realized that in general I would have to agree with Mr. Maney’s assessment that most portable devices do not have such great looking displays. Over the last two decades, the use of electronic displays in non-television applications has evolved from a few specialty products such as test instruments, military systems, and data terminals to become the primary human interface with computers and data- communications devices. In 1980 there were no desktop or laptop computers. Today their compute power rivals the mainframes of only a few years ago. Communications have evolved from a few “car phones” to almost everyone now being reachable independently of their location. These changes were predicted by the well-known Moore’s Law that states that compute power approximately doubles every eighteen months to two years. Some well-respected software types claim that image processing capability is currently evolving even faster. The rate of data communications and database “interconnectedness” is also increasing rapidly. This leads me to pose two important questions to those of us in the display community: “How are we doing in bringing exciting new display products to market?” “Is the rate of display development commensurate with progress in compute power, imaging software, and communications bandwidth availability?” I’m going to suggest an answer, but with the proviso that if you have a better one or a different one, you must let me know. Why? Because the answer has important implications for how we position SID and represent our display community to the rest of the high-technology world over the next decade. My conclusion is that we are falling behind. Twenty years ago, displays, built on the solid foundation created by television and instrumentation applications, had more than adequate capability for the first rudimentary PCs and video games. For playing simple games like “pong,” a monochrome CRT screen did not present a limitation. Today, the best CRTs and LCD panels are still a reasonable match for desktop computers and perhaps barely adequate for portable laptop computers, cell phones, and first-generation PDAs. But what happens next? Although it is difficult to quantify all display parameters into a “goodness” factor, and I have no intentions of trying to propose a parallel to Moore’s Law for displays, my best estimate is that display capability is doubling no faster than about every ten years. If I am correct, then we have a serious rate-of-development mismatch that will soon require resolution. Because of 40 years of television and instrumentation developments, displays were way ahead of what computers needed in the 1980s. Today, it seems to me that we are at no better than parity. And maybe not even that good. At our present rate of progress, in another ten years we will have become the highly visible bottleneck of the Internet society. Over the last two decades, investment money has flowed freely into microprocessors and memories, into software, and into Internet commerce startups. With a few rare exceptions, we in the display community have had a more difficult time creating investor interest and then sustaining it until success could be demonstrated. Yet there is a need for sunlight-readable displays, large displays for desktops, low-cost and easy-to-see displays for portable Internet appliances, high-resolution displays in all sizes and all price ranges for the new digital television applications, and flat panels of all kinds and sizes for low-cost multi-use home and commercial applications. Many of these new display applications are not simple product extensions of the traditional television displays or even of the newer desktop or laptop computer displays. The good side of this is that there will be an increasing demand for these displays. The bad side is that when we become the limiting factor in the development of new products, there will be increasing frustration among the system and software designers that will manifest itself in increasing demands on the display community. In response, there are likely to be numerous attempts at quick fixes and perhaps even a

Technology.net… Suppose that you have recently been asked to join a new project team developing a new display technology, but don’t know all that you would like to know about the emission technology being implemented. Or what if you have joined a new start-up company and in your previous position you were required to sign a non-compete agreement so that you must now develop a somewhat different area of expertise? Or perhaps the large company where you have spent many years and where you expected to retire has decided to divest your business unit, and with each passing day the hallway rumors hint that the prospect of termination notices is becoming ever more likely. Or, in a more positive vein, suppose that you are making great progress and would like your colleagues to hear about your recent discoveries. In these and many similar situations what should you do? It seems that our choices are limited and easy to enumerate. We can take the lone-inventor approach and try to solve all problems through our own creativity and brilliance. We can try to find someone else in our immediate project team who knows the answers we are seeking. We can enlarge our circle and try to search out someone with the appropriate expertise in our broader corporate organization. We can do an extensive literature and patent search. We can attend a technical conference or two. We can call a colleague at a university or at another company and seek his or her advice. We can contact product vendors or attend trade shows. Typically we will do as many of the above as we think will help us find the answers we seek. That is as is should be, and that is where technical societies such as SID become of great value. Imagine for a moment what our world would be like if there were no technical societies. There would be very few technical journals. There would be virtually no technical conferences, and consequently there would be no conference proceedings. There would be no membership directories to help us locate colleagues with common interests. There would be limited opportunities to share and discuss recent discoveries. There would be few seminars and specialized short courses. Perhaps some trade shows and advertising- supported magazines would still exist and maybe even try to increase their influence by publishing more scientifically important articles. But many of the most important sources of information on which we rely would either no longer exist or be much harder to access. Well, fortunately, we do have technical societies and we don’t really need to worry about this peculiar scenario. Or do we? Consider just a few more “what ifs.” What if companies began to seriously restrict the submission of papers and attendance at technical conferences? What if scientists and engineers could no longer find a way to communicate with each other at these meetings? What if additional barriers were created to the interchange of scientific results? What if we all had to work in isolation? This begins to look like a really ugly situation. Under these conditions, it seems to me, the rate of technical progress would slow to a crawl. The rate of world economic growth would be similarly affected. The restrictions on technical information exchange would likely create other economic and political barriers. All in all, it is not a direction that most of us would find desirable. Over the last several years, the Society for Information Display has been able to achieve healthy membership growth and has adhered to the principles of continuous improvement in its publications, conferences, chapter activities, and other member services. Nevertheless, we have noted that many of our members are finding it ever more difficult to justify their travel and active participation at key technical events to their managers. In spite of generally healthy economic conditions, it seems to be getting harder rather than easier to get management approvals. Temporary budget restrictions, once enacted, have the peculiar tendency of becoming the guideline numbers for the following year’s planning. The short-term profit culture of many companies and the need to show aggressive cost cutting to stock holders makes conference travel an easy target. Writing and publishing papers is similarly easy to restrict or eliminate for not having an immediate profit-line benefit. Can these small decisions eventually add up and reverse our recent growth trends? Of course they can. Thus, it becomes our collective responsibility to make sure they don’t. SID can and will do it’s part by striving to organize technical events of the highest caliber, by continuing to improve the quality and timeliness of its publications, by encouraging chapter activities that allow for the building of local professional networks, and by instituting electronic communications capabilities that allow for the dissemination of information and for interaction among all members of the display community. However, each one of us must also do our part by convincing our bosses and managers of the importance of our active participation through paper submissions and attendance at international conferences as well as chapter meetings. In today’s world, the lonely inventor is either already extinct or there are so few of them that I can’t seem to find even one good one. Even large corporations, with equally large budgets, that have tried to develop new technologies in isolation have failed spectacularly. Only by sharing our results and interacting with our colleagues do we seem to be able to keep up with the pace of technology progress and contribute to it. Therefore, the development of a personal network of contacts within the display community takes on a major and very personal significance in regard to how successful we will be in our career growth. Once developed, this network of contacts becomes the most efficient method for gaining near-instant access to whatever knowledge we seek. A few e-mails or a few phone calls (typically not more than three) is all that is necessary for us to be guided to the best answer that

April/May 2000 Perhaps some of you will remember that six years ago you elected me to be the Secretary of SID. Then, four years ago, you decided that I should become your Treasurer. Two years later, the nominating committee asked, I agreed, and you concurred that I should be the next President-Elect. Finally, one year ago, you were asked to re-confirm your earlier decision that starting in May 2000 I would, in fact, get the opportunity to serve as your President. It is now May 2000 and I have been told that the time has come for me to act more “Presidential” — hinting, I suppose, that the column I have been writing in this space for the last seven and one-half years wasn’t quite presidential enough. So we have decided that I will continue to do a monthly column, but with an emphasis on those people, management, and technology issues that can contribute to the increased effectiveness of SID and to enhancing the building of those relationships that provide value to all of us as members of this society. Can I do this and still keep the column interesting? There’s only one way to find out. Let’s begin. To get you into the proper frame of mind for what is likely to come over the next year or two in these new-style columns, let us open the discussion by considering why the functioning of groups such as the SID is going to be of ever-growing world-wide importance in the 21st century. You may wish to view this as creating the vision for a “grand cathedral” that we intend to build. Since the days of cave dwellers, control of land and natural resources has been the primary path to growth and survival. Those who controlled the most territory, had the greatest abundance of critical materials, and could most effectively exploit the people inhabiting their fiefdoms, were the most powerful and richest. It was only in the last few centuries of the second millennium that a few groups of people found they could do even better if everyone participated in and shared more equitably in the creation of wealth. However, these people groupings were associated with certain land masses with well-defined borders — called countries, kingdoms, or states — and they continue to be. Toward the end of the second millennium some of the wiser countries realized that such government-imposed boundaries were an unnecessary impediment to economic growth. They took a bold step and removed the border-control points and began to allow for the free movement of people and goods. Some others had to overcome more difficult challenges because their barriers had been so severe. Yet, in spite of that, they made great strides in learning how to become more comfortable as “citizens of the world.” A few laggards continued in their stubborn and old-fashioned ways of tightly controlling the activities of their inhabitants and even trying to expand their influence by the use of military force. In the meantime (about one-hundred and sixty years ago), we technologists gave birth to electronic communications. First there was the telegraph, then the telephone, then radio, and then television. Worldwide communications grew from radio, to transoceanic telephone cables, to communication satellites, to long-distance fiber-optic links. Then came computers, the Internet, the World Wide Web, and cell phones. As these communications methods proliferated and as the cost of communicating began to decrease we all, almost imperceptibly, broadened our circle of daily contacts. Not so many years ago, receiving a telegram or making a long-distance telephone call was an event of some importance. Today many of us make more long-distance calls each day than local ones and we have the ability to send e-mail messages at costs so low that almost everyone can do it without having to consider budgetary limitations. In the first two decades of the 21st century, worldwide voice and e-mail messaging will continue to expand and costs will decrease further — eventually approaching zero. Therefore, as we enter the third millennium, fewer and fewer countries will be able to function effectively while attempting to exert arbitrary control over these communications channels. Electronic communications is creating a new world order that is becoming independent of geographic or political boundaries. As the traditional political alignments, based on territorial boundaries become less and less meaningful, people will begin to realize that the most beneficial groupings are by common interests and not by geography. No longer will we need to organize as our cave-dwelling ancestors did to control certain pieces of land. Instead, we will organize based on personal or business relationships with others in the global community. The ones who do that most effectively will be the winners in what will continue to be a highly competitive environment. The traditional government structures will hang on, most likely longer than they should, and serve as arbitrators to keep any one group from gaining too great a competitive advantage. Therefore, organizations such as our Society for Information Display will play a vital and pre-eminent role in this new world order that will be driven by the ability to exchange information freely and instantaneously with colleagues anywhere on planet Earth — and someday beyond. The electronic information exchanges will be supplemented by frequent “real-life” meetings, so that we can solidify these personal relationships, as we human beings have done throughout history. Over the last seven-and-a-half years of Display Continuum columns, we have contemplated a future in which we will have an over-abundance of opportunities for new and existing display technologies — a future where we can expect to have reliable and simple-to-use Internet appliances, desk-top knowledge-space displays, digital photography and DVDs, high-resolution 2D electronic imaging displays, hardware-based knowledge cubes, sunlight-readable displays in all sizes from micro- to billboard-size, and location-independent data and voice communications devices. And we have also thought about some ways in which our lives will change — hardly at all. The Society for Information Display has an important role to play in the people and

Aha, Now I Understand… Some time ago, I was invited for a meeting with a high-level personage in a large corporation. This company still maintained its long-standing culture of rewarding upper-level executives with plush offices in the top two floors of a high-rise building. Upon exiting the security-controlled elevator that had whisked me up to the next-to-highest floor, I could instantly feel myself sinking into the deep-pile carpeting. The environment was hushed silence, with only two secretaries occupying the overly-spacious reception area. After the proper notification of my arrival, I was ushered into an equally spacious office with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a broad expanse of a major downtown metropolitan area. This is not a “real” office, I thought to myself. Surely this must be a movie set for a stereotypical Hollywood film production. But no, this was as real as my senses would allow me to believe. One half of the office was arranged for meetings such as we were about to have, with a comfortable sofa and two plushy chairs — one of which was clearly intended for my “big choo-choo” executive host. How did I know? Well, when you find yourself in this kind of situation, you just know! Across from this friendly meeting area was the more formal desk with two less comfortable chairs for visitors, or lower-level managers, who may not be entertained quite as graciously. The desk itself was large enough so that reaching to the far corners while sitting behind it would be a serious challenge. I couldn’t help but try to imagine how I would feel having such an office as my work environment. It all seemed too perfect and too isolated from the activities of the world as I know it. Something else that I observed and found hard to understand was that this massive desktop had only one small in/out box in the corner nearest the door, one telephone, a pen set, and a perfectly clean embossed-leather desk pad in front of the executive. The in/out box contained just a few items on each of its two small mahogany shelves. On the credenza behind the desk sat a typical PC with a 17-inch monitor and on the opposite end — a small family photo. The monitor screen was open to the company’s e-mail. And that was all! The desk-top and credenza were otherwise incredibly bare. How did this high-level executive manage to get anything done? On my desk, which is also of reasonably ample dimensions, seldom do I get a glimpse of even a small area of the wood-grained top surface. Of course, the reason is that arrayed on it are the latest phone messages, the incoming faxes and e-mails requiring immediate response, the lists of active clients, the technical articles that must be read as soon as possible, copies of patents, purchase orders, wafer carriers containing material that must be scheduled for testing, electron gun parts, and drawings for the latest new display concept. The two shelves to my left contain information folders on other clients. Travel schedules and expense reports typically spill onto the floor in the corner bounded by the credenza and the bookshelves. Now, I must tell you that I don’t consider myself a messy person. In fact, I have been told that I am sometimes too neat-and-tidy. So what is my problem? Why don’t I seem to be able to keep my desk as neat as the one I encountered on my visit? Only one time in my career, while working for DuPont, was I required to abide by a corporate “clean desk” policy. This policy is in place for quite good and logical reasons as a way to protect a company’s confidential information from after-hours prying eyes. I found that the only way I could meet the requirements of this policy was to keep a deep drawer empty and every night to create a criss-cross stack of all the items on my desk and carefully lay it into this drawer. Then each morning I would reverse the procedure so that I would know what I needed to work on that day. Why couldn’t I just use file folders that stayed in a desk drawer, a file cabinet, or my PC to keep track of everything? And with the recent advances in computer technology, why don’t I do it now? Well, at long last, I think I may have stumbled onto the answer. Prof. Jay Brand, a former psychology professor, who now works for the office furniture manufacturer Haworth Inc., has provided an explanation that makes me feel ever so much better. This explanation came to me by way of an article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer authored by Carol Smith. As I began to read, I immediately noted how similar her observations and concerns were to mine. Well, of course, don’t we always appreciate wisdom and insight that agrees with our own? What Prof. Brand, who is now called a “cognitive engineer,” has concluded is that all of us have limited capacity in our short-term memories. Aha, good insight, Prof. Brand! It’s good to know that I am not the only one who can’t handle a list of items greater than two without writing them down. Perhaps, my limited-capacity CCD-like short-term memory, where the third or fourth items seem to fall out the back end whenever a new one comes in, is not so atypical after all. According to Prof. Brand, “Since most people are doing seven things at once, they tax the capacity of their working memory almost immediately.” Therefore, information placed into our external environment is known as a “cognitive artifact.” This allows us to off-load some information from our own over-taxed working memory. “It expands a person’s capacity to think. You’re using the environment to think as well.” I think I am beginning to really like this Prof. Brand! The companies that require clean-desk policies are in essence giving their workers “environmental lobotomies” or at least requiring them to re-create their working environments

Weather Vanes… In the center of Issaquah, Washington, not more than two blocks off of main street, there is a full-fledged operating salmon hatchery. The founders of Issaquah, apparently not being a very creative lot, named this street “Front Street.” Today, on Front Street you will find restaurants featuring a cross-section of quasi-ethnic cuisine, a camera repair shop, a musty-smelling used-office-furniture store, and a large commercial dairy with pictures of cows painted on the side facing Front Street — which also happens to be the side where the large shiny tanker-trucks pull up to pump out their loads of fresh milk. A few steps further there is a small bridge crossing an offshoot of the creek used by the salmon to get to the hatchery. Next is the Village Theater with its Stage Right Cafe, an art gallery, a dentist’s office, several modest variety stores, a dilapidated used-everything store, and a TV repair shop with 50s-vintage sets in the window. There are the obligatory four gas stations at the intersection with Gilman Blvd. If you can visualize all this and add some fir- and maple-tree covered mountains for a background, you will have a reasonably good idea of what you would encounter on a stroll down Front Street. And in keeping with the reputation of the Pacific Northwest you may also wish to include a few clouds and a raindrop or two. The only disruption to this bucolic sleepy-little-town scene is the day-long traffic jam reflective of the all-too-rapid growth that the Pacific Northwest has experienced over the last few years. The “serious” shopping areas, however, are a few blocks away at the quaint boutiques of Gilman Village and the upscale strip malls that have taken over the adjacent area that not too long ago was a dirt-strip airport. No matter where you live on this planet, or which country you visit, such fairs seem to be much the same. The food vendors always appear to be the busiest. At the Issaquah Salmon Days, the barbecued salmon steaks are a particular favorite — for obvious reasons I suppose. The rest of the arts and crafts vendors seem to be mostly providing free entertainment for the wandering crowds. People love to look and compare, but few buy. I often wonder why the vendors come. The business model for such a venture looks mighty shaky. With the cost of the tent and set-up, the rental of the booth space, the cost of inventory, and the cost of putting in at least two days away from home, the sales rate for most of the vendors doesn’t seem to make for even a minimum-income operation. A few seem to do it to make contacts for hoped-for future sales. Yet, there is an occasional exception. On that warm and rain-free October Sunday afternoon, as we strolled among the crowds on Front Street, I started noticing a person here or there carrying a weather vane. No, not the kind you mount on the peak of a roof. These were on six-foot black metal poles intended to be stuck into the ground. Most had an animal cutout (a rooster, cow, or dog) on top of the crossbar with the N-W-S-E letters, and immediately below there was an assembly that looked like anemometer cups. A few of them also had a person’s name painted on a flat protrusion on the pole. The more we strolled, the more weather vanes I noted. This was becoming very puzzling. They were certainly not very handy to carry around. The materials from which they were made did not look to be of particularly great quality. So why were people buying them? Was I maybe wrong about the craft items not selling well? No, hardly anyone was carrying a painting, photograph, or other evidence of a purchase. The weather vanes were definitely in the majority. With my curiosity building, it was time to go take a look at this vendor’s booth. I knew it wouldn’t be hard to find. I would just go the opposite direction from the weather-vane carriers. When I came upon it, I couldn’t believe what I saw. There was a line of at least 50 people, each patiently waiting to get his or her very own weather vane. Why? Of all the hundreds of items at this fair, why a weather vane? Every other vendor (except for the vendors of the barbecued salmon, elephant ears, and kettle popcorn) had to wait patiently for that occasional buyer. Yet, here were a couple of plain-looking guys, with a well-stocked truck nearby, selling weather vanes as fast as they could assemble them. They must have known this would happen because they had come well prepared to meet the demand. A partial explanation could be that the price was attractive. The basic matte-black weather vane was priced at $19.95. For an additional $7.00 one could add the non-functional anemometer cups, and for another $7.00, the personalized sign. This came to a typical total of $33.95 plus the Washington sales tax of 8.5% — not real expensive, but also not pocket change. But why stand in line for an item that doesn’t provide much in the way of functional usefulness or, in my opinion at least, decorative value. What was the appeal? Perhaps I should have asked. Would these customers have told me? Was the price of $33.95 perceived as a great value for this type of object? Was the opportunity to choose the cutout figure from a dozen or so examples the appeal? I noticed that this same booth was also selling a black “Victorian” lamp post with a personalized name rider for $30.00. But, I didn’t see one person buying that item. There was definitely some special and magical attraction to the weather vanes. Here was a great lesson in product marketing. In an environment where the typical vendor is happy with a few sales that may barely cover expenses, these guys had struck “gold.” How did they know? What distinguished them