My Adventures At GRAPH EXPO 2014

by Brian Rothschild

“It’s 106 miles to Chicago we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, its dark and we’re wearing sunglasses….”

Anyone who has seen The Blues Brothers… one of my all time favorites, knows that famous scene between Jake & Elwood. But, in my case, it was 1200 miles, 2000+ canceled flights due to some maniac who set fire to Air Traffic Control for O’Hare and Midway, The Bears vs The Packers and if that’s not enough, President Obama was scheduled to come to Chicago for a lecture at a local college. And then there was this little thing called Graph Expo 2014, The largest print trade show in North America.

After confirming all reservations (anyone who’s flown Spirit Air knows about checking your email 60 seconds before boarding), a last minute hug and kiss for my beloved wife, and I was off to Chicago, Chi-Town… The Windy City. I’ve been to a lot of places, especially after being in the US Navy, but, never Chicago. In fact, up till that point, I’d never seen a show bigger than Graphics of the Americas. As the plane touched down, my pulse started to quicken and anyone who knows me knows it doesn’t take much for that to happen.

Planes, Trains, Automobiles… Passes, Classes and, of course, The Printerverse! I arrived at McCormick Place just in time to catch one of my all-time heroes and mentors Mr. Frank Romano give an awesome lecture…  for those who couldn’t make it, here’s a brief sample from YouTube: Frank Romano’s The Future of the American Printer at GRAPH EXPO 14

Sunday was my “Play Day” so I started early by catching the #3 bus rather than waiting for 100 people to cram into a shuttle with their briefcases and purses and Starbucks coffee… in fact, here it comes now!

I arrive at McCormick 10 minutes later and was ‘Wowed’, This place is huge!

After an amazingly informative lecture by Frank Romano, there was a break, followed by a formal discussion panel, and by then it was 3:30 pm and I still had stops to make. Rochester Software Associates who were really nice demoed their AR promotion using Blippar (as seen here)…  and emailed me a copy.

A quick pass by the HP “Visual Remote Guidance” Demo, we’ll get into that later.

And then, onto my place in the galactic empire… The Printerverse where I was again “Wowed’. Our Official Lady Ambassador Deborah Corn had once again taken 2500 sq ft of floor space and transformed it from simple carpet and drapes to one of the Expos “Must See ‘Ems” and although there was no “official Must See ‘Em award given, anyone and everyone had a blast.

We were celebrating “Girls Who Print.”  Pat McGrew from HP (@PatMcGrew) was crowned Queen and High Priestess this year and was awarded with THE GIRLIE! She’s an “Everlasting GobStopper” as her wealth of knowledge and willingness to share it with all seemed to never stop… Thanks Pat!

We like to make things really fun in The Printerverse, so, along with the awesome and important speakers who were kind enough to share their experience, we also had “GPA Aviation” – a build your own paper airplane with cool GPA digital substrates and fly it challenge seen here…

We had speakers from HP, as well as two of my favorite ladies, Kelly Mallozzi @SuccessInPrint who writes for Printing Impressions where she actually compliments me and Mary Beth Smith (below), Lead Lady of “Girls Who Print” in her latest article for PI magazine.

As well as You know her, You love her, You can’t live without her…. The Infamous Trish Witkowski @FoldingFanatic and creator of the 60 Second Super-Cool Fold of the Week graced us with her presence so… it was food, fun, awards, education, networking… and postcards! Our partners from PitneyBowes provided postage for our do it yourself photobooth postcards! So, ya walk in, take your picture, it processes and can be affixed to a preprinted mailable postcard – courtesy of GPA Specialty Substrate Solutions!

And of course, I had to take advantage of that!

So, other than The Printerverse which I love with all my heart, along with Deb, Sandy, Honey, Pat, Mary Beth, Kelly and Trish, what impressed me the most? (The competition was tough this year, and, I know better than to try to pick one favorite lady other than my wife) so, I’m going to step back a paragraph or two and talk tech!

@HPGraphicArts Gave the most amazing technical support demo….well, ever! They now are incorporating Google Glass & Google Translate to offer what I would say is the best tech support scenario I’ve ever seen! Say your an Indigo operator and your experiencing trouble. You don’t call, you simply place your Google Glass on and speak “Glass, contact HP Support” where your inbound request is met by an authorized HP support tech whom can now…. wait for it…. SEES EXACTLY WHAT YOU SEE IN REALTIME, and, if language is a bit of a barrier, and you only speak French, or Spanish, the support tech can walk and talk you through your support query, seeing what you see and understanding every word you speak, and, vice versa, you can listen and Google Translate will speak to you in your native language….. Now, that’s what I call “Technical” Support!”

So, things are calming down a bit after GRAPH EXPO. I’m glad to be back home. I’ve been invited to come again next year and if any of you know Deb Corn the way I do, then, you already know #DebCornRocks!

Brian Rothschild is a digital prepress and print specialist with over 20 years of experience. Certified by Apple and Adobe he has been studying and reporting on technological advancements from 1987 till present and can be reached at graphicfxonline.wix.com or email: graphicfxonline@gmail.com