IPMA 2006: What's Changed in 10 Years?

By Bob Neubauer

The other day I chanced upon my 2006 article about that year's IPMA conference. Ten years seems like a long time, yet in some respects not much has changed.

Look, no phones! Everyone paid close attention to the speakers back at IPMA 2006. Sneaking peeks at Facebook was still a few years away.

For instance, the main session topics were online job submission, variable data printing, chargeback systems, marketing, PDF workflows and computer-to-plate—all viable candidates for sessions in 2016.

IPMA President John Hurt announced that year that building membership and chapters would be two key focuses in the year ahead. A decade later, beefing up membership is still a chief concern, and just this week IPMA members had an online discussion about starting new chapters.

2006 was the year IPMA changed its name from the International Publishing Management Association (what?) to the more sensible In-plant Printing and Mailing Association. It was also the first year in several that the conference generated a profit, after several years in the red.

IPMA 2006 attendees at a session, still blissfully ignorant that they will soon be using the word "tweet" in serious conversation.

That year's Outstanding Contributor award went to to Craig Sedgwick, director of the Printing Division of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — a fitting recollection since Craig will be retiring next month. The 2006 Best of Show award went to the University of Delaware. This year the winner will be… ha, you won't get it out of me that easily. (But I will tell you it won't be the University of Delaware. Or Boeing.)

As the association prepares for its next conference — just over three weeks from today, June 20-24 — it plans to welcome more than 140 in-plant managers to Denver for the event (compared with 125 managers at IPMA 2006, in Las Vegas). Sessions will cover strategic plans, partnering with IT, inkjet and more. And just like in 2006, enthusiasm will no doubt be very high.

The 2006 conference was also the first time I shot video at IPMA. To see for yourself what it was like, and rekindle some memories, here's a look back through time. Some faces will look very familiar; others, sadly, are no longer with us.

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Bob Neubauer Author's page

Bob has served as editor of In-plant Impressions since October of 1994. Prior to that he served for three years as managing editor of Printing Impressions, a commercial printing publication. Mr. Neubauer is very active in the U.S. in-plant industry. He attends all the major in-plant conferences and has visited more than 180 in-plant operations around the world. He has given presentations to numerous in-plant groups in the U.S., Canada and Australia, including the Association of College and University Printers and the In-plant Printing and Mailing Association. He also coordinates the annual In-Print contest, co-sponsored by IPMA and In-plant Impressions.