IPMA Wraps up Conference, Celebrates 50 Years
This was an action-packed week for in-plant managers. More than 130 of them met in downtown Milwaukee for the In-plant Printing and Mailing Association conference. The event drew dozens of new (or long absent) attendees and featured one of the largest vendor exhibit areas in many years.
The conference got off to a great start when industry mentor Frank Romano offered an amusing look back at some of the graphic arts technologies in-plants have used over the years. Then the association celebrated its 50th year with a birthday cake during the opening reception.
At Monday's opening keynote, magician and author Billy Riggs wowed the crowd with impressive illusions and mind-reading feats while urging managers to "practice people development" at their in-plants. Other conference highlights included two sessions from NAPL Consultant Howie Fenton in which he described some of the tactics of leading in-plants, and a keynote by InfoTrends' Barb Pellow, in which she listed the seven habits of successful in-plants. Also notable was a high-speed panel discussion ("55 Ideas in 60 Minutes") in which four managers of leading in-plants offered their advice, in two-minute commentaries, on topics like metrics, making it easy to do business with the in-plant, new products and services and employee engagement. IPG Editor Bob Neubauer also presented the latest IPG research data (along with a telling video documenting his daily life in the office).
Though the conference officially ended with the awards banquet Wednesday evening (see today's e-news story on the Best of Show winner), 50 attendees extended their stay to tour Briggs & Stratton's nearby in-plant. Manager Debbie Pavletich brought the group through prepress and graphic design, where they learned about the types of projects that typically come through the in-plant. She also showed them the large-format printing room and the CTP area, housing an Agfa Avalon device. Then Brian Patterson led attendees through the copy center, where they saw a new Konica Minolta device and asked Kodak representative Debra Payne-Benson about the shop's NexPress. The in-plant's OKI digital envelope press drew a lot of attention. Finally, Randy Will and Susan Thomas showed off the bindery department, featuring a Standard Horizon Stitchliner. Attendees also got quizzed on Briggs & Stratton engines, with prizes for teams that could identify the most engine components.
Watch for a full conference review in the July issue of IPG. Additional conference photos are available here.
