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Want To Earn More Money? Attend A Conference!

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Submitted by Skip Henk, EDP, President/CEO of Xplor International
March 2, 2015

A couple weeks ago I read the 2015 InPlant Salary Survey and certainly was heartened to find that salaries are in fact on the rise. In fact, in the InPlant world, they have risen 9.9% over the last two years.IP_Clip

The survey was very well done and included a wide variety of statistics. InPlant did their typical great job. Of particular interest to me was that of the 231 usable responses, 44% of the managers who attended conferences (up from 27.5% in 2013) made 17.2% more than those that did not. That is a significant number.

The question is why?

Today, one can go to the internet and find almost anything they wish. The internet has become the go to source for information but as Albert Einstein once said “Information is not knowledge.”

To experience knowledge one must not only find facts and information but also acquire skills through experience or education.

So it simply makes sense that those who invest in expanding their knowledge by attending conferences, and learning from the experiences of others are more invaluable to their company.

Besides making more money, Why Attend A Conference?

  • Conference attendees benefit from people who have the same challenges and are willing to share them in order to help others learn from their experience. To learn what to do as well as what not to do.
  • Meeting people face to face and expanding ones professional network has many benefits that will impact your career. Your professional network can become a sounding board, a venue for new ideas, a place to find solutions or in some cases a future employee (or employer).
  • A good conference is a great place to keep up on all the latest technologies and trends.

Just one idea from a conference event can save or make a company a great deal of money. Here is what just one attendee stated after a conference.

“XPLOR one year gave me answers to take home a $500 Million dollar savings to my company! That being said, I was nominated employee of the year!” – Gene

All conferences are not created (or executed) equally

Attending a conference is an investment, one that can pay big dividends but all conferences are not created equal. When choosing a conference you should look for several things.

  • Does the agenda have topics of relevant interest?
  • Are there sessions that will take you beyond what you are doing today? Expand your knowledge of the industry.
  • Are the educational sessions a blend of users and vendors speaking?
  • Are there plenty of networking activities?
  • Does the agenda include best practices and industry trends?
  • Will you walk away with new ideas and motivation?

Yes, I am a bit biased. 

Being the president of Xplor, I may be a bit prejudiced but I believe Xploration® 15 is a unique event that encompasses all six points mentioned above “when choosing a conference”, because it was designed that way.

“The conference content is selected by our members, Xplor HQ just handles the logistics.”

Xploration 15 is April 14-16th at the Wyndham Orlando Resort International Drive in sunny Orlando Florida.

  • 60+ Educational Sessions
    • Featuring end users, industry analysts and subject matter experts
  • Daily Networking Events: The number one networking conference in the industry!
    • (2) evening events, (2) lunches and (1) breakfast
  • 35+ Industry Partners in the Vendor Forum
    • Meet with leading edge vendors
  • Motivational & Industry Keynotes
    • Devon Harris, three-time Olympian and 1988 Jamaican Bobsled team member which inspired the Disney movie “Cool Runnings”
    • John Biehler, Top 10 Influencer in 3D Printing
  • Acadami’s Electronic Document (BOK): Production Workflow Basics Track
    • A great program for anyone who wants to get a better “end to end” understanding of the document lifecycle.
  • Optional Pre-Conference Courses
    • Print Media Centr – Rescue Your Printshop ROI Workshop
    • Madison Advisors – CCM Intensive

For more information, or to register, please visit the conference website.

Hope to see you in Orlando April 14-16, 2015 ….. (If not, at some conference somewhere)

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Skip Henk, EDP
Xplor President/CEO

Madison Advisors Returns to Xplor Conference to Share CCM Insights

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Half-Day Pre-Conference Event Helps Kick Off Xploration® 15

Lutz, FL —February 24, 2015—Xplor International, the worldwide electronic document systems association, today announced that the Madison Advisor’s Pre-Conference Intensive will once again be part of Xplor’s Annual Conference, Xploration® 15, April 14-16, at the Wyndham Orlando Resort International Drive in Orlando, Florida. The pre-conference program will take place April 13, 2015, from 1:00 to 5:00 PM.

Tweet this: @Madison_Advisor Pre-Conference Intensive again returns to Xploration® 15 in Orlando, Florida #Xplor15

Madison Advisors provides thought leadership, strategic consulting, and market research to clients in the customer communications management (CCM), electronic delivery, and print industries. Their industry-neutral expertise enables end-user organizations, service providers, and vendors to achieve their strategic objectives around transactional customer communications and publishing services.

This year’s pre-conference program will feature three sessions that include:
• Archives: Not Just for Documents Anymore
• Measuring What Matters: Dashboards and KPIs
• Minding Your Print & Queues: Job Scheduling, Tracking & Optimization

Pricing
Attendance to the Madison Advisors pre-conference program is not included with the conference’s Platinum Passport. However, attendees can purchase this pre-conference program during the registration process for Xploration® 15. For Xplor Members, the cost is $200 USD and non-members, $225 USD.

About Xploration® 15
Xploration® 15 is being held at the Wyndham Orlando Resort International Drive from April 14-16, 2015. Pre-Conference Programs will take place on April 13, 2015.

For questions about Xploration® 15, please contact Xplor Headquarters at +1-813-949-6710 or by email at register@xplor.org.

Registration to the three-day event includes access to all of Xploration® 15’s 60+ educational sessions, panels, keynotes, general sessions, evening networking events, networking lunches and a breakfast on Thursday.

A limited number of exhibit spaces are still available. Vendors interested in becoming an exhibitor or event sponsor should contact Xplor’s Director of Sales, Deborah Green, at +1-770-444-3845 or via email at deborahgreen1@earthlink.net.

About Xplor International
Xplor International is a worldwide, not-for-profit professional association that consists of thousands of users and suppliers of the products and services that create, modify, and deliver customized information using a wide variety of document technologies. The association provides educational products and programs for its members and the industry at large through conferences, meetings and annual events. Xplor International has its worldwide headquarters in Lutz, Florida with affiliated offices around the world. Further information is available at www.xplor.org.

Facebook: facebook.com/XplorInternational
Twitter: @Xplor_Int

Xplor International Media Contact:
Chad Henk, EDA
Marketing Coordinator
+1-813-949-6171
Chad@xplor.org

About Madison Advisors


Madison Advisors, an advisory firm, exists to advance the print and electronic communications objectives of Fortune 1000 companies. The company’s analysts provide advisory services for a range of content delivery strategies, particularly those addressing enterprise output technologies and customer communications. Through short-term, high-impact engagements (measurable in days or weeks, not months), Madison Advisors offers expertise and advisory services that directly help clients achieve hard and specific return on investment (ROI) related to their enterprise output goals and objectives. The company’s analyst team has an extensive background in the enterprise output industry, enabling Madison Advisors to offer its clients unique, objective perspectives and unparalleled guidance for their print and electronic communications initiatives. For more information about Madison Advisors, visit the company’s web site at www.madison-advisors.com or call (817) 684-7545.

What Was “Old, Stale, and so 1990s” Is New Again!

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Submitted by Skip Henk, EDP, President/CEO of Xplor International
February 24, 2015

The roar from our members had finally reached a crescendo that it was time to do something. I find Inaction under the guise of “not enough time” could no longer be an excuse.

And so it goes for www.xplor.org

The “Ah-hah” Moment

Over the last two years I have received comments about our website. Comments such as: “The site looks old”, “you need to be mobile friendly”, “stale”, “so 1990’s” to name just a few. BUT we were busy, did not have enough time and really could not deal with it at the time. (A bit short sighted)

The “ah-hah” moment came when one of our members called me and flat out told me she was frustrated with the site and would not recommend any of her colleagues or friends to visit the site.

That simple phone call hit home. When your own member would not recommend your site your credibility is called into play and the logical assumption is you are not acting in the best interest of your members, whether intentional or not.

“For every customer who bothers to complain, 26 other customers remain silent.” Source: White House Office of Consumer Affairs”

Your Website Is the Face of Your Company

A company website is many times the “first impression” one will have of your company. Since many people opt first to go to a company website to get information your website design needs to meet their needs. (Not yours) If the design of your website is unappealing, information is not readily available or hard to find, you most likely will lose a potential customer (or member).

• According to business2business community: (46%) of people say a website’s design is their number one criterion for determining the credibility of a company.

• “94% of people cited web design as the reason they mistrusted or rejected a website.” – ironpaper.com

Getting it Done

Like any project you have to commit, come up with a plan, allocate resources and execute. An organization must also realize its limitations and sometimes look outside for a solution.

That is what we did. We committed and incorporated outside resources into the plan. Turning things over is a difficult thing for most organizations but looking back me getting out of the way was the best thing that could have happened.

Our Marketing Coordinator was tasked with getting it done. He worked with Deborah Corn of Print Media Center, who coordinated the project with our web designer, Elementary Digital.

A Statement of Work was created, reviewed and agreed to. Work began and as much as I would like to take you through the process, I received occasional updates and assurances things were going well, and continued to stay off to the side.

The site was launched last week, they still are doing a bit of tweaking, but I feel Xplor has arrived and our “face” to the industry is new, fresh, intuitive and serves our membership.

Things to Think About

• Listen to your customers, they know what they want (and what they don’t)
• No excuses, short-term savings equals long term loss. Commit.
• Get people involved that do it for a living, you don’t have to do it all
• Spend time on the Statement of Work. What the end product will be.
• Do your homework, there are a lot of web designers. They are not all created equal.
• Do it … and enjoy the results

Your plan needs to be forward thinking and include not only viewing on a PC but tablets and mobile devices.

“Only 22% of marketers say they’re ahead of the curve when it comes to responsive design. 29% say they have “average” experience level, 23% say they’re behind the times, and 4% say they’re hopeless. (Source: eMarketer)”

Special Thanks to Deborah Corn at PrintMediaCentr, Andy Holland of Elementary Digital, and Chad Henk of Xplor for making what was old, new again.

And a big thank you to you for stopping by! We would love to hear your comments on the new site! Sound away!

The ALS Challenge … Creating a Movement

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If anyone ever doubted the power of social media you only have to look at the success of the ALS Ice bucket challenge. To date they have raised $79.7 million dollars significantly more (over 4x) than the $19.4 million in total contributions the ALS association received during the year that ended January 31, 2013.

Watching this phenomena unfold reminds me of a Ted video I watched four years ago on “How to Start a Movement”  A movement takes a leader, the first follower, second follower, more followers (more people less risky) … and it must be public.

The ALS challenge has all the components a leader, early participants and tens of thousands of followers. But is there more to it? Why did this turn into a social media bonanza?

ALS is no doubt a great cause but there are a lot of great causes. However, this campaign was the perfect storm. Take a great cause, couple it with a interactive media that reaches 500+M people, throw in the opportunity to do something a bit off the wall AND share it with your friends …. you have a movement. Successful marketing is about creating a movement. No matter what the channel(s)

Has your company created a marketing movement?

Since Xplor International is the association for the electronic document industry AND we think ALS is a great cause we are going to donate $5.00US to each of the first 300 people (up to $1500) who share their ALS video on the Xplor International Facebook Page – have some fun and help raise more money for ALS!

Here is my ALS challenge video: Screen Shot 2014-08-26 at 12.48.11 PM

Donate to ALS: http://www.alsa.org/

Until next time …. Get wet!

 

Are We There Yet? We will see at #Print13

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One of the buzzwords or phrases that has made the rounds the last several years is “multi-channel marketing”.  I have watched dozens of  presentations on the subject, spoken about it and have debated it’s attributes.

What is Multi-Channel Marketing?

According to our friends at Wikipedia – Multichannel marketing is marketing using many different marketing channels to reach a customer.[1] In this sense, a channel might be a retail store, a web site, a mail order catalogue, or direct personal communications by letter, email or text message. The objective of the companies doing the marketing is to make it easy for a consumer to buy from them in whatever way is most appropriate.

Does Multi-Channel Marketing Equate To Effective Marketing?

My favorite definition of relevant communications is “the right message, to the right person at the right time …. using the right media.  Is multi-channel communications the same thing as effective marketing? Sometimes, maybe but not always. 

When I was looking at what type of programming Xplor was going to do at Print13 I decided it was time to address the issue. I wanted to have a forum where several companies who had implemented multi-channel communications speak openly about their successes and failures. I wanted someone to ask the tough questions, who knows the industry.

Are We There Yet: A 2013 Multi-Channel Communications Industry Perspective 

InfoTrends_A_Questex_Company_LogoPrint 13 is the perfect backdrop for Xplor’s breakfast keynote session moderated by industry expert Matt Swain of InfoTrends. Matt’s panel of leading print service providers will talk about their challenges, the things they would do different and the things that worked.

It is a don’t miss 90 minutes at Print13.

The breakfast panel is taking place September 10th from 8:30 am to 10:00 am. The cost, complimentary thanks to our sponsors Compart, Crawford Technologies and Solimar Systems.

Join us for breakfast, a great educational session and also receive a complimentary exhibit hall pass simply by registering to attend.

The session is going to be conveniently located at McCormick Place South in Room 101 a few short steps from the shuttle bus drop off area.

See you in Chicago …. Are We There Yet?