Xplor 2008 XDU Global Conference, March 3-6, Boston
For more than 25 years, Xplor has delivered document-industry education to tens of thousands of professionals who design, manage, publish, and deliver business and promotional documents. This year in Boston, I caught up with a few folks, to get their perspective on the event.
Alan Brown, Technical Development, American Express Services, Europe
We're here as a company to make sure we have a good feel for what's going on in the industry. We've got some strategic decisions that we'll be making in the near future around the whole document creation and management process and I've come to do some research to see how all the technology and offerings fit together.
The last time we did this was a few years ago. We want to make sure we understand all the best practices and that we are moving in the right direction as an organization.
Brian Ray, Managing Director for Northwest Mailing Services "Northwest New Media" Group
"The technology is so diverse that I can learn something from every segment here at XDU. The presentations range across hybrid, transpromo and XPS - all under one roof. Add to that representation from nearly every software and hardware vendor and it's truly one stop shopping!"
Kurt Schumacher, Principal, Infostrategy
I'm here studying what is a "not well understood" element of the TransPromo world, that is, the brokering of the space on documents for advertising. Insert brokers have been around for a long time because there are mailers who are willing to sell space in their envelope and hire a broker to find companies who want to ride along.
The same thing works along with electronic documents. If the TransPromo market is going to grow, there is a need to develop a market place were buyers and sellers come together to make intelligent decisions about the advertising space on transactional documents.
Scott Gerschwer, Media Relations Manager, MegaSpirea International
From an educational standpoint, this event [the Xplor Document University] is extremely important for the industry; I don't think there's anything else like it. It's a nice pairing with On Demand, though I think if On Demand would just turn the educational aspect over to Xplor it would probably be more effective.
Steven Poe, VP Product Management, Crawford Technologies
Xplor has always meant education for me; coming here to learn more about what's going on and catching up on what's new. I look for what's new in theory, in business trends, technology trends, and then get to see what's new down on the floor in terms of hardware and software.
The other major component of Xplor is the networking and keeping up with all the people in the industry. Then, if you run into a problem you have someone you can call and get a bit of help.
I think it is especially interesting this year because we have all three combined (Xplor, On Demand, AIIM) where you can get the education that Xplor has always been known for, and at the same time, you can go down to the exhibits and see vendors from all three groups. It's a much better one-stop shopping experience. With the Internet you can do so much research on companies and products, but it doesn't quite match getting one-to-one face time in a booth where you can ask the hard questions.
If you were at Xplor this year, tell us why you attended. What did you go to learn? Add your comments here or on the On Demand Open Thread>>.
Discussion
By Nick Doralp, PMP, EDP on Mar 12, 2008
Since discovering Xplor last year, I was truly looking forward to this year's version.
I have been in IT over 30 years and still there is so much to learn. I think by sponsoring my attendance my company gets an incredible ROI. What I learn in sessions are applicable immediately and its all practical.
I also enjoyed rubbing shoulders with the best names in the industry. That itself is worth the price of admission.
The only downside is too many good sessions running parallel and not being able to pick the best of the best.
I will be there again next year, wherever it might be held.
Nick Doralp, PMP, EDP
By Scott Bannor on Mar 12, 2008
I'd like to see Xplor concentrate greater effort on encouraging vendors to use the conference as a training venue. It's no secret that vendors are consistently undergoing turn over in their management and (more importantly) in their sales forces. It's unfair to reps and (more importantly) to users to expect sales people to become effective in a short amount of time thru on the job training or thru vendors' in-house, product-centric training courses.
Attendance at Xplor sessions could provide new hires with substantial understanding of the fundamentals of our industry. This would make them more effective sales people, build their personal as well as their employer's credibility with clients, improve customer satisfaction and increase their effectiveness as professional sales people.
By-the-way, I know of what I speak. Early in my career I had the great pleasure of working for Dave Henkel, the first President of Xplor. Dave insisted that all of his sales people (as well as production, operations, etc.) attend Xplor and take in sessions. He went so far as to assign us to sessions and to expect us to report on what we had learned. I learned more about our industry thru this experience in 2 years than I could have on my own in 10.
Discussion
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