This year’s Innovate conference exceeded its organisers expectations when it drew a crowd of 90 print industry members to the Heritage Hotel in Auckland on Monday.
The aim of the event was to bring together a mix of entrepreneurs, creative thinkers and industry experts for one day and the keynote speaker, Mike Walsh, proved a big hit. His spoke about the importance of business visions in the market and the effect of technology. He explained how anyone in business needs to think about what is next and the advantages of being prepared.
Graham Reed shared his experience in print strategies with the audience. He says, “You have to sell the solution, not the products. You have to understand your customers’ needs and offer a whole solution to your client. Move away from selling one product.” He also spoke on how to use variable data printing to create print strategies for different companies.
Peter Lancaster kept the crowd alert with his presentation on how to get the latest technology into a print business, including web to print and the cloud. He says, “We will see more apps in the future like the iPhone Shazaam app but they will have more relevance to print.”
Sir Peter Maire, co-founder of Navman, delivered an inspirational talk on how he and the other people in his company developed the technology and how it felt when they realised they had the capabilities to do it. Although he didn’t cover any topics close to printing, the crowd enjoyed hearing his story because of its relevance as a Kiwi success.
