Last week, I attended the Kodak Graphic Users Association at the Wynn in Las Vegas on behalf of WhatTheyThink. This is one of the oldest independent users groups in our industry. Although it has undergone a few name changes, and there was some trepidation on the part of the members when Kodak acquired Creo, the group has not lost any of its vitality. This is the first year the media has been invited to attend, and I was joined by four other journalists from the United States and Canada. The meeting was well organized, and the Wynn, of course, is an outstanding venue.

Tom Clifford, of RR Donnelley, the group’s president, has been a member since 1997 and on the Board for four years. The group has seen a bit of decline in attendance in the past few years, with last year seeing 206 attendees. Even though the economy is a bit uncertain, and the users group meeting was competing with drupa and an early IPA conference, there were 314 members in attendance, a 50% increase over last year, due, at least in part, to an aggressive multimedia marketing campaign by the group’s Board of Directors (including this YouTube video). The campaign involved more than 59,000 direct marketing pieces between mail and email, and 23,000 of those incorporated pURLs, with some 400 hits back to the pURLs.

A high point of this event for the users is the ability to interact with Kodak engineers, researchers, executives and developers, to provide direct feedback, have their questions and concerns addressed, and learn where the products and solutions upon which their businesses—in many cases—depend. This conference did not disappoint in that regard, and members took advantage of the hands-on lab and many and varied sessions to have those conversations. The other highlight, of course, is the ability to network with peers and to catch up with old friends. That behavior was very much in evidence as well, as members took discussions offline between sessions and during the evening events.

One of the most popular sessions at this conference is the Rules-Based Automation tutorial sessions, featuring a one-student, one-computer ratio. Even though capacity for the sessions was expanded, there was still a waiting list as each session approached.

One cool initiative Kodak previewed was the Kodak Graphic Community, an evolution of the company’s Market Mover Network. The Kodak Graphic Community is a Web 2.0 deployment that leverages the Internet to build relationships—sort of a Facebook for printers, as it were, with Kodak InSite as the backbone. Members will be able to browse the community, see who is out there, connect with each other, develop business relationships and exchange content to continue to develop and evolve the vision of being the most efficient deliverer of content, print and ecommerce. Kodak is also sponsoring the Direct Marketing Alliance, another network that offers to provide the infrastructure, including a virtual sales force, that will ease the entry into data-centric businesses for printers that are reluctant to jump in with both feet.

Lots more was discussed, including updates to Prinergy, InSite Storefront, ColorFlow and more. There was much emphasis on automation, hybrid offset/digital production, and the transition from print service provider (PSP) to marketing service provider (MSP) that many printing firms are aspiring to—and a few have already accomplished.

Watch for the full article, coming soon to WhatTheyThink.