The recent In-plant Printing and Mailing Association conference broke from tradition

By Bob Neubauer

June’s In-plant Printing and Mailing Association conference was one to remember. I’ve been to 22 IPMA conferences now, and this one broke from tradition in a couple of ways.

Embracing Colorado’s emphasis on outdoor recreation, this year’s in-plant conclave included a lot more al fresco meals and receptions (though Denver’s unexpected June heat wave made some of them a bit warm). There were fewer sessions but more field trips, with buses carrying attendees to both the University of Colorado’s in-plant and the Ricoh Customer Innovation Center.

Managers check out the winning In-Print 2016 pieces during the awards reception.

The awards dinner, which took place in the middle of the conference rather than the end, may have stretched on a bit long this year; I think I heard a rooster crowing just before the last prize was handed out. (And yes, I know I helped drag it out with those Best of Show videos, so I’ll take my lumps too.) Still, I was glad that so many different in-plants were honored with awards this year.

Conference attendance climbed 23% over last year’s numbers: 154 managers showed up, 52 of them first timers. This shows that the association’s outreach efforts and its focus on increasing value for members are both paying off.

Though in-plant managers led the majority of sessions — sharing their experiences with Web-to-print, variable data, partnering with IT and developing strategic plans — there were some notable exceptions.

Motivational speaker Steve Gilliland drew lots of praise for his amusing anecdotes (though I confess I had a hard time finding any concrete lessons in his banter).
A curious choice to speak about disaster recovery, Michael Brown (of Hurricane Katrina fame) nonetheless delivered an important message on the need to rely on your network of contacts when disaster strikes and reexamine bad situations from a different perspective.
Dr. Joe Webb speaking at the recent IPMA conference.

Industry analyst Dr. Joe Webb kicked off the conference with a data-packed summary of in-plant statistics garnered from a survey of IPMA members. As a surveyor of in-plants myself, I was especially interested in his data and his general take on the in-plant industry. Webb was humorous, personable and very knowledgeable, yet like most industry experts attending IPMA for the first time, he didn’t seem to know what to make of this collection of in-plant managers. That said, I’m still glad he was there because I think it’s crucial that in-plants hear from outside observers and not just from each other.

Overall I was very happy with the diverse crowd of managers at this year’s IPMA conference. I enjoyed catching up with all of them, and I learned a few things that will be showing up in articles in the months ahead.

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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.

From the Editor: Conference Reflections