64th TAGA Annual Technical Conference

It’s hard to say “there’s something for everything” about the TAGA Annual Technical Conference, the global graphics arts industries’ most elite technical conference. It’s specifically NOT for everyone—unless you are an academic, engineer, scientist, or technical practitioner of printing. In which case you will certainly find things that you need to know being discussed at this year’s 64th annual event, to be held in Jacksonville, Florida, on March 18-21. If you are a CEO, COO or Owner of a printing company or industry equipment or software manufacturer, I would strongly advise that you send a couple of your key technical people. I’ll explain why.

My personal involvement in the industry is in the creation of software for printing applications, and there are always a few great talks on this topic. But for me, what I find incredibly invigorating about TAGA is the fact that there are so many topics discussed that I am not directly engaged in as a professional. These topics are as far ranging as ink, paper, mechanical engineering, chemistry, physics, photography, light—but not limited to these. In fact, there are almost no limits. The result for me has been broadened horizons—I learn what I don’t know, and approach problems I face in my work with a new perspective.

The keynotes this year include some of the most interesting leaders from some of the most exciting companies in the graphic communications business today. Starting with Marc Olin of EFI, who has been travelling the world buying up printing-related software companies while other former industry leaders are suffering, to Mike Puyot from Memjet, a company which is finally shipping product via OEMs and is poised to dramatically change everyone’s business, after existing as a virtual “urban legend” for almost 10 years! These are followed by the most complete, robust technical program available this year at any conference in the industry.

One of the coolest things about TAGA is the questions from the audience after the presentations. As you can imagine with a group of this make up, there are many opinions and TAGA encourages an intellectually charged environment. There are no assumptions, and this is not a love-in where PR rules-- people are often challenged on the statements they make from the dais. It’s exciting!

Another really important aspect of the event is the student chapter participation, and the annual student competitions. To the printing company owner: here is the most important reason for you to send you top technical stakeholder or two to TAGA: recruiting. Plug your company into the top printing schools in the WORLD—Cal Poly SLO, Clemson, RIT, Western Michigan, as well as Ryerson in Canada, and leading global schools Grenoble Institute of Technology in France, and Linköping University in Sweden, to name just a few. They will be sending teams of their best students (usually Juniors and Seniors, who will soon be looking for a career position) to compete for awards in our annual technical competitions.

The program includes talks from some of the recipients of the Printing Industries of America’s prestigious Intertech Awards, an opportunity to learn about some of the industry’s latest and most advanced, game-changing commercial product developments.

Beyond all the important content, there is the “real world” social platform as well-- the three day conference is loaded with great networking opportunities, including luncheons, the association’s annual business meeting, and a gala awards banquet. TAGA’s annual event has been a “can’t miss” for the industry’s tech community for a long time, and I’d encourage anyone who hasn’t attended in the past to make it a new annual tradition. There is still time to register and attend, visit TAGA's Web Site.

Printing in the Post PC Era

Over the holidays I did a lot of thinking about this blog, and my only New Year's resolution for 2011 is to post here more regularly. Not because I like hearing myself talk, but because the subject matter has never been more relevant, and is in fact going to heat up this year. That should make it a relatively easy resolution to keep!

Last summer, at the D8 conference, Steve Jobs made some waves when he introduced the idea of the "post PC era." Jobs said the day is coming when only one out of every few people will need a traditional computer. "When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks because that's what you needed on the farms."

"PCs are going to be like trucks," Jobs said. "They are still going to be around." However, he said, only "one out of x people will need them."

Jobs said that this idea makes many PC veterans uneasy, "because the PC has taken us a long ways." And he went on to say, "We like to talk about the post-PC era, but when it really starts to happen, it's uncomfortable," he said.

It's an apt description, and is so much more than another excellent Apple branding campaign. The iPad was met with a lot of excitement, and some skepticism. There is still some skepticism around how publishing, ebooks, magazines, newspapers and other media-related businesses will fare on the new platform. But one thing has become crystal clear since Steve's D8 appearance: the iPad is a major hit, and it is in fact only the beginning of a new computing paradigm.

That paradigm is the fourth major computing shift: the Cloud/Mobile paradigm, which I think is aptly referred to as the "Post PC" era (the first three shifts arguably being the mainframe to minicomputer, minicomputer/workstation to networked PC, and the Internet.)

I realized that this is exactly what we are talking about here. The Rich Internet Printing concept is very much "printing in the post PC era".

Apple's AirPrint, HP ePrint, Google Cloud Printing; whatever Microsoft creates (presumably in the near future) to enable their tablet and cloud printing strategy. Service providers like EFI with PrintMe. Software from a variety of third-party vendors who enable printing from non-PC devices.

David and I are co-authoring a paper for the 2011 TAGA Advanced Technology Conference in Pittsburgh this coming March (visit TAGA's website for more information.) I'm going to use some posts here to vet the topics we are working on for that highly esoteric academic paper, but in a more accessible format.

We will do a deep dive into the applications, and report on the opportunities, challenges and limitations, and success stories. Stay tuned.