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Keynote Breakfast Panel – Digital Signage 2020: Eyes on the Future

thoughtpanelists-0212This thought leadership panel features four prominent industry experts sharing their vision of the underlying technologies and driving forces shaping the future of the digital signage industry.

As their companies represent a wide range of technologies — from processors to glass, from networking to telecommunications — their anticipated insights, some of which are expressed below, will provide a thought-provoking framework for now and future discussion on the challenges and opportunities to be found along the road of digital signage industry growth.

Michelle Tinsley, Personal Solutions Division General Manager, Intel Corp.

  • Despite a depressed worldwide economy, the digital signage industry continues to expand at a very rapid pace, with Intel now estimating 22 million signs by 2015.
  • As standards will accelerate industry expansion, we need to continue to execute on standards for hardware, advertising metrics, content, etc.
  • Analytics is critical for brands, advertisers and consumers alike. All can benefit from clear, targeted messaging at the point of sale.
  • Digital signage is at the heart of the “connected consumer” revolution, creating opportunities for personalized consumer experiences.

Dr. Peter L. Bocko, Chief Technology Officer, Corning Glass Technologies, Corning Inc.

  • At the core of tomorrow’s exciting possibilities are hardware and software that focus on five technological facets: 1. transmission, 2. information display, 3. human interface, 4. applications and 5. information capture, processing and storage.
  • The technology chain is being driven by state-of-the-art advances, in part fueled by advances in engineered glass components and enabling applications. Due to a variety to factors, applications have begun to outstrip hardware capabilities.
  • Public information displays must execute both convergence and divergence well in order to achieve their full potential.
  • The industry must first solve materials and components challenges in order to adapt the aforementioned five technical facets and provide a compelling communal experience that has the capability for personalization.


Erica Schroeder, Director, Enterprise Video, Cisco

  • Digital signage is evolving from one-way, non-interactive beyond two-way interactive to become more integrated with different solutions/use cases that touch multiple departments (e.g., virtual expert), including sales, marketing, HR communications, contact center, executives, etc.
  • IT is critical to scalable and successful signage deployments. IT and AV go hand-in-hand, considering how signage needs to be better integrated with other IT solutions and the network.
  • Video/rich media distribution and sharing of content across applications (signage, mobile, tablets, etc.) will become more critical to enterprise architecture.


Lisa-anne Uhrmacher, Senior Manager – Business Development, Emerging Solutions Group, Sprint

  • Wireless connectivity provides a faster time to deploy, with more flexibility to place signage wherever it is most impactful. Just add power.
  • National deployments will be easier with a single connectivity solution, rather than a mosaic of various DSL and cable connections.
  • Wireless is becoming as reliable if not more so than traditional landline services, and in many cases more cost effective.
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