Three Must-See Panels From The Printerverse at Graph Expo 15

Greetings Citizens of The Printerverse!

Graph Expo 2015 is in the books, and what a show it was. From our first panel on Sunday to our last on Wednesday, the Printerverse welcomed over 1000 attendees who came to learn from our awesome Alliance Partners and yeah, have a little fun too. Beyond the four corners of our 2500 square foot Show Floor Feature, our strategic social media efforts before and during the show extended the reach of PMC and our Alliance Partners to over 90 MILLION timeline deliveries on Twitter alone. Add in Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube, and the impressions we created on social media for the show, our Alliance Partners and PMC grows – and will continue to do so.

Before I go any further – THANK YOU! Your Tweets, reTweets, posts, shares, comments, pictures, videos and all efforts made to spread the word about the Printerverse is counted in every stat. Your interest is appreciated 10x more because the space is created for you, and without a doubt the community came to support this year in Chicago, and from home through social media and out Livestream broadcasts of our programming… which brings me to the topic of this post.

We presented 18 panels with our Alliance Partners, and had five special events including the 4th Annual National Girls Who Print Day hosted by Mary Beth Smith with a little help from Team Printerverse, HP Page Wide Customer Case Study Cafe’, Pitney Bowes presented on creating a World Class business, and HP Indigo helped us Discover some of the Printspirational Print created on their presses, and our Wine, Books and Beers cocktail party with GPA Specialty Substrates, Fastbind USA and LumaPix gave everyone an overview of what is needed to get onto the short-run bookmaking biz.

I not only moderated the panels, I watched them on YouTube and I can honestly say they are pretty freaking awesome!!!

The topics were extremely relevant to the community; most of the questions were crowd sourced from you before the show through social media so everyone had a chance to participate and get a shout-out if yours was chosen!

The panelists were there to share, not sell. It was evident from the caliber of company representation that every Alliance Partner took the opportunity to talk with you and answer your questions seriously, and with great respect.

Picking three panels to share in this post is like trying to choose your favorite song, but the ones I am going to mention have special meaning to me.

I Can’t Believe It’s Not Offset! Everything You Need to Know About the Inkjet Revolution. This panel is not only topical, but it brings together HP, Canon and Xerox for the first time in years to sit together and talk specifically about their inkjet offerings and how they differ, the value proposition of inkjet printing, and share notable customer success stories that will generate some cool marketing ideas and maybe even a few new press owners. Panelists: David Murphy hp.com/go/pagewidewebpress  • Guy Broadhurst csa.canon.com • Dustin Graupman xerox.com/inkjet

Evolution/Revolution: The New Age of Industry Orgs and Associations. Panelists Ralph Nappi, President, NPES; Michael Makin, CEO, Printing Industries of America (PIA); Skip Henk, President & CEO, Xplor International; Joseph E. Lyman, President, Great Lakes Graphic Association (GLGA); and Carma Goin, Executive Director, In-Plant Printing and Mailing Association (IPMA) candidly discuss the state of the industry, where its going, how these orgs serve the community, and yep… mergers!

Protecting and Perpetuating the Prosperity of Print and Paper. The demonization of paper – and therefore anything printed on paper – has reached epic proportions. This panel provides resources and information for you to use in support of our industry, and gives you a look into the orgs that are fighting this battle for us on the front lines. See what they are up to, and most important how you can help! Panelists: Joan Sahlgren from “How Life Unfolds” (The Paper and Packaging Board), Phil Riebel from Two Sides North America, Martin J. Maloney from Printing Industries Alliance, and Bob Lindgren from Choose Print.

You can watch all of the Printerverse panels and events from Graph Expo 15 here and let me know which ones stood out for you. I can tell you some of the biggest crowds showed up in the booth and on Livestream for 50 Shades of YAY! Color Management, Paper and Digital Print; Incoming! Print Techs and Trends You Cannot Ignore!; and Breach is the New Black: Privacy, Data and the Cloud – Xerox wrote a cool blog on this one!

Graph Expo 2016 is in Orlando and I am totally psyched to bring some more Printerverse magic to the show floor with new and veteran Alliance partners… hopefully without an hour line-wait to get in, but one can dream!

 LEARN LONG AND PROSPER!

Deborah Corn is the Intergalactic Ambassador to The Printerverse at PrintMediaCentr, a Print Buyerologist™, Integrated Marketer, Industry Speaker and Blogger, Cultivator of the Print Production Professionals Group, the #1 Print Group on LinkedIn, and host of the weekly industry #PrintChat on Twitter. She has more than 25 years experience working in advertising and marketing, and currently works behind the scenes with printers, suppliers and industry organizations helping them to achieve success with their cross media and social media marketing endeavors.