There’s not much that surprises me anymore but Photizo’s Transform 2012 in Orlando, May 23-25 was one of those surprises. After sitting on the fence as to whether or not to attend, I finally made up my mind. A lot of that internal discussion with myself came down to figuring out if I could afford to spend what amounted to nearly three days out of the office before a long weekend. Fortunately, the adventurous side of me prevailed and I flew to Orlando on Wednesday afternoon.
What impressed me most of all was the quality and quantity of the seminars on Thursday and Friday. With so many intriguing sessions running concurrently—four in each time slot and 30 overall—it had to be difficult for attendees to settle on which session to attend. As an example I’ll use the 10:30-11:30 a.m. time slot on Friday morning when you had a choice of “MPS the Independent Way: Getting Your Customers in Control and Happy,” “Solutions for Protecting MPS Profits,” “Strategies for Cloud-Based Document Management,” and “Transformation of Imaging.”
To make matters more challenging, I was only there for one full day, which meant I missed out on the Friday sessions. I missed some good ones on Thursday because of appointments with exhibitors, a press luncheon, and a press tour of the exhibit hall. As impressive as the menu of sessions was so was the quality of exhibitors in the exhibit hall—sort of a who’s who in the MPS arena from hardware to services to solutions providers. Among those showcasing their wares were GreatAmerica Leasing, Channel Eyes, Lexmark, Nuance, N-able, ODC, BEI Services, MWA, Parts Now, Xerox, HP, Ricoh along with many others. If you were there for the full two days you wouldn’t have been overwhelmed by the number, but even so with my limited availability, there were plenty of exhibitors I missed.
I ran into a few dealers who either served on panels or gave presentations such as Chip Miceli of DPOE and Kevin DeYoung of Qualpath, and a few others attending for the educational opportunities. As industry events go, this was a good one and one that any dealer, whether they’re already involved in managed print services or starting out should put on their calendar when it moves to Scottsdale, Arizona, May 6-9, 2013.
Overall, the Photizo folks did a top-notch job of catering to the press contingent and should be commended for hosting an excellent and informative event. Given the opportunity to attend next year, I wouldn’t miss it. I guess you can say I’ve been transformed by Transform.
