Webb and Romano Headline Executive Outlook Conference Powerhouse Line-up of Presenters

RESTON, VA—09/05/08—Dr. Joe Webb and Professor Frank Romano will headline the day before GRAPH EXPO® opens EXECUTIVE OUTLOOK® Conference, October 25th in Chicago’s McCormick Place, which will feature the industry’s most knowledgeable experts and instructors. ‘Dr. Joe’ is the Director of WhatTheyThink.com’s Economics and Research Center and Romano, RIT Professor Emeritus, is best known as the industry’s combination guru and curmudgeon.

Dr. Joe, print’s iconoclast and an astute behind-the-numbers forecaster, will delve into the impact of today’s economy on the printing industry, and offer printers practical advice on what they should accomplish during the show and once they return home.

Professor Romano, having just returned from a global tour of print including a two-week stopover at Drupa, will put into perspective for EXECUTIVE OUTLOOK participants the nature of global competition and its relevance to the U.S. printer today.

This year’s edition of the Conference will feature an expanded range of ‘how-to’ tutorials and short form instructional technology sessions in the context of the Conference’s general sessions, which will focus on industry trends and printer performance topics. The full-day Conference will conclude with the announcement of the MUST SEE ‘EMS® technology program, which provides a roadmap to the products and services that a panel of 16 consultants, educators and trade magazine editors select as the most compelling at the show.

“Printers who attend EXECUTIVE OUTLOOK and then go on to attend sessions in the extensive seminar program offered during the show, tour of the exhibition floor and visit targeted suppliers can, in a matter of three or four days, obtain a cornucopia of information that will help to shape their operations for 2009. It’s what profit-leader printers do,” says Bill Lamparter, EXECUTIVE OUTLOOK and MUST SEE ‘EMS program Chairman and President of the PrintCom Consulting Group.

The Conference program will include a series of concurrent 70-minute tutorials and 30-minute short course overview sessions. The ‘how to do it’ tutorial sessions and instructors will include:

• “Color Management”-David Hunter, Principal, Pilot Marketing Group

• “How to Handle and Manage Data for Effective Digital Variable Data Printing”-John Leininger, Professor, Department of Graphic Communications, Clemson University

• “Web-to-Print Workflow”-a panel of practicing printers led by consultant Donald Goldman, President, ConsultWare

• “How to Become a Marketing Services Provider”-Steven Schnoll, Schnoll Media Consulting

Short course overview sessions include:

• “Proofing-Paper or Virtual”-Instructor TBA

• “Buying a Digital Press-Compendium of What’s Here and What’s Coming”-Andrew Tribute, Managing Partner, Attributes Associates

• “How to Manage Color Managed Files”-Raymond Prince, VP Consulting, National Association for Printing Leadership

Other tutorials and short courses are being developed and will be added to the program during the next few weeks.

In addition to the presentations by Dr. Joe Webb and Professor Frank Romano, general sessions will include:

• “Being Green: A Must Do Requirement”-Gary Jones, Manager, Environmental Information, PIA/GATF

• “The New Print Buyer/Seller Relationship”-Katherine O’Brien, Editor of American Printer and Print and Media Buyer

• “Integrated Workflow: Analog and Digital”-Gavin Jordan-Smith, VP/GM Xerox Commercial Print and Prepress Business

• “Perfecting Technology: The Key to Sheetfed Productivity”-Clarence Penge, VP Sheetfed Product Management, Heidelberg USA

• “Hot Markets in a Changing Economy”-Vince Mallardi, Publisher, Hot Markets Annual Forecast

• “Opportunity Vignettes: a series of brief market and technology descriptions offering expansion and differentiation possibilities”—moderated by Rick Littrell, Principal, MagiComm

“EXECUTIVE OUTLOOK will be a rapid fire, in-depth series of presentations designed to stimulate thinking and provide ‘how-to’ knowledge on a broad range of critical industry topics. The top general and production management participants in attendance will gain what amounts to be an emersion program focused on where “Technology Meets the Marketplace,” said Conference Chair Lamparter.

EXECUTIVE OUTLOOK is sponsored by Heidelberg USA and the Xerox Corporation. Conference registration information and a detailed agenda are available online at: www.graphexpo.com

About Graphic Arts Show Company (GASC)
GASC is owned by the National Association for Printing Leadership (NAPL), NPES The Association for Suppliers of Printing, Publishing and Converting Technologies® (NPES®), and the Printing Industries of America/Graphic Arts Technical Foundation (PIA/GATF). GASC is located at 1899 Preston White Drive, Reston, VA 20191 USA, telephone: 703/264-7200, fax: 703/620-9187, e-mail: info@gasc.org.