I had the pleasure of attending the first annual XMPie Users Group Conference in Las Vegas January 19th and 20th. The conference attendance was higher than expected for a first-time event, with 170 members from 90 companies present. The event was also supported by sponsors, including XMPie, Adobe, EFI, Press-Sense, Tecra and USADATA.

Although XMPie was actively involved in setting up this user group, it is operating as an independent entity with a 10-member Board of Directors, on which XMPie holds two seats. The group has stated a three-fold mission:

This first conference consisted of general sessions as well as Marketing/Business Development and Technical tracks over the two days. Both tracks were heavily attended, with about a 60/40 split—that is, about sixty percent of attendees were in the technical tracks and the other forty in the marketing tracks. As the moderator of the technical track, I didn’t have the opportunity to hear the marketing content first-hand, but the attendees I spoke with were very pleased with what they were able to learn in these sessions, ranging from how to market and sell Cross Media services to optimal organizational structure.