Archive for the ‘Events’ Category

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A View of the Ricoh Booth: Print and Beyond!

Tuesday, May 15th, 2012

At drupa, the energy and excitement on the show floor has been really fun. For those of you unable to make it to Düsseldorf, I wanted to give you an idea of how it’s going and what’s hot at the Ricoh booth.

Sleek front desk at our stand

Ricoh’s theme for the show is Print and Beyond. In the booth, this means showcasing our incredible solutions sets, but also demonstrating how print service providers can evolve into marketing service providers. We’re seeing a lot of excitement around one of our newest additions in the “beyond” category, Clickable Paper technology. Clickable Paper transcends the limitations of QR codes, coding images, text, or entire books, articles, and magazines with an evergreen link that accesses online content on a smartphone, using the corresponding app. We’re seeing tons of opportunity to help our customers offer a wider range of services in the marketing arena.

Aside from these future technologies, our current offerings are also getting quite a bit of interest, particularly in our transaction print zone. Of greatest interest: the Extended Media Dryer, which allows customers to use a much wider range of light-weight and heavy weight stocks.

InfoPrint 5000's new media dryer - a hot topic at our stand!

Also, we have introduced InfoPrint ProcessDirector Express, a new addition to the Ricoh TotalFlow workflow suite, aimed at mid-market companies. Both of these solutions were developed with an eye to the current pressures and demands placed on printers, and I think these demos have been pretty busy because they’re speaking to real problems and headaches in the industry.

One more thing of note: all the printing activity at the show is carbon neutral. That’s a lot of paper recycling!

imagine.change.

Signing off from Düsseldorf,
Laura Clark

Events Manager

Ricoh Production Print Solutions

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Drupa Has Arrived!

Thursday, May 3rd, 2012

Another eagerly awaited-for drupa has finally arrived! And Ricoh is ready with a number of exciting announcements for the printing world.

For starters, we’re thrilled about Sandra Zoratti’s new book:  Precision Marketing: Maximizing Revenue Through Relevance. Sandra, our award-winning vice president of Marketing, Executive Briefings and Education, has had the opportunity to practice and perfect her ideas on a wide range of applications through Ricoh’s partnerships with leading hotels, cable operators, insurance companies, magazine publishers and more.   Sandra is absolutely a leader in this field, and this is the first time she’s sharing her wisdom with a wider audience. The author proceeds from the sale of the book will be donated to Room to Read, a non-profit organization promoting literacy around the world.

To order a copy of Precision Marketing (ISBN: 978-0-7494-6535-3) in the US, please visit: http://amzn.to/KuA7h7 or click on this QR Code: 

Ricoh is also very proud to announce a new breakthrough technology that gives paper and print media a whole new kind of interactivity. We call it “Clickable Paper” (and you should, too). Unlike a QR code, Clickable Paper encodes an evergreen link into text or pictures on the printed page that lives in the cloud and can be changed even after the document has gone to print. The reader, alerted by a symbol on the page, simply uses a complementary app to take a picture of the relevant document. The app makes the page come alive, offering choices of videos and live links that realize the promise of digital without sacrificing what print has to offer. We at Ricoh foresee a number of exciting applications for this breakthrough technology.

Our next announcement is huge – literally! Or, at least its output could be – the machine’s footprint is quite the opposite! The Ricoh Pro L4000 inkjet will enable large format printing to become easier and more environmentally friendly, with applications such as indoor and outdoor billboard and POS displays. This inkjet platform uses latex ink to lessen the environmental impact. At this scale, a consideration like this can make a huge difference and also has white ink capabilities.

Lastly, we’ve announced a new addition to our workflow software portfolio, called InfoPrint ProcessDirector Express, which offers customers easy-to-use, end-to-end workflow software for Adobe PDF datastreams.  After getting feedback from our mid-size customers, we decided to expand the reach of our efficient and user-friendly software for high-volume outputs, bringing a similar solution that could be scaled cost-efficiently, to the mid-range.

If you’d like to watch a video of all of these announcements in more detail, click here to watch our Virtual Media Day which took place on April 24th.

Drupa promises to be a blast for those on the ground floor, as it’s a tremendous opportunity for Ricoh to showcase our

Interested in what they're looking at behind the wall? Stop by Hall 8a and find out!

latest offerings. Stop by our booth in Hall 8A if you’re in Düsseldorf, and take some of these new technologies for a spin! You may be surprised at just how much you can do.

Beth

Beth Etherton

Global Communications Manager

Ricoh Production Print Solutions (Ricoh)

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The Reinvention of the Book Publishing Industry – What’s the Next Chapter?

Monday, February 27th, 2012

Marco Boer, Vice President, I.T. Strategies

The book publishing marketing is revolutionizing.  Electronic technologies today are helping to expand the popularity of e-publishing applications while encouraging the printed book markets to become more creative.  There are a number of technologies out there that can enable this creativity including inkjet solutions, data analytics, precision marketing capabilities and many more.  So when I began to think of the focus of my presentation at The Next Chapter event, presented by Ricoh, this is where my train of thought led me.

During my session at next week’s event, I will debate the following points and share insight and research I’ve gathered about them through my work with I.T. Strategies. These points include:

-       Electronic technologies jump on the merry-go-around.  What will succeed?  Will it be all Apple, all the time or will others make an impact on this e-publishing space?
-        What exactly is the value of the stakeholders in the publishing/printing/distribution chain?  How will these values shift as the market transitions to welcome in more electronically published documents?
-        A chain reaction: college texts; trade books, K-12. Which will lead the way? Will electronic be more relevant to a specific group over others that will more slowly transition from printed books?
-       Digital print: the savior of book printers?  Since its early days, digital print has steadily grown in market share – at a slower pace that originally expected.  Will the book publishing market be the key to its ongoing gains?  What will help it expand market share?  What challenges could it face?
-       Electrophotography vs. Inkjet digital printing technology: what are the technical trade-offs?  Which is more suited for book printing? Are there certain applications more optimal for one or the other?
-       Inkjet printer owner experiences: I’ve spoken with many through my research and I will share their insight to my audience. I’ll highlight what we can do to better understand their needs; share what they feel is working and what isn’t; and provide thoughts on what the next hit applications will be

Simply, I am looking forward to this Next Chapter event as it will be the first of its kind to really hone in on the next-generation possibilities of the publishing space.  There’s a lot of talk out there about the benefits of printed vs digital – and this forum will provide us with one place for all relevant players to discuss them all.

Hope to see you there!

Best,

Marco Boer

Marco Boer is recognized as a trusted consultant to the digital printing industry.  Mr. Boer is Vice President of I.T. Strategies where he focuses on product planning for graphics, transaction and publishing printers and emerging industrial digital printing applications such as label printing, packaging printing and other non-document applications.

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A Day of Caring: The Ricoh Way

Thursday, December 22nd, 2011

A sense of community and union is very important to Ricoh, and that’s why we enjoy taking the time to give back. As Ricoh is part of Boulder’s beautiful community, we really look forward to getting out and volunteering our time and resources whenever and wherever needed. After all, isn’t that what it’s all about – finding fun and productive ways to say “thank you” to the community? That’s what we believe!

Hard at Work!

Hence, at Ricoh, employees are encouraged to volunteer their time and to utilize the workforce to help others who may not have the same opportunities.  Just this past August, 65 Ricoh Boulder employees volunteered at the Foothills United Way’s 18th annual Day of Caring. This was a great opportunity to get together with other local businesses and residences and work on projects that needed tending to. This was just one example of a time when Ricoh put its community first. Volunteer projects included helping paint and landscape the local homeless shelter and helping create a schedule of classes, workshops and events for the Nonprofit Cultivation Center’s 2012 Technology summit. In total, more than 950 community volunteers came together to work on dozens of projects for different local nonprofit organizations.

One Ricoh employee said, “No one was shy about getting their hands dirty, and they were a great help in preparing the Shelter for the winter season. The Homeless Shelter could not provide the services it does without the help of volunteers like the Ricoh family.”

Another praised, “It was refreshing to see so many people from all areas of Ricoh working hard to help others. It made me proud to be a part of RPPS!”

Ready to Help!

All the participating nonprofit agencies were more than grateful for the volunteers’ time and enthusiasm. However, we believe we’re the lucky ones – for having the opportunity to help such devoted and selfless organizations.  Ricoh looks forward to the next Day of Caring!

Happy Holidays -

Michele Bollig

Worldwide Marketing Manager

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Graph Expo 2011 – Day Two @ Ricoh Booth 2600

Tuesday, September 13th, 2011

Another day, another success!  From pro Paula Creamer to our busy Connection Center, ending with our Commercial Print Cocktail Hour, we’re we going strong all day long.

New to the show this year, our booth featured a “connection center” – a place where customers can come to connect with a member of our team to understand our Ricoh solutions.  Three people from RPPS and three people from Ricoh were deemed “connectors.”   The Connectors have the breadth of knowledge (and the great smiles) that made them absolutely perfect to play the unifying role to help our customers and prospects “connect” the dots between our offerings and solutions.

Two of our Connectors smiling for the cameras!

Also this year, PGA superstar Paula Creamer joined us in our booth for a “putt off” with show attendees.  The line of folks looking  to putt with Paula flooded our booth long before she even arrived.  And once they got started, you could hear the cheers from afar.  She played along with and encourage attendees with her skills.  And on top of that, Paula signed pictures taken earlier in the day of her with our customers.  Printed on our equipment in the booth, these images were well-received due to their high graphic arts quality.

Paula Creamer cheers on her fans!

And now onto the cocktail party…

On Monday night,  we held a large customer event at the Field Museum in Chicago which was preceded by a cocktail hour for our friends in the commercial print space.  We talked with them about the value of adding digital solutions to their operations while Liz Miller, vice president of programming and operations at the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council talked about what marketers are thinking about their budge dollars.  The biggest “ah ha” moment of the night was when she pointed to research stating that marketers are spending more now than they have in the past three years – and their biggest spend is no other than PRINT!  Who says print is dead?

This trend of increased digital printing was not just being discussed over a cocktail, but I was involved in many conversations about it at our booth today as well.  In our Business Development area, I couldn’t keep track of the number of attendees who had their own “ah ha” moment when we described how we’ve helped customers from a true solutions perspective (hardware, software, solutions and professional services).  It was really rewarding to see so many folks looking to hear more and more.

Like Caitlin started this post, I’m ending it with another day, another success.  Here’s to Day Three!

Best,

Caitlin McBrair and Joe Caruso

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Making the Switch to Digital

Thursday, September 8th, 2011

At this year’s Graph Expo, Ricoh is cranking up the commercial print energy, and will focus on helping customers expand and enhance their digital printing capabilities!

Joe Caruso, Global Business Development, Commercial Print

Commercial printers sometimes juggle several different solutions that complete an overall workflow; they even get stuck buying workflow software based on specific customer requirements! What a pain!  They have to do the best for their customers with workflow and optimize productivity with all kinds of different solutions– which is a key reason to engage with a proven and professional services and solutions team that can help to connect all the dots (like Ricoh!)

Most commercial printers are fundamentally changing their approach and their offerings to their customer base, where print becomes just one communication channel in their overall portfolio.  Thinking like a marketer will get print companies to utilize data and  drive content, design, and production – ingredients the printer already has access to!

Integration of timely and relevant data is crucial for their customers who are trying to differentiate from their competition.

By the way,  driving these proven communications are in high demand.  Recent surveys show both a double-digit ROI and increased customer retention; so commercial print customers will be excited about working closer with their print partners with these kinds of results!

Ricoh has dominated in enterprise print and transaction segments by driving use of the Automated Document Factory (ADF), Precision Marketing and Data Analytics, as well as our industry-leading inkjet technology. Commercial printers can tap into this incredible experience as they continue expanding their offerings portfolio and changing the way they think about their print customers’ needs.

If you are attending Graph Expo in Chicago on September 11-14, come by our booth #2600 to learn about more and check out some of the solutions first hand!

See you there!
Joe Caruso

Global Business Development, Commercial Print

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Settling in for Summer – Recap of 2011 Events

Thursday, June 23rd, 2011

Every year InfoPrint Solutions attends, participates in and hosts many events, and the past six months of 2011 have been no exception. We’ve shared our impressions from each of these events on the blog, and before we settle in for the summer we wanted recap some of our favorites– and hear back from you!

Hunkeler Innovationdays – We traveled all the way to Switzerland to attend the Hunkeler Innovationdays in February. Not only does the show bring together the most influential providers in the paper processing sector, but it focuses on the production system as a whole – rather than on individual products. One highlight was our presentation to “doxnet vor Ort” – a regional user group of roughly 300 German-speaking industry vendors, document composition software providers, outsourcers and in house-printers from Austria, Germany and Switzerland. Read more about our three days in Switzerland here – day one, day two and day three.

Lesley Wylie @ Hunkeler Innovationdays

On Demand Expo 2011 – We had a major presence at the On Demand Expo held in Washington, D.C. March 22-24. The hottest topic at the booth was InfoPrint’s Managed Automated Document Factory (ADF) Services, which launched just prior to the show. Additionally the InfoPrint 5000 MP color demo was quite a hit with the crowd and garnered more than its fair share of positive feedback. To read more, check out our blog post about the expo.

A View from InfoPrint Solutions @ On Demand 2011

Xplor 2011 – This year’s Xplor was held April  5-7 in Florida, and the theme was “The Next Generation of Customer Communications” – particularly fitting as we are always working with our customers to ensure they are implementing cutting-edge tactics. The education sessions were more crowded than ever (attendance was up 30 percent from last year!), and the content has never been so helpful. We were very involved with the conference – we had executives speaking and we were honored with an award, as well! Carrie Murphy presented a well-attended and informative session, entitled “Data: The Key to a Winning Strategy,” and she was also awarded her M-EDP accreditation. I even had the opportunity to moderate a few sessions – what an honor that was! The company took home the Technology Innovation of the Year Award for our work with Merrill Corporation, and customer Robert Cook of Merrill participated on the panel, “What’s the Future for ADF?” Our very own Brian Doyle was also awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award. You can read more in our first and second day recaps.

Jonathan and me with our Xplor Technology of the Year award

Go Beyond the Meter - One of our most exciting events in 2011 was the launch of our first-ever Go Beyond the Meter, a conference to help utility executives address their customer communications, which was held April 27-28 at our headquarters in Boulder. Sandra Zoratti, Vice President of Global Solutions Marketing here at InfoPrint Solutions, hosted the successful conference with an expert line-up of speakers, all advising attendees on how to make the shift to implementing a data-driven campaign to assure targeted and relevant customer communications. Check out the full recap here.

National Postal Forum- We also had the opportunity to venture to sunny San Diego to the NPF, May 1-3, which was a real treat! This is a unique conference, because it shifts the focus from hardware to software and workflow solutions, and this year there was a specific spotlight on ADF and workflow optimization. At the booth we had an automatic reprint generation demo with Kern, which displayed easy-to-manage reprint workflow technology that lets customers automatically validate an inserter’s final job status and identify damaged mail pieces. Mail can be a major cost to many companies, so we know it is important to help our customers understand the benefit of a successful mailroom operation. Find out more about our time at the NPF from our blog on ADF Savings here. 

Did you attend any of the events outlined above? What’d you think? Any we missed out on that are must-sees for 2012?

Next up is Graph Expo and boy, will have an even bigger presence there!  Be sure to follow us at @InfoPrint to stay up to speed on our news at the show!

Best,

Michele Bollig

Worldwide Marketing Manager

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InfoPrint Solutions at the Xplor International Awards

Tuesday, April 12th, 2011

Thursday, April 7th was the Xplor International Awards ceremony and a great way to end a successful, enjoyable and educational week in Florida.

As part of the ceremony Paul Abdool, Xplor Chairman, announced the list of X2 (X squared) members. X2 is a group of Xplor members 40 years old and under that represent the next generation for Xplor. It was really nice to see these individuals honored, as they are the future of the industry. InfoPrint Solutions employees Don Dew, Miranda Reeves, Trevin Perez and myself are all a part of the X2 community. Look for their input in up coming Xplor eDocument News articles, as well as, other communications from Xplor.

Merrill Corporation and InfoPrint Solutions were awarded the Technology Application of the Year award. InfoPrint Solutions supplied Merrill with its ADF offering, powered by InfoPrint ProcessDirector, to fulfill their need for an end-to-end, hardware agnostic workflow solution platform that enables document management at record, page and piece levels.  Check out this video testimonial from the Merrill team to hear more.

Merrill Corporation and InfoPrint Solutions are honored with the Technology Application of the Year Award

Additionally Brian Doyle, InfoPrint Solutions Consulting IT Architect, won the Brian Platte Lifetime Achievement Award. Throughout the past 45 years, Doyle has made significant contributions to the evolution and advancement of the document design industry.

Brian Doyle is honored with the Brian Platte Lifetime Achievement Award at Xplor 2011

The ceremony was a great way to honor those who have contributed so much to the industry. Congratulations to all the winners at the Xplor Industry Awards!

As you can tell from our previous posts, the InfoPrint Solutions team truly enjoyed our time at Xplor once again.  From beginning to end, the event was educational and fun.  We had the opportunity to network with some of the brightest in the industry (sometimes on the beach!) and share ideas that could change the way the industry operates in a few years.  All in all, it was an incredible experience.

I hope to see you all at Xplor 2012!

Best,

Jonathan McGrew

Brand and Graphics Coordinator

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First Day at Xplor

Wednesday, April 6th, 2011

Just as I anticipated, my first day of Xplor 2011 was very educational and fun! Between the beautiful Florida weather and the conference theme, ‘The Next Generation of Customer Communications,’ everything seemed to resonate well with the audience as the industry moved from print only into customer communications.

Booth traffic was busy and steady at the InfoPrint Solutions booth at Xplor

Right from the start, the various educational sessions were very well attended – so much in fact that there was standing room only! It seemed all attendees were anxious to hear from the various presenters and educators on customer communications. Even the energy in the hallway between each session was ‘electric’ – and little changed once the actual educational tracks and panel discussions commenced. The audience was engaged, asked pertinent questions, and provided their comments and insights in each presentation I attended. The five tracks included:

-          Strategize: Communication Requirements in a Multi-Channel World (The Track Chair was none other than our own Carrie Murphy, M-EDP!)

-          Design: The Impact of Data and Design Prep (Facilitated by Jonathan McGrew)

-          Optimize: Technology and Print Steams (Howard Turetzky presented one session)

-          Integrate: Automated Document Factory (ADF) and Workflow (Jay Ainslie was on two panels for this track)

-          Deliver: Delivery Options and Postal Considerations

InfoPrint's Carrie Murphy presents "Data: The Key To A Winning Strategy" at Xplor

In addition to the terrific educational and lively sessions, the opening reception was equally energetic as the InfoPrint booth drew many conference attendees into some great conversations. I spoke with several attendees, many from outside the US, and asked what they thought of the conference so far and why they came. One gentleman was from Sweden and had come to Xplor for the past 16 years and wouldn’t think of missing a conference!

Two of InfoPrint's Rockstars show off a shining award!

Among the myriad of components Xplor has to offer (and there are many!), one of the key components is education – people come to learn what is happening in the industry. For example, one Service Bureau I spoke with said they needed to provide new services that would offer more value to their customers. Specifically, they were looking to leverage different communication channels and knew the various educational tracks at Xplor would give them the insight they needed to learn how to do that. That’s one of the best parts of this conference; attendees such as this gain important knowledge from track sessions and look forward to learning more the next day!

Another key component to Xplor is networking with people, reconnecting with old friends and making new ones! It’s one aspect of the conference I really look forward to – particularly since people were upbeat, positive about the future and excited to be there!

What were your thoughts about the Xplor Conference? How do you think the first day went? Were the educational tracks and panel discussions are exciting for you? Look forward to your feedback!

Best,

Michele Bollig, Worldwide Marketing Program Manager

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Why Go to Xplor?

Friday, April 1st, 2011

Every year Xplor International hosts hundreds of attendees at its Xplor Conference and Vendor Forum. Personally, I consider this a must-see event and I’m really pleased to be attending again this year.  InfoPrint Solutions is counting down the days until this year’s event and we hope you are too!

This year’s theme is “The Next Generation of Customer Communications.”  As always, presenters and educators at the event will offer information, knowledge and networking in a personal setting. There will be five educational tracks, including more than 60 sessions and panel discussions  – all focused on the theme of customer communications.

I have the opportunity to present a session this year titled “Data – The Key to a Winning Strategy.”  The world of communications is ever-changing thanks to the evolution of social media, green initiatives and regulatory requirements. With that, consumers are getting bombarded with information from all directions via all channels. The number of consumers opting out of receiving information via email continues to grow and customers will continue to actively switch brands if they’re not feeling acknowledged or appreciated. I advise the audience on how they can get back in control by delivering relevant and customized data and implement a precision marketing campaign.

You can also see my colleagues speaking on the following topics while in Tampa:

 

In addition to the plethora of sessions where you’ll see an InfoPrint Solutions presence, you’ll also see our name in lights during the award ceremony on April 7th.  We have won the Technology Innovation of the Year award and couldn’t be more pleased to receive such a tremendous honor from a globally-recognized prestigious organization.

Good luck to everyone participating or attending Xplor Global Conference and Vendor Forum 2011 and I hope to see you there!

Have you ever attended an Xplor Conference or are you attending this on in April? What sessions or events are you most looking forward to? Or what have been your favorite things about the conference in the past? Did you know that you can attend regional meetings and webinars throughout out the year?  Please visit www.xplor.org for more information.  Look forward to you feedback!

Best,

Carrie Murphy, MDP

Market Development Manager

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