XMPie Users Group Reflects High-Energy Cross Media Marketplace

By Cary Sherburne, Senior Editor - WhatTheyThink.com

January 30, 2007 -- I had the pleasure of attending the first annual XMPie Users Group Conference in Las Vegas January 19th and 20th. The conference attendance was higher than expected for a first-time event, with 170 members from 90 companies present. The event was also supported by sponsors, including XMPie, Adobe, EFI, Press-Sense, Tecra and USADATA.

Although XMPie was actively involved in setting up this user group, it is operating as an independent entity with a 10-member Board of Directors, on which XMPie holds two seats. The group has stated a three-fold mission:

• To provide and encourage the exchange of information on variable data printing and personalized one-to-one direct marketing campaigns, specifically as related to the products, services, technologies, and business processes required to successfully implement these activities.
• To actively and visibly foster dialogue between XMPie, its partners and the XMPie user community regarding the direction of best practices, products, services, and/or technologies.
• To provide peer-to-peer networking opportunities that provide forums for business, marketing and technical knowledge exchange and opportunities for members to foster their professional growth.

This first conference consisted of general sessions as well as Marketing/Business Development and Technical tracks over the two days. Both tracks were heavily attended, with about a 60/40 split—that is, about sixty percent of attendees were in the technical tracks and the other forty in the marketing tracks. As the moderator of the technical track, I didn’t have the opportunity to hear the marketing content first-hand, but the attendees I spoke with were very pleased with what they were able to learn in these sessions, ranging from how to market and sell Cross Media services to optimal organizational structure.

From a technology perspective, sessions consisted of XMPie engineers sharing future product plans as well as tips, hints and best practices for using the software and creating and managing Cross Media campaigns, blended with user companies sharing their experiences and best practices. The sessions were extremely interactive, with lots of sharing of ideas and strategies as well as lots of questions from the audience.

Activity around the sponsor booths was also heavy during the frequent breaks as users took advantage of the opportunity to interact with sponsors one on one.

User Group President and Vice President at Yoffi Digital Stefan Agustsson kicked off the conference and laid the groundwork for the balance of the two days of sessions. He also spoke about other aspects of the User Group that its Board of Directors was developing, including online forums, an online resource library, and frequent educational webinars. Agustsson indicated the forums, which he pointed out were a key benefit of membership, were expected to be up and running by February 15th. 

170 members from 90 companies packed the general session

That was followed by a strategic overview from XMPie President Jacob Aizikowitz that covered the history of the company and its initial intent, as well as an explanation of how the name came about.  According to Aizikowitz, in the late 1990s, he saw two separate islands developing in the marketplace—variable data printing and the Internet—and envisioned the development of a software solution that could bridge the two.  Thus, he indicated, XMPie was designed to meet the challenges of this emerging Cross Media world, providing a way for agencies and design firms to better collaborate with print service providers from idea generation and design through data management, production and analytics.  Aizikowitz stated that the company’s strategy remains the same today, with increased focus on the needs of the Chief Marketing Officer to both deliver a marketing ROI and to seamlessly link with enterprise systems such as customer relationship management (CRM), sales force automation (SFA), enterprise content management (ECM) and marketing performance measurement (MPM) solutions. And what does XMPie stand for?  According to Aizikowitz, finding a name for the company was not easy, with so many of the names they came up with already having been taken.  So the name that was chosen was X-Media [cross-media] Personalization in eBusiness, or XMPie for short.

During the general sessions and in the technology break-outs, XMPie shared a significant amount of detail with its users about what they could expect to see in releases through the balance of the year, as well as solicited feedback from users to help them guide the details of this development work.  Attendees appeared to be very pleased with what they heard.  They, of course, had lots of suggestions and ideas to share with XMPie, one of the benefits of having a user group of this type.

Global attendance included a large contingent from Japan

It was exciting to see this group come together, and to see the level of knowledge and the energy level around the implementation of Cross Media solutions. It was also clear that users had, overall, a great relationship with XMPie and its technical staff. While I am sure some member companies have—or have had—issues, which is to be expected in a complex market such as Cross Media, there was clearly a high level of respect and trust between the users and the company. Critical mass in the variable data market has been a long time in coming.  If this user group conference was any indication, the tipping point has been reached and both print service providers and their customers are more aggressively buying in to the variable data value proposition.

Adobe’s Robin Tobin, Senior Manager, Print Industry marketing, Creative Solutions business unit, summed it up well when she said, "The demand for personalized communications is growing rapidly and this was evident by the large number of attendees at this year's XMPie user conference. XMPie provides the tools that capture the industry's imagination that give marketers and brand owners the opportunities to reach and captivate their audiences through personalization. Adobe values its relationship with XMPie, and with Adobe Creative Suite and XMPie's tools, we are creating opportunities for innovation in communications and for reaching the early adopters of personalization."

Based on all of the positive feedback and attendees’ overwhelming indication of intent to attend next year, the XMPie User Group is already planning next year’s event, and indications are that attendance will grow. Congratulations to both XMPie and the XMPie Users Group for pulling off this successful first event. We hope that their momentum continues to grow. Groups like this play an important role as the printing industry and its customers continue to transform their businesses and their business communications strategies to operate effectively in the new world of Cross Media.

Cary can be reached via email at cary@sherburneassociates.com, online at www.sherburneassociates.com and by telephone at 603-430-5463.

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