Innovation and SID
by Brian Berkeley President, Society for Information Display
Greetings to all of our members and readers around the world! As we look back at 2013, I observe that the display industry and academia continued to innovate at a torrid pace. This year alone, we saw full-HD resolution displays with very high (> 400 ppi) pixel densities shipped in smartphones, first commercial shipments of full-high-definition large-sized OLED television, first ultra-definition (UD, UHD, or 4K × 2K) TV screens reaching mass commercial availability, impressive flexible displays including the first mass-produced product based on a flexible display (the Galaxy Round), first mass production of OLED panels based on green phosphorescent material, extended color gamut for LCD TVs achieved by the use of quantum materials entering mainstream production, and significant improvements in touch and interactive technologies. It is truly a great time to be associated with the display industry. We can expect even more innovation in 2014.
Your involvement with SID is key to this ongoing progress. For example, by reading this magazine, and by watching SID’s members-only webinars, attending chapter events, and attending SID’s annual Display Week conference, we can all keep current with the rapidly emerging developments in displays, and also with related areas including touch and human interactivity.
To help SID keep up with the rapid pace of innovation and to better serve our members, authors, and supporters, SID’s Executive Committee has been very busy driving continuous improvements in all elements of the society’s activities, publications, and operations. In many ways, the Society is undergoing as much innovation as the display field itself. I’d like to share some of these developments with you, our members, who are the most important part of SID. If you are not yet a member of SID, I urge you to consider SID membership. While it is not possible to mention everything in limited space, I hope the following examples will provide a sense of the work in progress so that SID can better serve its membership and the display industry as a whole.
Hopefully by now, you’ve taken note of the upgraded content of this magazine, Information Display. Article quality and relevance have increased, articles covering applications have been added, and new areas such as the current series on venture capital give greater breadth and perspective to all readers. Extensive efforts are being made on SID’s other publications as well, notably including our professional journal, the Journal of the Society for Information Display (JSID). A few years ago, JSID achieved listing in the Science Citations Index, or SCI extended list (SCIe) of professional journals. While this was a significant achievement, the SID Executive Committee has set a goal of moving JSID from SCIe to pure SCI status, as publication in a pure SCI journal is important for many authors and professors. JSID’s new editor has been focusing on continually upgrading paper quality, while also taking necessary administrative steps to ensure proper reporting of JSID paper citations. We believe that JSID and its editorial board are well down the path of increasing JSID’s impact factor, which is the main criterion to achieve pure SCI journal status. We hope to achieve full SCI status for JSID within 2 years. We have also provided better electronic access to all publications from JSID and the SID Symposium Digest, and from many other SID-sponsored conferences as well. We have seen rapid growth in online readership, which is a very encouraging sign.
SID also continues to work hard to deliver meaningful, high-quality conference events to provide learning, networking, and commercial opportunities for SID’s members. I hope you’ve had a chance to take note of the professionalism and upgrading of SID’s annual conference, Display Week. We received a great deal of positive feedback regarding Display Week 2013 in Vancouver. Display Week has always been the best place to go to learn about displays, including fundamental technology instruction in short courses and seminars and reports on new technology developments in the Symposium. The SID Program Committee continues its efforts to maintain high standards for paper acceptance and to attract the strongest possible technical presentations to Display Week, including solicitation of key researchers who might not otherwise be inclined to publish their results.
We have also been working hard to upgrade the Display Week exhibition. It is important that Display Week be recognized not only as a research or technology conference, but also as a place where companies can go to do business. All attendees want to see the latest displays and input technologies, so the exhibition is important to SID, but SID’s leadership also recognizes the need for corporate participants to achieve return on their investment. To be effective, simply stated, customers and providers need to have an effective forum to meet, and the conference needs to promote commerce. To improve participation, we are focusing future venues on accessible locations on the west coast of North America. We have given renewed emphasis to SID’s annual Business Conference, the Investor’s Conference, and Market Focus Conferences, and we have been upgrading the exhibition as a place to connect customers, display makers, component makers, and service providers. Among other benefits, Display Week provides a very favorable climate for meeting key system integrators, most of whom are based in North America and many in Silicon Valley itself. We will continue our efforts to make Display Week the gold standard of conferences for our field.
Finally, significant work continues behind the scenes to provide better member services. We recognize the need to improve the customer IT experience and that project is under way now. Please know that SID is here to serve you, our membership. We will continue to innovate within SID so that we can better serve your needs and help the display industry and academia thrive. •