Interviewer: This is Randy Davidson President and CEO of WhatTheyThink.com and we’re here at the PODi Conference in Las Vegas, and I’m here with Rab, who is the President of PODi and the founder of PODi. Rab, glad to see you.

Rab Govil: Thank you, Randy. I’m very glad to have What They Think here. Our members think of What They Think as the premiere source of information in the printing industry and you guys have done such a wonderful job. So, it’s great to have you here.

Interviewer: Great. Thank you. Tell us about the history of PODi, and this event itself.

Rab Govil: So, PODi was originally started by some of the vendors to really grow the market for digital printing. Over the years, it has morphed into becoming the community where all the leading printers and folks have converted themselves into marketing services provider come to share information, share best practices, and understand how can they transform the business and become much more profitable and much more sticky with their customers. And those are the type of people you’ll find her at the conference as well as board members of our organization.

Interviewer: Right. And you’ve had – it’s a tough year, a tough economy, but you guys have a good attendance. We’ve already seen some of the folks that are here and a lot of printers here, and of course, a lot of your partners are here as well. What do you think about this year’s event during these economic times?

Rab Govil: Oh, well it’s been fantastic. So, first of all, what we are finding out is our registration is up 20% more than last year, which is always great news, right. But it’s even greater news for the industry and I’ll tell you why it’s greater news for the industry. What we find out is attendance at our event is a very leading indicator of how the economy is going to do for the printing industry for the rest of the year. And since we are the first event in the industry, we find that if registration is down we’ll find that the economy is going to be a little slow because generally the printers are the first ones to cut back. And if we find that the registration is increasing, almost all the cases we have found out that the industry is going to do very well. So, I think everybody’s feeling much more positive, they’ve had a great December, and the event is looking great, and we feel that we are finally going to head it in the right direction and especially for digital. The growth – most of the people who were involved in the digital didn’t grow as much last year, but they did still grow and the growth is just going to accelerate.

Interviewer: Well, let me finish up and ask you, how can printers find out more information about PODi, and potentially join your organization?

Rab Govil: Well, we welcome you all. The best way is to go to www.PODi.org. or you can go to Caslon.net and Caslon is the affiliated managers PODi on an international basis. But both of these sites have great information available for you and we should probably get a link from the What to Think site to get to PODi. And you should do that this year.

Interviewer: Thank you Rab.

Rab Govil: All right.