What? No one remembers The Man From UNCLE?

Anyway, Day 3 (Day 1 here and Day 2 here) of the Creative Freelancer Conference began with another session of Walkies...this time I was dressed appropriately, but it was apparently decided to make it a 10K, so the group was up and gone before I had even made it out the door.

Sessions on Friday morning focused on time management (presented by Lee Silber) and the advantages of being a solopreneur (presented by Jeff Fisher).

Ultimately, the Creative Freelancer Conference was unlike any other creative conference I have ever been to, and I’ve been to a whole lot (I have a set of Seybold Seminars bags from 1996–2002 in my basement), focusing as it did on the business aspects of the creative business and not “Photoshop tips and tricks” which is the usual (but important nonetheless) fare at creative-oriented conferences.

The takeaways of the conference for those in the printing industry are the following:

• Granted, we’re talking about a self-selected sample, so there likely isn’t a great deal of statistical heft behind this statement, but I think it’s safe to make the sweeping generalization that creatives really like what it is they do. They take great pride in their work, and they like to talk about it. They like to learn new things, and, like anyone else, they like to grow their businesses.


• But what they like about their businesses is that they’re their businesses, and they an run them how they like and not have to conform to the usual ways of doing business.


• Like everyone else, though, creatives are challenged in large part by how to grow their businesses.


• Like a lot of others, they are using a variety of media channels to promote themselves—e-mail marketing, Web sites, word of mouth, and even print.


• But also like a lot of others, they are being pulled strongly in non-print directions—both in terms of client demands, and their own marketing efforts.


• This will be a theme of an upcoming Dr. Joe report, but there were few representatives of the printing industry on hand. Of the 15 sponsors of the event, only one—Corporate Image—was a print services provider. It would have been the perfect place for a savvy printer to have educated attendees about the advantages of print marketing and integrating it with other media. Variable-data printing/customization/personalization/etc. would also have been good to showcase to this crowd; think of the cool variably printed items that could have been inserted in attendees’ kits.


• It also would have been a good venue to talk about the advantages of print vis-a-vis other media, especially where effectiveness is concerned. When I mentioned to some folks relevant statistics (such as, for example, that the Post Office delivers 99% of printed mail, but as much as more than one-third of even opt-in e-mail may not be delivered thanks to ISPs’ anti-spam filters.


• Also as Dr. Joe will elaborate on in an upcoming report (so I shan’t steal his thunder), attending or even sponsoring client events is the best way for printers to understand their customers’ businesses, their concerns, their challenges, and prevailing and emerging trends.


• If you’ve got time to kill in Chicago while waiting for a train, the Elephant and Castle on E. Adams near Union Station is a good vaguely British pub, and is the only place in the states I have ever found Fuller’s London Pride on draft.