DailyDOOH

Adrian J Cotterill, Editor-in-Chief

It’s with great sadness that we have to report that well-known digital signage industry consultant Lyle Bunn has passed away. He died last Tuesday, at his home in Brighton, Ontario, of complications from colon cancer. He was just 63.

We had probably all noted that Lyle had been absent from trade shows and conferences in the past year, but had vaguely understood he had elderly parents who needed his care. Clearly, though, he had his own serious health issue, which based on some emails today he seemed to be on top of, even this summer.

From the early days of the signage industry, Lyle was omnipresent at just about any industry events in North America. If he wasn’t speaking at these events, he was in the audience and among the first to ask questions. When he was working with his sponsors, if there was ever an open mic left at the stage, Lyle, cunning and charming as he was, would often run to the front and start a speech! Our enduring memory of him was at InfoComm one year when he was with his sponsors in one of the education lecture theatres. During the drinks session at the (supposed) end of the session, the audience was milling around having a happy hour, Lyle ran to the stage, grabbed the microphone and gave an impromptu speech (shown above). He remembered to thank the sponsors (as always), thank the others speakers and then proceeded to give the BEST speech of the afternoon!!!

He had an incredibly remarkable knack for keeping his name in the conversation and consideration list when it came to his consulting work, which by all reports he did very well. If there was an industry event, you would almost certainly see Lyle working the room and hallways. He was a true gentleman, charming, talkative, often informative and a treasure trove of tidbits about what was going on. He was also a very, very good presenter.

He was also a voracious student of the industry – always learning and always sharing. He put out countless white papers and either ran or was part of many, many webinars.

A couple of years ago Lyle put out a statement saying he was stepping back from consulting and focusing on education, with something called the Center for Digital Experience. I’m not sure if it was very active, or if his health issues slowed those plans.

Dave Haynes told us that “The enduring memory I have of Lyle Bunn is a ridiculously nice, kind man who rarely said an unkind thing”.

Lyle will be sorely missed by the digital signage community. He loved the industry and firmly believed in it (even if he did try to change the name of it a few times). His enthusiasm and knowledge undoubtedly converted a lot of end-users from skeptics to adopters, and those jobs probably made the year for some companies and kept some people employed. He was among the industry’s biggest cheerleaders and evangelists.

He’ll also be missed by family. Not a lot of people know this, but Lyle wrote a 2015 book – XOXO From Dad – as an expression of love to his daughter, who based on the synopsis is probably in her 20s now. Lyle Bunn was always smiling, as you will see from all the photos people have of him. A true gentleman.

If you live in or north of Toronto, the service is at:

Brighton Fellowship Christian Reformed Church

Brighton, ON
Saturday, October 20, 2018
1:00 p.m.

The family asks that in lieu of flowers, donations be sent in Lyle’s name either to the Canadian Cancer Society or to the American Cancer Society.

Thanks to Sixeteen:Nine’s Dave Haynes for his help in this obituary. As soon as we heard the news we worked together to collate as much information as possible. Dave did the bulk of the work and we’ve used a lot of his words in this post. You can read Dave’s tribute to Lyle here, with some great photos.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 13th, 2018 at 21:36 @942 and is filed under Scuttlebut. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.