E-Document News recently spent some time with Xplor President and CEO Skip Henk regarding about their upcoming conference and activities Xplor International. The 2010 Xplor Global Document Conference and Vendor Forum is taking place March 16-19, at the TradeWinds Hotel and Conference Center on St. Pete Beach.

Editor: Good morning Skip, it’s great to be able to finally spend some time with you.

Skip: Thanks Paul, it has been a very busy year for Xplor and looks like the same will hold true 2010. Thank you for taking the time.

Editor: So tell me what is going on at Xplor?

Skip: Question is where do I start. 2009 has been a banner year for the association. We introduced a lot of new programming, including the monthly Lunch and Learn webinars, the 9 city XDU On the Road tour, productXPO, our educational track at Print09 and of course the 2009 Global Event.

Editor: In your opinion, how did they go?

Skip: Well enough to bring them back and in some cases expand. Pat McGrew of Kodak has agreed to do the Lunch and Learn again for 2010. XDU On the Road is being expanded and we have several sponsors signed up already. We will do productXPO again, maybe in a different format and of course our 2010 event in March.

There are a couple more things that we are working on, which I hope to close by mid-January and announce Q1.

Editor: Now tell me about the upcoming conference in March.

Skip: It is going to be a great event. I know you hear people say that every year but this year will be truly special. Several things have changed. First, if you notice we changed the name from Exhibition to Vendor Forum. Xplor wants to provide a true two-way communication vehicle for end users and vendors.

A two way dialogue has mutual benefits. As a former vendor, I saw what was going on in the industry, what companies were doing, what new technology meant in terms of customer communications, because that is what we did for a living. So there was a great deal to share. Xplor vendors have a great deal to share beyond their own products.

Conversely, the vendors need to hear, first hand, the challenges end users are having to improve and expand their products and services.  They need to hear what end user companies are doing.  The Vendor Forum was designed to accomplish this. It is not just a name change.

The second major change is, for the first time in the last 3-4 years we did a “call for papers”. The response was overwhelming as we received 40% more proposals than the available 70 conference sessions. Certainly a great problem to have!

What does it mean? The Conference Committee had a host of content to select from and was was able to pick the sessions best suited for the agenda. There is fresh content, more case studies, ways to reduce cost and more importantly, how to increase revenue.

Editor: As a final question, give me a few highlights of the conference program.

Skip: The day before the conference start, a pre-conference intensive by Madison Advisors. As part of the conference a six session Social Networking workshop by industry guru Peter Muir, the AFP CEU Course has returned, we have a great deal of content on multi-media marketing, Transpromo, sessions on compliance, design, production, sustainability/green and much more!

Editor: Where can people find information on the event?

Skip: They can go to www.xplor.org and click on 2010 Global Document Conference
& Vendor Forum

I also invite your readers to check out our new digital brochure, using Xplor member Zmags technology.

[Either click here or copy and paste http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/28460222#/28460222/1 , -Ed]

Editor: Thank you for your time and bringing us up to speed on what is going on at Xplor

Skip: Paul, it was my please. See you at St. Pete Beach in March.