October 20, 2005. Lexington, KY. -- In a free Webinar hosted by WhatTheyThink.com, the printing industry’s leading source of online news and information, WhatTheyThink Senior Editor Cary Sherburne conducted an educational briefing on Variable Data Printing: The Buy Side Perspective. Sherburne was joined by Stefan Agustsson from Yoffi Digital Press, MJ Anderson of marketing firm Trekk and Patrick Kehoe, CTO of Lason, Inc. All three companies are long-time participants in the variable data space, and Yoffi and Trekk have a unique partnership designed to more fully address customer needs. The speakers shared their real-world experience and best practices relative to implementing, marketing and selling variable data printing solutions. Nearly 600 senior printing executives from around the world registered for this event, which was sponsored by Exstream Software, Printable and Kodak. The audio of the Webinar and PDF of the presentation are available online by visiting WhatTheyThink’s webinar archives. “This was our largest webinar audience to date,” said Randy Davidson, President of WhatTheyThink. “That is a clear indication of the increasing recognition among print service providers of the importance of becoming engaged in variable data services.” During the presentation, Agustsson and Anderson spoke about their unique strategic alliance which has made them almost “sister companies,” saying, “We believe this alliance is critical to our ability to bring our mutual clients better solutions to their marketing problems, meeting their needs with more than just print.” The duo also pointed out the importance of building metrics into the variable data communications process, which they defined as variable data marketing due to its extension beyond the printed medium to integrated multichannel communications campaigns. “There is still some skepticism on the part of many print service providers about whether variable data printing is a viable business opportunity,” said Sherburne. “Our presenters today gave first-hand testimony about the reality of the opportunity. The Trekk/Yoffi partnership expects the percent of variable data work they do to reach 95% by next year, and Lason’s Kehoe indicates that 40 to 50% of its customer-facing transactional documents now include marketing messages.” Kehoe spoke about the convergence of promotional and transactional printing for more effective business communications and also stressed the importance of including tracking mechanisms as well as mechanisms for measuring results in variable data marketing campaigns. He added, “Customers want to leverage an existing communications channel. They already have documents going to customers, and for a very small additional cost, they can include inserts and other document content to expand the communication they are having with that recipient and increase its impact.” The presentation, including audio, can be accessed at no charge by visiting http://www.vcall.com/CustomEvent/NA015268/index.asp?id=94945 Watch for future WhatTheyThink educational webinars through the balance of the year. About Exstream: Headquartered in Lexington, KY, Exstream Software helps businesses around the world connect with their customers through higher quality, fully personalized customer communications delivered by mail, email and the Internet. Companies in the financial services, insurance, service bureau, telecommunications, utilities and other industries benefit from as much as 85 percent faster time to market, up to 80 percent reduced costs and increased revenue through improved customer retention. For more information about Exstream Software and its market-leading Dialogue and AFP Studio technology, visit www.exstream.com, or contact Exstream at 859-296-0600 or [email protected]. About Kodak Kodak is the leader in helping people take, share, print and view images –for memories, for information, for business, and for entertainment. With sales of $13.5 billion in 2004, the company is committed to a digitally oriented growth strategy focused on four businesses: Digital & Film Imaging Systems – providing consumers, professionals and cinematographers with digital and traditional products and services; Health – supplying the medical and dental professions with traditional and digital imaging and information systems, IT solutions and services; Graphic Communications – providing customers with a range of solutions for prepress, traditional and digital printing, and document scanning and multi-vendor IT services; and Display & Components – supplying original equipment manufacturers with imaging sensors as well as intellectual property and materials for the organic light-emitting diode (OLED) and LCD display industries. More information about Kodak (NYSE: EK) is available at www.kodak.com. About Printable Technologies Printable Technologies is a world leader in providing Web-to-Print and Variable Data Printing (VDP) Solutions to commercial and digital print service providers, ad agencies and direct marketing companies, and the enterprises using their services. The Printable System delivers real-time integrated business communications applications, online ordering and e-commerce, versioned and variable documents, job submission, and file transfer; and easily integrates with ERP, content management, accounting and shop floor management applications, as well as major digital production workflows. For more information, visit www.printable.com. About WhatTheyThink.com: WhatTheyThink.com is the print and publishing industry's leading online community. The company offers a mixture of free and subscription-based content for industry executives. Additionally, WhatTheyThink.com provides a robust content syndication program serving related web sites. About Cary Sherburne Cary Sherburne is a well-known journalist, author and strategic marketing consultant working primarily with the printing and publishing industry. Prior to launching her consulting practice, Ms. Sherburne was the Vice President of Marketing Communications and Outsourcing Solutions at IKON Office Solutions. Her tenure in the printing and publishing industry has also included sales, marketing and management roles at InfoTrends/CAP Ventures, Xerox Corporation, Indigo America and Bitstream. She is a frequent speaker at industry events, a regular contributor to WhatTheyThink.com and has written three books, available through the National Association for Printing Leadership (www.napl.org). Sherburne can be reached at [email protected] or www.SherburneAssociates.com.