Industry Top Dogs
February 16, 2010
Just now, I was looking out the window watching the snow plow clear our street. I was supposed to be on Marco Island at the NAPL Top Management Conference, but a broken airplane and cancelled flights kept me at home in West Virginia. Somehow missing out on a trip to Florida hurts a lot more when it’s 23 degrees outside with more snow in the forecast. No wonder the Roaming Gnome has cabin fever.
This is the last year for the Top Management Conference. In 2011 this NAPL event will be combined with the Printing Industries of America’s President’s Conference and the NPES Annual Meeting under the auspices of the Graphic Arts Show Company (GASC). That’s probably a wise move since there is significant similarity in the profiles of attendees at the three separate events. However, it leaves a substantial portion of the printing industry under-presented.
Entrepreneurial small commercial and quick printers are not necessarily going to be drawn to a top management or president-oriented event. They have different issues and interests. Sure, there are mutual areas of concern, but they are not “managers” nor do they think like “presidents.” They think like owners. It’s their personal hide on the line every day. The imperatives are different.
The one national venue still around for the entrepreneurial small commercial printer is the NAQP Owners Conference, which is usually held just prior to Graph Expo in Chicago. Unfortunately, it seldom attracts attendees who are not NAQP members. A large percentage of NAPL members are small commercial entrepreneurs who would benefit greatly from attending the Owners Conference. Since NAQP and NAPL have merged, it would be nice to see a major push to get those entrepreneurial NAPL folks to attend a conference much more tailored to their needs than this new combined industry gathering of presidents, managers, and other corporate types.