Last year I attended Photizo’s Transform conference in Orlando, FL for the first time. I found it a terrific networking and educational event—an event with a full menu of seminars that created quite the dilemma for attendees who had to make some tough decisions as to which sessions to attend. I’m planning on attending this year’s event once again. It’s scheduled for May 6-9 in Scottsdale, AZ.
To get a better idea of what to expect, I spoke with Ed Crowley, the founder of Photizo Group, about what to expect at this year’s conference.
Ed Crowley
What’s new at Transform this year?
Crowley: We have three tracks this year instead of four. The first track is the Lyra Imaging Symposium that looks at the industry today—hardware, supplies, traditional business; The second track is a dedicated managed print services track and the third track is the business of tomorrow—digital workflow, electronic documents, business transformation. It’s really about where the industry has been, where it is today and where it’s going tomorrow.
We also have a new keynote speaker this year, Ryan Estis, a business performance expert, who has an exciting presentation around passion and focus. I think that’s going to play well with our theme of transformation. The third really big thing is the workshop, which is presented by AIIM who we are partnering with this year. They will be doing a full workshop, and part of the workshop is their ECM Sales Enablement Certification where attendees can pick up their certification.
One of the things we’ve heard from attendees is keep challenging us, bring up the content level, and this definitely kicks it up a whole other notch.
We also have within the exhibit area itself, the vendor showcase, a new section, which is the office of the future section. It’s a technology demonstration and vendors will be there with their technology so you can see applications like digital workflow and other technologies.
What can attendees expect to learn by attending?
Crowley: The really big thing is if you look at our events and what we’ve heard over and over again, there are three things companies get at the event. First and foremost it’s a strong education environment whether it’s workshops, the conference or both. The focus is on content and helping companies transform, not vendor pitches. They’re applicable whether you’re a reseller or a software company. What are the things you can do to transform your business in this new environment we’re playing in?
So education is number one, and number two is networking, and quite frankly part of that networking is deal making. It’s interesting because one of the biggest challenges I hear is “Gee, I wish there was more time because I end up spending almost the entire time in meetings getting deals done.’
They’re torn between getting the education or getting deals done. Transform is a place people come to do business and solidify relationships. That’s powerful for the resellers and OEMs. Still, this is the only forum I know of that brings everyone together. It’s not just manufacturing guys, not just software vendors, not just OEMs, not just resellers, not just managed service providers, it’s everybody. Over half of the attendees are from the channel. We typically have about 20-25 percent from the software, supplies, financing side of the community, 25 percent from the OEM side, and dealers, etc.
How can attendees maximize their time at Transform?
Crowley: That’s one of the big challenges. We have a Transform mobile app that identifies the sessions being offered, which allows you to set up your own agenda on these sessions, and use that to see who the other attendees and speakers are. There are so many people there and it’s so active we encourage people to schedule meetings in advance.
Transform offers a lot of networking opportunities whether it’s during the breaks, in the exhibition hall, or during the sessions. Leverage those opportunities. I’m encouraging people to keep some open time because if you schedule yourself back to back with meetings you might miss out on some new opportunities.
Who’s going to be exhibiting?
Crowley: Our sponsors include OKI, Ricoh, Xerox, LMI Solutions, Printfleet, SmartPrint, Great America Financial Services. We’ll be adding more. We’ll probably have 4-50 exhibitors, including Newfield IT, Digital Gateway, Breezy, ECI Solutions, and Preton. Last year we sold out the exhibit area and we expect we’ll do it again.
What sessions are you particularly excited about?
Crowley: I have a hard time myself picking which sessions I’m going to go to because there are so many good ones. Shannon Cross is going to be speaking, she’s an analyst who co-founded Cross Research and covers the IT and imaging space; she’s a blast and always gives honest assessments, so I think that will be good. Luke Goldberg, senior vice president of Micro Solutions Enterprises is a really good speaker and will talk about the imaging supplies industry. Our own Larry Jamieson, Marvin Reem, CIO at Bob Jones University has a great case study. Kevin Morris, CEO of OneDoc Managed Print Services will be speaking. We also have Jared Hansen with Breezy. There are so many of these it’s hard to pick. What’s always a popular one is the industry vendor scorecard presented by Charlie LeCompte and Anne Priede. That’s always popular. We also have our executive panel with Terry Campbell from Ricoh, and we’ll have other leaders from the industry up there as well.
Anything else going on that would make this event appealing to the office technology/solutions/services dealer?
Crowley: The AIIM workshop is a great deal, the networking aspect, seeing applications live, and the theme of being able to look at stuff today and the supplies industry and what’s happening with hardware pricing, but also tracking what’s coming down the road and applying what plays in today’s market to the future is really big.
Last year I had a conversation with the CEO of a large [office technology dealership] and he told me who he goes to a lot of these events and that those are grade school, but what we do is grad school.
What kind of feedback has been taken from past Transform events to make this one even better?
Crowley: Again, we have kept the tracks to three, last year we had four. People wanted fewer.
Where can people go to register?
Crowley: They can go to www.mpsconference.com that will take them right to our conference page.
