In-plant Events

MORE THAN 100 in-plant managers from all parts of the United States gathered in Baton Rouge for the 32nd annual Southeastern University Printers and Digital Managers Conference (SUPDMC) in early October. Hosted by Mike Loyd and his team from Louisiana State University (LSU), the conference offered a mixture of Cajun hospitality and professional development. Tim Vellek, vice president of Ricoh’s new Production Printing Business Group (PPBG) delivered Monday’s keynote. He argued that in-plants need to keep up with market demands in the form of new services while managing their internal images. It is vital, he said, for in-plants to be perceived as

I’VE BEEN feeling oddly disconnected lately. I guess having a newborn in the house can do that to you. Suddenly your comfortable routine is gone and you’re plunged into an alternate world, where business issues barely register. Naturally I skipped all the usual fall shows this year to spend time at home with the baby. Now that I’m back, though, and hearing stories about the NGPA and SUPDMC conferences, a sense of detachment is setting in. The events don’t seem quite real to me. I feel like an outsider peering in. This, I suspect, is how many of you must also feel if

HUDSON, NH—Oct. 9, 2007—Presstek, Inc. (Nasdaq: PRST), the leading manufacturer and marketer of digital offset printing business solutions, today announced that President and Chief Executive Officer Jeff Jacobson has been appointed to the EDSF board of directors. EDSF is the international, non-profit organization dedicated to the document management and graphic communications industries. As a charitable foundation, EDSF is dedicated to preparing the next generation of professionals for the document management and graphic communications marketplace. The organization supports the industry’s future by granting scholarships to students in support of their academic careers, providing a research grant/mentor program for colleges and universities, building career awareness, and recognizing

The first TransPromo Summit brought more than 300 people from 33 states and 15 countries to New York to learn about the benefits of incorporating promotional messages onto transactional documents. “It’s a new market opportunity that is about to explode,” proclaimed organizer Charlie Pesko, founder and president of InfoTrends, the research and consulting company that organized the two-day summit. Keynote speaker Jeff Hayzlett, chief marketing officer of Kodak’s Graphic Communications Group, got to the heart of the matter in his second-day keynote address: “TransPromo is a hot topic for a good reason: it works,” he said. “Smart marketers...are using new digital print technologies to

Autumn is a busy time for government in-plants. First the National Government Publishing Association (NGPA) meets next week in Austin, Texas (www.govpublishing.org). Then on November 28, the second edition of the “Digital Printing in Government” conference takes place in Washington, D.C. Hosted by INTERQUEST, a market and technology research and consulting firm, the event will feature key results from INTERQUEST’s new study “Digital Printing in Government: Perspectives of Print Buyers and Outsourcing Providers,” which will be published in November. “Last year our research was mainly focused on government printing operations. This year we are adding a dimension by exploring how government agencies have

Debbie Pavletich, director of Graphic Services at Briggs & Stratton, in Milwaukee, Wis., is the new president of the In-plant Printing and Mailing Association (IPMA). She assumed the new office on Monday, taking over for former president Mike Loyd, who retired September 30 as director of Graphic Services at Louisiana State University. “I feel very privileged to be at the helm of an organization that provides such a variety of support and resources to its membership,” she says. “Mike has done a fabulous job of guiding this association through a very critical period of change. I am looking forward to working with not only IPMA’s

The Southeast University Printing and Digital Managers Conference (SUPDMC) took place in Baton Rouge this week, hosted by Louisiana State University. The three-day event, which drew more than 100 in-plant managers from around the country, was also something of a retirement party for organizer Mike Loyd, who is leaving LSU after 12 years as director of Graphic Services. (He won’t be out of sight for long, though, having accepted a new position with a prominent digital printing equipment vendor.) The conference featured such well-known industry speakers as Barb Pellow, of InfoTrends, and Jeff Hayzlett, of Kodak’s Graphic Communications Group. Debbie Pavletich, incoming IPMA president, also

The first TransPromo Summit took place this week in New York, drawing over 300 attendees, including several in-plant managers from the insurance and utility fields. IPG Editor Bob Neubauer attended the event, which covered the latest trend in variable data printing: the combining of transactional statements (bills, etc.) with promotional messages. “It’s a new market opportunity that is about to explode,” enthused Charlie Pesko, whose company InfoTrends organized the summit. Attendees learned of the importance of varying the marketing message with each statement sent to a customer and of tracking and measuring the results of this type of marketing. Also, the marketing message on

Nearly eight months before opening next March at it’s new home at the Anaheim Convention Center in Southern California, the third annual PrintFest trade show continues to grow by leaps and bounds. Over 71 percent of last year’s floor space is already committed, and next year’s floor plan is 25 percent larger than it was in the spring of 2007. PrintFest promoters expect the show to grow by a total of 38 percent over the size of the 2007 show. The event will take place March 27-29.

In June, in-plants from around the country gathered in Oklahoma City for the IPMA conference. Now, thanks to a new video from IPG, you can experience the event—or relive it, if you were lucky enough to have attended. The action-packed conference featured sessions on digital printing, equipment demos, an in-plant tour, an awards ceremony and lots of networking. Our video captures all of the excitement and shows you why this is one of the biggest events of the year in the in-plant industry. Follow this link to the video, and if you like it leave a comment: http://www.ipgonline.com/video/video.bsp?sid=73203&var=video