Hamburg / New York City, USA - Some 120 publishing experts met on June 18 at vjoonity Americas in New York City to explore the latest developments in digital publishing and efficient workflows. Adobe and vjoon teamed up to present one of the focal points of the event, an exclusive preview of the next-generation Adobe Digital Publishing Solution (DPS) and its integration with vjoon K4. Longtime vjoon user Condé Nast International gave an account of the firm's experience as an early adopter. Commenting on these developments, vjoon CEO Andreas Schrader said, "It's not just that we have supported the latest generation of Adobe DPS from day one; we've also optimized vjoon K4's integration to facilitate efficient publishing for smartphones and tablets. At the same time, we enable our customers to transition smoothly to the new Adobe DPS."

Hands-on workshops on how to make the most of publishing processes
Concurrent breakout sessions were held to present ideas and practical solutions for resolving various issues encountered in day-to-day publishing workflows, all of which aim to improve processes. Brett Hawkins of American Lawyer Media (ALM) and Scott Dunn from Flux Consulting presented various scripts that were incorporated into the workflow at ALM and fine-tuned to interact with vjoon K4 modules. This combination puts even more powerful tools at users' fingertips and lightens the workload by eliminating a lot of manual effort. Juan Lauro Aguirre, CEO of vjoon partner Dalai, presented his company's comprehensive performance analytics solution, an application tailored to vjoon K4. It enables decision-makers and project managers to track the publishing process, compare metrics, pinpoint bottlenecks and take remedial action in real time, on the spur of the moment. This way users enjoy the benefits of continuous improvement as envisioned in the Unified Publishing Process, the company's initiative to streamline workflows and transform publishing into a lean, agile endeavor. Another workshop focused on a related topic, page planning and ad scheduling. To this end, host Dr. Jochen Franzke from dataplan staged a vivid demonstration showcasing JournalDesigner and vjoon K4's remarkably efficient interaction.

New release simplifies approvals
Another eagerly anticipated conference highlight was the presentation of the upcoming vjoon K4 version 6.10. This release's integration with the new generation of Adobe DPS was a major talking point, but that was not the only news that merits a mention. Version 6.10 also simplifies approval processes within enterprises and puts external users into the approvals loop. The procedure is an exercise in convenience: The user with the authority to approve the given content gets a URL via email. A single click takes that user directly to the article, which can then be opened in the K4 Web Portal, for example. This portal presents a streamlined GUI that provides just the key functions needed for quick and easy editing. It comes in very handy, especially for agencies that prepare business reports, because decision-makers at the client company—CEOs, CFOs, department heads and the like—are so easily integrated into the approval process, and it keeps the workflow lean. What's more, users who seldom access the system, and take advantage of few of its many capabilities when they do, are spared the effort and expense of training. Another new capability is essential to publishing reports and books: Entrained images—that is, pictures that go with the text flow—can be now anchored within or alongside text columns. The new version also allows workflows to be fine-tuned with even greater precision, for example, to refine user direction. Now tasks can be linked to a status so that only specific users are presented with certain tasks that need to be done at this stage of the process.

Outlining the firm's medium-to-long-term product strategy, Andreas Schrader talked about development projects and the various milestones along the way. Attendees were keen to learn more about these efforts as they factor customers' needs, industry trends and the firm's innovations into the R&D equation.

After a day of interesting presentations on a variety of topics, the conference wrapped up with an evening event where guests engaged in spirited discussions over drinks and snacks at the Apella Event Center on the banks of New York's East River. The vjoon community will convene again soon, on November 6, 2015, at vjoonity Europe in Hamburg.