What is The SPECTRUM
2001 conference all about? ¾
For 24 years,
the SPECTRUM conference has brought together leaders of the
advertising, prepress, printing, publishing, and manufacturing
segments of the graphic communications industry to learn about
important business and technical developments, to discuss
ways to improve the production and communications processes,
and to chart a course for the future.
The Graphic Arts
industry is exchanging digital files and learning that there
is more to learn. Learning to better coordinate the well-defined
business relationships, the flow of work, business information,
and clear communication between enterprises partnering in
the digital production process is the next step on the path
to profit and efficiency. Every segment of the industry has
invested millions of dollars on digital technologies in recent
years and the new digital process must be mastered in order
to produce expected benefits.
Who Attends the
SPECTRUM Conference? — Executives and managers with
P&L and production related responsibilities from design
firms, advertising agencies, publishers (magazines, catalogs/direct
mail, newspapers, etc.), printers, and prepress services in
approximately equal numbers. Last year, approximately one
third of the participants were vice presidents, presidents,
or CEOs, one half were managers and supervisors, and the rest
were from sales and marketing. Last year there were 359 registrants.
We expect at least that many attendees this year.
How is the Conference
Agenda Determined? — Approximately 140 IDEAlliance/GCA
SPECTRUM Planning Committee volunteers participate in SPECTRUM
planning. Eighteen planning meetings are held each year, the
first taking place immediately after the close of the previous
year's conference and the rest in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles,
and Minneapolis. Attendee suggestions and comments are reviewed
in detail, and are incorporated into the plans for the conference
provided that they are reasonable requests.
The Planning Committee
representatives gather ideas from their companies, clients,
and peers and make suggestions for the conference. A straw
man agenda is developed from these ideas and is circulated
for review. Most decisions are via consensus, but the New
York group, which includes the conference chair, has the final
say in decisions. This process is long and complex, but it
produces a conference that truly covers national interests.
During this process
speakers and moderators are also suggested, and their names
are circulated with meeting minutes to all Planning Committee
members. The Planning Committee often asks various sources
whether the speaker is a good presenter and knows the material
which pertains to that session. Once a speaker is approved
by the committee, a Planning Committee member is asked to
call the prospective speaker, and confirm their participation
in the conference.
Important
DEADLINES
August 29: Contact
Speakers
By this date you
should have contacted your speakers to discuss with them
the content of their presentation or case study. See below
for more information.
September 6:
Biographies and Papers due
Biographies:
Please send your 100-word, two- to three-paragraph biographical
sketch to IDEAlliance/GCA. You should also follow up with
your speakers to make sure that they have sent their biographical
sketch in. Biographical sketches should summarize current
responsibilities, previous employment, special industry
achievements, and education background. Email the sketch
in text or MSWord format to L.A. Larson at lalarson@idealliance.org.
Biographies longer than 100 words will be arbitrarily abbreviated.
Papers:
Every speaker is expected to submit a one-page synopsis
of their presentation or main points to IDEAlliance/GCA
for printing in the conference program booklet.
The staff
would appreciate receiving each speaker’s summary on a MS-DOS
diskette as a MS-Word or text file, or by an e-mail message
(same file form) sent to jharvey@media4theworld.com.
If we get an electronic version we can format it nicely
with the rest of the book and include appropriate pagination
and indexing. Please ask your speakers to send their materials
via express delivery — the staff will have little time to
assemble the final document and we will be using much of
that time to key and edit biographies. Please do not fax
summaries or papers — the reproduction will look very unprofessional.
On-site copying
costs are prohibitive. For this reason, IDEAlliance/GCA
will not copy handouts on site. If you miss the deadline
for program materials, we ask that you either bring or ship
your own copies, or take requests for copies of your materials
after your presentation.
September 19:
Conference Call
Your participation
in the Moderators’ Conference call is required —
this will be the
final review of session coordination with the Conference
Chair and Vice-Chair. This Conference Call will be held
on Wednesday, September 19 at
1:00 PM
eastern time,
12:00
Noon central time,
11:00
AM mountain time,
10:00
AM Pacific time.
Dial in at the
start time to 1-800-685-2366 and give the code 81595.
The moderator of record is L.A. Larson.
September 25:
Hotel Reservations
You must make
your own hotel arrangements. Please remember that the
SPECTRUM group rate and room availability is guaranteed
only until September 25, 2001. After this date rooms
will still be sold at the SPECTRUM rate, but they will only
be available on a first-come-first-served basis.
September 28:
Speaker CDs due to IDEAlliance
Speakers should
submit their presentations in electronic form to IDEAlliance
no later than September 28. Presentations on CD can be sent
to the IDEAlliance offices (address below) or emailed to
jharvey@media4theworld.com.
These presentations will be loaded onto the conference website.
October 1: Registration
All moderators
and speakers who plan on attending the entire conference
are required to register for the conference. The registration
fee for all moderators and speakers is $650.00 (approximately
the cost per attendee for our direct out-of-pocket expenses).
Send your registration with payment to IDEAlliance using
the registration form. Please write "Speaker"
on the form to receive the Speaker/Moderator rate. If you
are attending only the day of your presentation, the registration
fee will be waived. Send the enclosed registration form
to IDEAlliance/GCA and write "Speaker -- one day only"
on the form.
October 22: Shipments
due
If you are shipping
materials to the hotel, please time your shipment to arrive
no earlier than Monday, October 22 and no later than Thursday,
October 25. Shipments should be addressed in the following
manner:
The Sheraton
El Conquistador Resort
ATTN: (your name here)
HOLD FOR: SPECTRUM 2001
10,000 North Oracle Road
Tucson, AZ 85737
(Phone: (520)-544-5000)
Please note that
all shipments addressed to SPECTRUM will be held in the
SPECTRUM conference office at the hotel. If you are looking
for anything that you have shipped please check with the
IDEAlliance staff first, as most packages will have already
been transferred to the office.
October 28: Moderators’
Coordination Session
Your attendance
at the Moderators’ Coordination Session is imperative--this
will be the final review of the agenda where you will be
advised of any last-minute updates. This Coordination Session
will be held on Sunday, October 28 at 7:30
AM.
Audio visual
Speakers are asked to use one
of the SPECTRUM 2001 PowerPoint
templates for their PowerPoint presentations. Speaker
presentations should be copied onto a CD or diskette and sent
to the IDEAlliance offices or emailed to Jim Harvey, Program
Consultant, at jharvey@media4theworld.com,
no later than September 28.
Speakers will have the following
audio visual equipment available to them:
- Microphone—table top and
wired lavalier
- VHS video player
- LCD projector
- Connection for PC or MAC
laptop
- 35mm slide projector—available
only by special request prior to October 1
Speakers are encouraged to present
rather than sit behind a computer. We ask that the session moderator,
facilitator, or SPECTRUM conference staff person run the computer
presentation for the speaker.
General Guidelines
- Sessions
are limited to four or five participants , not six or seven
as we had in some cases in previous years. This change is
based upon previous attendee comments.
- More
time must be allotted for questions & answers. It is
recommended that Moderators schedule at least 10 minutes
for comment, questions, and open dialogue. Cards will be
provided to attendees to write questions on. IDEAlliance/GCA
staff and Planning Committee volunteers will collect completed
cards and bring them to the moderator.
- Moderators
are asked to focus on moderating. Please do not make a presentation
of your own.
- Speakers
are asked to avoid sales pitches. Sales pitches and blatant
promotion only turn off the audience. Your experience, knowledge,
and integrity should speak for you. If a speaker does
present a blatant promotion, they will be cut off by the
Chair.
- Each
day’s speakers and moderators must meet the day before their
session to coordinate the flow of their session. It is the
moderator's responsibility to arrange such a meeting. If
you need assistance, please ask the IDEAlliance/GCA staff.
(Note: If you are moderating a Sunday session, please plan
to meet early in the morning).
- We
will have a question collection box for product specific
questions. Some questions will be answered during the key
technologies session, others will be referred to representatives
of that vendor who will be asked to meet with the person
who provided the question.
- Bring
lots of business cards, it is after your presentation that
attendees will introduce themselves, or at one of the luncheons,
receptions, or dinner parties.
Special Guidelines for Case Study Sessions — We
don’t suggest a running set of speeches for case-study sessions.
Instead, play the part of the journalist or inquisitor. We
suggest that you review the session description to extract
the key questions that your speakers should answer. Please
also consider what questions you would want answered by the
speakers if you were an attendee — which you are! Prepare
a list of 10-12 key questions and fax or email them to your
speakers by August 29, 2001. Ask them to use
this as the basis of their summary, which is to be submitted
to IDEAlliance/GCA no later than September 6, 2001.
Please ask your speakers to submit any key acronyms or new
terms that they will be using in their presentation. IDEAlliance/GCA
will publish these session summaries and definitions in the
program. You can refer to this during your session introduction
to encourage attendees not to take notes, but to listen and
participate in the session.
The staff would
appreciate receiving each speaker’s summary on a MS-DOS diskette
as a MS-Word or text file, or by an e-mail message (same file
form) sent to lalarson@idealliance.org.
If we get an electronic version we can format it nicely with
the rest of the book and include appropriate pagination and
indexing. Please ask your speakers to send their materials
via express delivery — the staff will have little time to
assemble the final document and we will be using much of that
time to key and edit biographies. Please do not fax summaries
or papers — the reproduction will look very unprofessional.
Secondly, you can
use the list of questions to structure your session. Look
for the logical order of information and use the questions
during the session to lead a running open dialogue with all
of your speakers. Feel free to jump from one speaker to another
and back again — this approach adds a lot of depth to the
program. We also find that the audience will be more likely
to add their questions to the session from the floor. How
to start the session is up to you. Some moderators only introduce
the speakers and start right into the questions. Others allow
for speakers to either provide their own introductions, or
will allow speakers to provide a short position statement.
Special Guidelines
for Presentation Sessions — Presentation sessions are
managed differently. Your speakers are expected to present
detailed material from the podium. Please contact them no
later than August 29, 2001 to discuss what you
expect from them. We ask that you collect from them a white
paper or detailed outline of their speech and review their
material in advance. It is up to you to ensure that they are:
- Addressing the
content of the session appropriately
- Coordinated,
in that two speakers are not covering the same material
in the same way
- Not presenting
a sales pitch from the podium
