In-plant Events

Ricoh Americas Corp. will be offering Smart Business Seminars through its Production Printing Business Group (PPBG). The company will cover critical production printing topics. PPBG developed the seminars to better meet the specific business needs of those working in in-plants and data centers. Designed as an educational forum, these seminars offer segment-focused information that includes national industry speakers, hands-on exercises, technology demonstrations and take-away operational assessment tools for real-life applications. Smart Business Seminars have been held in Atlanta and Philadelphia and will tour across the country in six additional cities. Here’s the schedule: • New York; May 14 • Washington, D.C.; June 11 •

With its conference just 47 days away, the In-Plant Printing and Mailing Association (IPMA) has just launched its redesigned Web site. The new site is much easier to navigate and provides up-to-date information on the association’s many benefits. Look for quick links to IPMA chapter news, In-Print contest results, conference information and more. Check it out for yourself at www.ipma.org .

THE COUNTRY’S largest gathering of in-plant managers is about to assemble in Tunica, Miss., just south of Memphis. The In-Plant Printing and Mailing Association (IPMA) Conference will be taking place June 4-7 at the Veranda Hotel, part of the Grand Casino Resort, in Tunica. Any manager interested in improving his or her in-plant should make plans to attend. This will be the association’s 49th conference, and the agenda is packed with educational sessions that get right to the heart of the issues most important to in-plants. Topics include variable data, mail piece design, customer service, Web-based job submission, going green and much more.

At the On Demand show last month in Boston, In-plant Graphics organized a roundtable luncheon for in-plant managers. Hosted by GBC, the luncheon meeting lured more than 25 in-plant managers away from the busy show floor. They came from a diverse collection of organizations, such as Portland General Electric, Principal Financial Group, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Securian Financial, Allstate Insurance, Brown University and the University of Missouri-Columbia, to name a few. IPG Editor Bob Neubauer moderated the discussion, which covered in-plants’ equipment acquisition plans and new services they have added. Among the new services that attendees said helped strengthen their in-plants was

If you clicked on this link, you must have read the trivia question in our March issue. But if not, or if you just want a reminder, here was the question: Which of these associations once held its annual conference in Fairbanks, Alaska? n In-Plant Printing and Mailing Association (IPMA) • International Association of Printing House Craftsmen (IAPHC) • Association of College and University Printers (ACUP) • National Government Publishing Association (NGPA) • Xplor International

THIS WILL be the ink-jet Drupa. No, it will be the green Drupa. Or, maybe the print buyer Drupa. Actually, it will be big enough to be all three, and much more. In case you’re new to the business, Drupa is the largest trade show in the graphic arts industry. Held every four years in Düsseldorf, Germany, it will boast more than 1,800 exhibitors and cover more than 1.8 million square feet of exhibit space in nearly 20 halls when it kicks off on May 29. Putting a label on Drupa is one way to make it more digestible. Another is for

NEWTON, MA—February 19, 2008 -- Questex Media Group’s On Demand Conference & Exposition (ondemandexpo.com), the preeminent event for commercial printers, publishers, and in-plant printing professionals, will present a marketing focused keynote panel titled “The Changing Media Mix: A Marketing Perspective” on Wednesday, March 5 at 11:10 a.m. Senior executives from InfoTrends, the CMO Council and the Direct Marketing Association will discuss critical industry trends and priorities of marketing executives. The On Demand Conference & Exposition will take place at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center from March 4-6, with tutorials on Monday, March 3, 2008. This keynote panel is designed to provide first-hand

In an effort to connect the worlds of print and marketing, creative and cross media, PrintFest will partner with the Direct Marketing Association of Southern California (DMAsc) to host the PrintFest 2008 print and marketing expo at the Anaheim Convention Center March 27-29.  DMAsc will co-locate its annual expo at PrintFest in the DMwest pavilion. Through this partnership, PrintFest 2008, will expand its traditional and digital printing technology focus to include cross media/multi-channel marketing and design, e-mail and Web site technologies. It will also touch on other current and future communications technologies such as text messaging and video, while continuing to deliver the

THE AIIM/On Demand Conference & Expo is shaping up to be the event of the year for in-plants. Not only will the show feature its usual impressive spread of digital printing equipment and software, but the AIIM/On Demand educational seminars will be augmented by a separate educational program from Xplor International. Xplor will hold its Global Conference in conjunction with On Demand for the first time this year. While On Demand is offering some 55 sessions, keynotes and tutorials, Xplor’s Document University will include 20 courses comprising 150 educational classes. Plus, AIIM has its own set of sessions covering topics like enterprise content management.

“Complacency is a dreaded disease,” declared Oren Harari, Ph.D., during his keynote address at SGIA ’07, the Specialty Graphic Imaging Association. In an increasingly competitive, copy cat economy, he said, “technologies alone aren’t the value, it’s how they are being utilized differently and innovatively that matters.” Such was the message at last fall’s SGIA Expo, in Orlando. The major theme was that creativity leads to innovation, and innovation results in new revenue sources. Attendees saw this on the show floor, from high-production digital printers and integrated direct-to-garment equipment to highly developed finishing tools. Messages of using creativity to differentiate and stand out in a