Digital Diner Opens: Your Knowledge Emporium - Come join the Digital Diner Sponsors to share information and ideas in a relaxed atmosphere. Digital Diner participants include:

Keynote Speaker - Publisher: John W. Cobb III, VP Digital Operations, Primedia

Publishers' Issues - The future of publishing is at a crossroads. The many factors that impact the publishing realm further influence other industries along the entire supply chain. The new landscape shows reduction in advertising revenues, increases in postal rates, and blurred forecasts of a business environment reacting to new technologies (some proven, some not). Where is the business of publishing headed? This panel of publishing executives will tackle this big question, as well as:

• What are magazines doing to get more mileage out of their own marketing? Is this altering the relationship with ad agencies?
• What do senior publishing executives envision for the future of production in the magazine business?
• Is E-paper delivery viable in the short-term?

Screening in an All Digital Workflow: Dots, Spots and Other Small Things are Changing the Way We Print - With the advent of direct imaging to plate and reduced dot gain the printing press is staged to print an even finer resolution. Many printers have increased their conventional line screen rulings and many are beginning to offer alternatives, especially with stochastic (FM) screening. Stochastic screening presents oppor-tunities for creative designers to present client concepts in new ways: images can be rendered closer to a photographic level of detail, and gradient blends print much smoother. This session reviews the good, the bad, and the ugly of current screening technologies and issues in a non-technical application oriented session.

XML in Printing & Publishing: The Management View - XML standards and XML systems features have crept up everywhere: from ad insert transactions to device messaging to content syndication. Standards are great: Everyone should have one, but what does this mean for managers who must establish buying guidelines and house procedures for systems use, connectivity, and long-term IT strategy? The variety of XML stan-dards offered by vendors, consortiums, associations, and standards organizations is mindboggling and the field is riddled with landmines. How do you evaluate the role of XML in your operations and where do you start?

Personnel/Personal Survivors - It's been a rough year. Our business - our lives - will never again be "as usual". Losing, finding, and perserving jobs/headcount have become major issues for employees and employers alike. This panel will look at three perspectives: (1) Job loss and networking, (2) Creation and maintenance of effective workforces in a changing economy; (3) Larger personnel problems that threaten over the next decade. Whether your interest is in management or technical expertise, bring your own issues for discussion and take a personal look at personnel.

Breakout Focus Groups: Have I got Issues! - All attendees are asked to submit their top issues. Personnel management, customer relations, production or technical and so on - if you go an issue we want to hear it. Issues will be grouped logically into four discussion categories and all attendees are invited to join this breakout. Discussion leaders will summarize discussions and suggestions for Tuesday's IDEAlliance Town Hall.

Monday, September 23rd / BACK TO MAIN MENU

Keynote Speaker - Agency: Michael Gould, President & CEO, MRM Gould -

What's it like to start, grow and sell an agency? To go from being a one-man shop to a 50-person enterprise...to transform from being an independent maverick to a publicly traded company...from being your own boss to having to answer to a myriad of constituents...from serving clients as a project shop to having strategic, dedicated relationships with clients...from serving clients solo to integrating with five other disciplines and agencies in serving a client...from being a "direct mail" boutique to being a fully integrated relationship marketing shop, specializing in online advertising? In this keynote, Michael leads you through the odyssey of challenges that he and his agency has faced as it has grown, been acquired, and become an integral part of the McCann Erickson arsenal of agencies serving the West Coast. It's been an exciting and interesting ride, and his keynote address will be no less.

PDF: Uses Today and a Look into the Future - This session focuses on users of PDF today, how they are using PDF in day-to-day production, and how they see PDF in the future. This topic should be on the front burner of ad agencies, especially since large publishers have drawn the line with the demand that submissions must be via PDF/X1-a. There exists an abundance of information about the creation of PDF files, but little has yet been said about the receipt and correct processing of PDF files. There are many ways a file can fail, and the most common tool available to work with PDFs, Adobe Acrobat, can behave in a manner unacceptable in a graphic arts environment. Topics may include PDF/X expectations, PDF as a content approval soft proof, and problems encountered with ex-changing PDF files.

Pressroom Innovations - What are the pressroom suppliers doing to improve the health of the business? This session will explore:

• Printer and pressroom efficiency tactics (as opposed to automation)
• Paper makers' efforts to lower basis weights and improve runability
• Press manufacturer efforts to produce bigger, faster, and more efficient press designs
• Advances in inks
• Advances in blankets

Succeeding on an Impossible Budget - This session will focus on advertising agency and corporate graphics/MARCOM management of production operations … in a tight year. We will hear what peers are doing to do more with less with management tactics and technology applications.

Impact of Distribution Costs: Postal Rate Sanity, Industry Al-ternatives, and Your Bottom Line - The USPS is at a crossroads. As rates increase year by year companies are challenged with ever higher distribution costs. What comprises the current crisis? What's to be done about it? How can you use new cost sharing programs? Are there alternatives? Join us for a lively discussion on a key factor that will profoundly affect your bottom line.

Tuesday, September 24th / BACK TO MAIN MENU

Women in Graphic Media and Technology (WGMT) Breakfast - Women have been identified as the next leadership group and the "target market" in many industries, including graphic communications. A proactive not-for-profit organization is now needed to support the involvement and advancement of women in the graphic arts, to encourage and develop leadership, and to create a community of peers. Women in Graphic Media and Technology (WGMT) is that organization. WGMT is a working group of IDEAlliance, formed through the efforts and vision of its core believers that include members from Raine Consulting, IDEAlliance, and supporting industry corporations. This breakfast is an invitation to meet with the WGMT founders and sponsors and learn about a powerhouse Board of Advisors. Attendees will participate in the discussion of the proposed suite of programs that will shape WGMT to meet the career needs of industry leaders. This is a rare opportunity to influence future direction of graphic arts.

Registration Details - This breakfast is open to all Spectrum registrants and is free of charge. A check box for the breakfast has been provided under the Registration Fees section of the Spectrum Registration Form. Please be sure to check that box if you wish to attend.

DAN (Digital Asset Network) and the Stewards of DAM (Digital Asset Management) - Every creative, production or business unit - within a corporate advertiser or service provider - has a system or procedure for managing digital assets. These different systems were selected for their ability to address the particular needs, workflow and budget of the users. But how will businesses keep track of ALL their assets while they're being created, used, and stored with different service providers, using different DAM solutions, running on different platforms? Where is the most current version and how can an authorized biz partner access it? DAN solutions begin to address this cross-enterprise collaboration challenge. This panel will address:

• Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Technologies
• Responsibilities, Ownership & Stewardship
• Standards for DAM, Metadata, XML, etc.
• Security, Permissions and Liabilities

Luncheon & Keynote Speaker - Barry Asmus, Senior Economist, National Center for Policy Analysis. "One of the five most requested speakers in the US" -

Asmus is a senior economist for the National Center for Policy Analysis. He was the principal commentator for national syndicated radio show, Perspectives on the Economy. His Informative and entertaining presentation will focus on total quality management, marketing incentives, and being competitive in a global economy.

The Green Bottom Line - The Business Case for Sustainability and the Greening of Print. Sustainability infers corporate responsibility and refers to the balance among economic, environmental and social factors necessary to keep a company profitable while being responsive to society's needs. This session will address trends, driving forces, enabling technologies, and best practices employed by major corporations to restore investor confidence and create shareholder value through "beyond compliance" environmental management and reporting measures such as sustainability reporting, ISO I 4001 certification, supply chain management and green procurement. Key questions to be addressed:

• How are major corporations building cases for sustainability?
• How are corporate commitments to sustainability expected to affect supply chain relationships and procurement behaviors related to publishing and packaging in the next 5 years?
• What can publishers, advertisers, agencies, printers and suppliers do to meet growing investor, consumer, and corporate demand for sustainability adn green bottom line?

Executive Vision: Process Automation and the Printing Process - The printing press is morphing! Automated command, control, and configuration, digital communication of job parameters, and advances in press and materials automation are changing the very nature of the pressroom. Elimination of runtime manual controls, auto-loading and unloading of materials, and further reductions in make ready, time, labor, and materials … is the printing press coming under control of the prepress department, or perhaps even the customer? This session will explore the state-of-the-art and how well it fits in with the vision of leading print executives, publishers, and press providers.

The Death of the Computer Programmer: The Technology of Change - Publishing and Printing are computerized industries that are more sensitive to changes in computer technolgies than most other industries. This session will explore the underlying trends and enabling technologies that are putting the control of computer programming in the hands of users. Panelists will discuss the impact this will have and the strategies for organizing, planning and staffing that managers can employ to capitalize on the technology of change.

Color Management or Color "Manglement" - How do you get the color right? - Today more and more clients are taking on the responsibilities of managing color at their desktop. Designers, Ad production and publishing production personnel are producing their own scans, retouching, color management and proofing. Did we leave the quality and expertise behind in the prepress shops or can we effectively take on this challenge without sacrificing quality? This session will address the very nature of managing color and all that ICC stuff in a relaxed and informative setting. Come prepared to learn the language, the technology and how to apply past and current principles to navigating the coordinates of color space!

Wednesday, September 25th / BACK TO MAIN MENU

Standards Update: SNAP, GRACol & SWOP … Grab your breakfast and join us for the Spectrum Conference's traditional review of changes and updates to key industry standards. Of particular interest will be recent updates to SWOP, GRACoL's new draft commercial proofing specifications, and developments of additional PDF/X specifica-tions. Moderator George Ledya of ColorInfo will provide you with the key points you need to know to keep your operations up to speed.

IDEAlliance Driving Standards to Accelerate the Bottom Line - IDEAlliance has made much progress the past few years with initiatives such as Information Content Exchange (ICE), Publishing Requirements for Industry Standard Metadata (PRISM), and Specifications for Agency Publisher Communications Exchange XML (SPACE XML). Do you know what is going on and how you can benefit? Here is the detail on how standards technology development straightens the track to the bottom line.

Digital Proofing: How and Where do all These New Proofing Technologies Fit into My Workflow? - There's an old saying, "You get what you paid for!" Is this a true statement when applied to color proofing? If there are less expensive proofing options available, are their outputs sufficient to meet the color requirements of clients? The introduction of virtual proofing has added another dimension to the color proofing mix? Is there a new definition for a "contract" proof? Do we really need dots? This panel will present these issues and more: what's new, what works, and where new proofs fit into the workflow.

Western Michigan l Arizona State University l New York City Technical College l Dunwoody
The Spectrum Game Show: The Weaker Link - A new twist on the popular game show. Eight contestants representing four graphic arts schools compete for school scholarship donations and and bragging rights for a year. Questions are drawn from the conference presentations and test the knowledge of the contestants. Raucous, fun, and tense, the game show is a fitting conclusion to SPECTRUM.

Pick-Up Tennis - Stop by the tennis courts for a pickup round of tennis with other Spectrum attendees. Look for a sign-up sheet in the Spectrum Conference Registration area. All tennis costs are on individual pay.