The long-held vision and dream to see three organizations come together to produce an industry wide event became a marvelous reality last month in Palm Desert, California, with the launch of the first Vision 3 Summit.
The buzz in the dry desert air was palpable as printers and vendors assembled by the hundreds to share ideas and speculate on what the future holds for our great industry. I could not be more thrilled with the success of the event and how wonderful the collaboration was between Printing Industries of America, NAPL, and NPES.
The event kicked off with arguably the most unconventional economic forecast by Dr. Lowell Catlett from New Mexico State University. Dr. Catlett combined home-spun charm and humor to reinforce just how strong the United States economy is and that the future is indeed bright. Industry leader Mike Panaggio followed this theme and shared his business philosophy of focusing on talent to drive organizational success. Mike is one of the most visionary entrepreneurs in our industry, and it was a privilege to have him share his strategic vision. If this weren’t enough, he also designed personalized websites for all of the conference attendees, chalk full of business ideas and blueprints.
The first day continued with an informative innovators panel featuring David Fox of Valpak, Chuck Gehman of Mimeo.com, and Andrew Field of Printingforless.com. Lisbeth Lyons provided a fascinating look into the political scene as the keynote luncheon speaker and day one concluded with a motivational address by John Wright who challenged all to be winners instead of losers.
If homespun charm was the theme of the first economist, then a dose of reality was the theme of the Summit’s second keynote address by Alan Beaulieu from the Institute for Trend Research. Mr. Beaulieu explored the economies of most major industrialized nations and gave predictions on when the economy in North America would rise and fall. Gina Testa from Xerox was next up and facilitated one of the best marketing panels I have ever seen featuring graphic communications execs with their customers. It was amazing. Tuesday’s luncheon speaker was Chris Morgan, HP’s Senior Vice President of Graphics Solutions, who explored how the changing digital landscape is affecting the future of print.
On day three I was honored to open the conference by facilitating a pacesetters panel featuring Craig Faust from Quad/Graphics, Bill Gilmer of Wordsprint, and Scott Vaughn from the Standard Group. All three discussed how they are transforming their businesses by diversifying their offerings and working more strategically with clients. The conference concluded with economist No.3—the ever entertaining and insightful Andy Paparozzi from NAPL who summarized all of the conference presentations with a cogent blueprint for printers to use to increase their profitability.
In addition to the aforementioned keynote presentations, participants had the opportunity to partake in numerous breakout sessions on a myriad of topics, including the future of direct marketing, harnessing megatrends for profitability, cementing client relationships with social media, integrating offset and digital technologies, and much more.
All in all, the Vision 3 Summit rocked! It brought three organizations together, served as the venue for one of the largest printing industry events in 2011, and demonstrated that one plus one plus one equals a lot more than three!
Make sure you mark your calendars for the next Summit which will be held February 19–22, 2012, in Marco Island, Florida.