Events & Training Calendar

2010 Presidents Conference Provided Insight into the Current Industry Trends

The 2010 Printing Industries of America’s Presidents Conference held February 28–March 4 in Scottsdale, Arizona, is in the books. The conference was an enormous success and provided insight into the current trends taking shape in the printing industry.

The conference’s over-arching theme was “Strengthening the Cornerstone of Your Business,” and with that in mind, printers have put an emphasis on examining their value proposition to customers and widening their suite of services. Printers are more and more seeing the need to be communicators or service providers and augmenting their product and service mix beyond print.

Paired with the notion of becoming communicators, talk of embracing technology and social media bubbled up among attendees. This made Julie Shaffer’s session titled, Cross-Media Methods n’ Magic—Internet-based Marketing Technologies to Help Your Clients Create Measurable Marketing Programs, a huge success. She explored, in detail, four ways printers can apply social media to benefit their organizations—specifically, the idea of utilizing social sites to gain insight into several vertical markets.

Paul Reilly’s panel, Finding Opportunities in Tough Markets, was a massive hit. His panel was a representation of the growth and opportunity across the industry that highlighted the green initiative, value of data and transitioning to a marketing service provider, and much more. As the print landscape continues to evolve, the tips provided here were nothing short of crucial.

When patrons weren’t absorbing knowledge from panelists, ideas were being bounced from peer-to-peer and business cards were being exchanged. In addition, this conference provided a rare opportunity for attendees to consult with experts from all over the industry.

As the conference came to a close, two-well known names in the industry were honored among their peers. Jim Mayes, president, Colorcraft of Virginia, was honored for his accomplishments and given the Lewis Memorial Lifetime Achievement Award. Diane Koch, director, educational services, Printing Industries of America, who is retiring at the end of March after 25 years working for Printing Industries and was honored for her service.

This was a great conference to jump-start the year and get everyone excited about the prospects on the horizon in 2010 and 2011.