Terry Johnson, past President of Wisconsin AIIM (pic 2), Steve Mau, President of COMA(pic 3) and Hubie Kocurek, President of Xplor Chicagoland Chapter (pic 4) all gave a quick overview of their respective organizations and Hubie invited everyone to the Xplor International meeting in Dallas.

An exciting surprise was the announcement by Terry Johnson that Wisconsin AIIM was selected for the AIIM International Chapter of the Year award for the 2003 AIIM, COMA, Xplor combined meeting.

The Xplor Chicagoland Board wishes to congratulate Wisconsin AIIM on winning this award.

Bill McCalpin, EDP, CDIA, MIT, LIT and General Manager of Xplor International (pic 5) started off the informational sessions with the topic “Color: Is the Medium the Message”.

Graphic Artists worried about color from day 1. Production people didn’t. Production Printers thought of color as an eye catcher, not a vehicle for communication.

All humans react to certain colors in the same way. There is no food in nature that is blue. The colors blue, purple, and black often occur in poisonous foods.

Color is a non-verbal method of communicating cultural attributes.

· The color green is a sign of Spring and fertility in the West

· Green is a symbol for Islam in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East

· In the US yellow stands for cowardice

· In Japan yellow stands for courage

· In the US blue and pink stand for Boys and Girls

· In China Black and Blue stands for Boys and Girls

What are some problems with using color ?

· Use of color changes over time within a culture

· You don’t know which meaning your audience will remember

· 8% of all males and .05% of all females have a color deficit

· 11 million Americans and a quarter billion people world wide have a color deficit

· If a company has sensitivity to people with disabilities, then they have to consider Color Blindness

People with normal color vision can see red, green, magenta, and yellow. A person with red/green color blindness sees yellow, brownish, dark brownish, and blue. John Dalton first wrote about color blindness in 1794. Stanford University has created Daltonizing algorithms that alter the contrast of red and green to make both colors more visible to a color blind person. You can test your color material for readability by color blind people at www.vischeck.com.

In 2000, Elisabeth Gooding, of APT, noted a difference between print and the web was that the web had the ability to extend branding with color, sound, and animation. Now print can use color as does the web. Print people can learn a lot from the web about Best Practices for using color in print.

· Ensure that foreground and background colors have enough contrast

· Color has the ability to add value

· Color can alienate non-US customers or those with a color deficit

Eric Hegwood, Synet Media (pic 6 podium) led the next session entitled “The Future of Color is Here Today”and introduced Brett Knoblock, JGSullivan Interactive, Inc. (pic 6 standing) and Luke Heffron, Veritas, (pic 7).

Brett stated that the Internet has caused a drop in print. Call centers will send $2 non-personalized printed material for $3 postage with delivery in 7-10 days. Did the customer already buy? Also Dealers don’t like to pay for sales literature. The solution is to use an E-brochure that customers can download immediately.

Luke continued the theme by describing Veritas as a center of targeted advertising and mail. Why is the future of color printing here now?

· We have all this great customer data, now what should be done with it?

· Pretty brochures are not always enough

· Gee, not everybody wants an email advertisement

· The speed of delivery can be increased while price can be reduced

Veritas, Inc. is a center of Targeted Advertising and Mail. Vertias provides color digital variable print for:

· Trigger Mailings

· Loyalty Programs

· Product Inquiries

· Event Drivers

Veritas provides automated workflows for customized fulfillment programs and campaign management. These services are provided to:

· Pharmacy Benefits Management companies

· Auto Manufacturers

· Casinos

· Tobacco Manufacturers

The following examples, illustrate how the Veritas system is used by different types of companies.

Ultimate Electronics partnered with Sony to increase purchases of Sony products. The result was that for each $1 spent on the program, $90 in new Sony purchases were bought.

The automated workflow used the following components:

· Description: Thank you mailer

· Source: Store specific

· Action: Purchase trigger

· Purpose: Sell the next most likely Sony product based on the previous purchase decision

The next example is Ford Motor Company. They wanted to respond quickly to internet based vehicle inquiries.

The automated workflow used the following components:

· Description: Product Brochure

· Source: www.fordvehicles.com

· Action: Product inquiry

· Triggers: Model type, Features, Benefits, comparison

· Purpose: Provide quick targeted response to a product inquiry and drive the buying prospect into the customer’s closest dealer

The final example is the MGM/Mirage casino. They wanted a targeted Loyalty Program.

The automated workflow used the following components:

· Description: Newsletter

· Source: Casino location specific

· Action: Loyalty Campaign

· Triggers: Last visit date, Geography, Gaming preference

· Purpose: To get the gambler back to an MGM casino property

Steve Coburn, Kodak Versamark (pic 8) spoke on the “The Power of Color”. Kodak Versamark is a leading developer of high-speed inkjet technology and a leader in high volume direct mail printing.

Color and personalization creates effective customer communications:

· Color is effective at lessening page clutter and confusion

· Color creates more interest in and recall of the material

· Color increases attention span and recall up to 82%

· Color reduces errors in understanding 80%

Consumers are angry about unwanted intrusions into their lives. Telemarketing and SPAM are two of the most intrusive forms of advertising. Also, there are customer concerns about who has their personal data. How will we reach existing and potential customers?

Direct mail is the preferred method of communication by recipients. They can open the mail and opt in, or throw the mail away and opt out, as the receiver prefers.

Some Business to Consumer trends:

1. The Rise of CRM (Customer Relationship Management)

· Provides an enterprise wide view of the customer

· Maximizes customer value

· Strengthens relationships with customers

2. Integrated Customer Communications

· Helps customer acquisition

· Helps customer retention

· Provides consistency of message in all media

3. Availability of Rich Data Sources

· Data Warehousing

· Data Mining

The true power of Digital Color is its unlimited possibilities.

Luc Vincent, Lizardtech (pic 9) spoke on “Color Compression”.

Some benefits of color scanning are:

· Color documents are expected and are less effective if scanned in black and white

· Time and money can be saved by reducing or eliminating pre-sorting

· Increases productivity by streamlining the workflow

Text capture for OCR (Optical Character Recognition) requires a high resolution scan. The resulting large file size, from a color scan, makes distribution of the file impractical. Thus, requiring Color Compression.

What are the disadvantages of the JPEG format for color document compression?

· Compressed page size is between 400KB and 2MB

· Unpleasant ringing artifacts around text

· Viewing requires a large amount of RAM

· Cumbersome page navigation

· No multi-page document support

JPEG is a format for image files while DJVU is an open file format for managing, storing, and exchanging color documents. DJVU segments scanned documents into layers and uses the appropriate compression/resolution solution for each segment. The background layer compresses at a low resolution 100 DPI. The foreground layer compresses at a high resolution.

Some advantages of DJVU:

· Dramatically smaller overall file size. 1000 to 1 compression possible

· Superior image quality and legibility of text

· True portability. No fonts are required

· Highly optimized web viewing

· Only a small amount of RAM needed. Can be viewed on a Palm Pilot or Cell Phone

· DJVU files are keyword searchable and can be indexed

· Easy integration into Document Management systems

· PDF files can be converted to DJVU files with a 2X-100X size reduction

· DJVU leverages the advanced features of Printer Description Languages such as PostScript and PCL

John Mancini, President-AIIM International spoke, by webcast, on the topic of “Getting Inside the Heads of Users”.

Users need help. There is a revolution in business documentation, but a mismatch between technology and practice. This mismatch leaves a business open to a huge potential for litigation and regulatory exposure.

· 41% of companies don’t include electronic records in their Records Management system

· 47% of companies don’t have IT representation in the creation phase of electronic records

· 69% of companies couldn’t guarantee the authenticity, integrity, or sustainability of their electronic documents if needed to be produced in a litigation scenario

· Company executives will pay the price for not having or following electronic documentation procedures

The day closed with Kermal Carr, EDP, Madison Advisors (pic 10) chairing a panel consisting of Bill McCalpin and Steve Coburn giving an “Industry Overview on Color Printing”.

Xerox Docutech printers are being replaced by multiple HP 9000 printers at $2,700 each. Affordable hardware is available to get color documents to people. The FUD factor (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) that a return on investment payback will occur is slowing the use of color documents. Print production is a zero defects manufacturing process. However, the Marketing and Production sides of document creation are not working together to use color to its best advantage.

The 78 attendees enjoyed the 2004, AIIM, COMA, Xplor combined meeting.

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