The Official Magazine of ISE 2012 - Amazon S3

Tomorrow’s tr
After an acclaimed launch event in 2011, InfoComm International’s Future Trends
Summit returns to ISE with its unique take on upcoming industry developments
It doesn’t seem that long ago in the projector industry that we
were telling our customers that 300 lumens was all the brightness
they’d ever need for ‘lights on’ presentations – and that a
resolution of 640 x 480 was more than enough for any purpose.
Who would have thought that we would be routinely installing
digital cinema projectors with over seven million pixels – and that
projectors would attain a brightness of 35,000 lumens?
Predicting the future is a notoriously tricky thing to do –
although in the case above, it is, in theory at least, a relatively
simple extrapolation over time. What is much harder to do is
to identify ‘dislocatory’ technologies and products. Who, for
example, would have predicted that, some day, consumers would
want to take their music with them wherever they went? Sony
did, and created the Walkman in 1979.
It has been said that, if you don’t think about the future, you
don’t have one. For sure, every successful business devotes time to
trying to predict markets, technologies, consumer behaviours and
so on.
And for those businesses in the AV industry, ISE represents a
perfect opportunity in the shape of InfoComm’s ‘Future Trends
Summit’, which returns for a second year and occurs the day
before ISE officially opens its doors.
“It is intended to be an engaging conversation about the
many technologies, changes and challenges that are affecting
the professional audiovisual industry today,” says Scott Wills,
Director of International Education and Member Services for
InfoComm International. “It will cover a wide variety of topics
from the latest in displays to network bandwidth challenges to
using Cloud computing and more. The Future Trends Summit
promises to whet the appetite of anyone preparing to explore
what the 750+ exhibitors on the ISE show floor have to offer.”
If last year’s Future Trends Summit is anything to go by, this
year’s promises to be unmissable. As last year, for example,
Electrosonic’s Robert Simpson – widely regarded as a guru on the
subject of display technology, with his books on the effective use
of audiovisual technology, videowalls and lighting control still
regarded as definitive – will present an analysis of where display
technology has come from and where it is going. Bob Snyder is
expected to challenge our conception of the future of networking
infrastructure. The session will also feature case studies from the
Middle East showing how the future is no longer just about AV –
it’s about total integration.
“Everything a building can do technologically will be captured
in these seminars,” says Wills. ”In fact, the inseparable connection
between the AV world and the IT professional will resonate
throughout the content of the day. The programme will include
discussions on the maturity of the audiovisual profession as we see
the development of many performance standards and best practices
that allow for the benchmarking of system installations.”
“All the future trends information, Cloud AV, fully integrated
solutions will be presented to demonstrate a major theme,” he
continues. “AV no longer works in isolation. Customers want it
all to work together seamlessly.”
It won’t be just ‘blue skies’, however, according to Wills: the
presentations are designed to deliver actionable information
that can make a difference in the near term. “Attendees will
learn items to look out for in the coming years and months,” he
says. “We will highlight possible skills gaps and opportunities to
address to be prepared for the future. Delegates will learn about
future technologies and where the AV industry is headed. They
will learn about upcoming standards that will impact their work
in the future.”
The programme is intentionally planned for a late start of
11:00am to allow for easy travel within Europe on the morning
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