Xplor delegates get tomorrow’s news today

The International Herald Tribune is just one of 25 international newspapers that Security Mail prints for overseas publishers in a variety of languages that manager Brett Coulston arranged to be delivered to the delegates during his Print 101 presentation. It was a clear demonstration of the power of internet-enabled ‘distribute and print’ methodology. If you ever thought you knew it all about print and document management, well you had to think again.

What, another Roger Morgan? How can it be so?

Its been twenty-five years since Xplor started as a user group in the US, and who better to give a potted history of the evolution of digital print than Fuji Xerox Australia’s Roger Morgan. Roger may have had some surprises for us but he didn’t bank on Detective Sergeant Joseph Vukasovic of the New South Wales Fraud Squad stealing his identity. Joe produced everything he needed to satisfy the banking industry’s 100 point proof of identity check list and proved he was indeed Roger Morgan. Two Roger Morgans! It could become a brand.

Speaking of brands it was clear from the Gartner Groups Kristian Steentrup’s presentation that the power of brand and personalised communications is becoming a key focus of marketing and communication companies. The emergence of content-process fusion on the technology hype cycle indicated the need for businesses to integrate their content and, document management applications and processes, to provide a seamless business communication and data management environment.

Tune in, turn on, no drop out

Significant advances in the application of RFID (radio frequency identification) technology were demonstrated by Chua Seong Hong of Singapore’s Intensecomp. Indeed the applications of this technology are enormous and its implications for supply chain management, security, health and safety, and document management are not to be underestimated. I was not surprised to read recently on a US web site the following research about RFID in the US market:

The "gold rush" is on for RFID tag, reader, and system providers. According to ARC Advisory Group, the market for RFID systems in the manufacturing supply chain will reach US$4 billion in 2008. And it will actually hit nearly $3 billion just next year – a big step up from the $200 or $300 million in RFID spending expected this year. www.arcweb.com

Digital printing is an essential communication channel

Gifford Clinton of CommSec detailed success rates of various marketing strategies and the market penetration rates of various product offerings through different communication channels. Tim Lane of HPA, John Turner of Exstream, Stephen Pratt of Kodak Versamark and Peter Foley of Nexpress all gave us insights into tools and strategies to communicate with prospects and customers alike.


Innovations in supply chain and distribution management were discussed by Victorian young entrepreneur of the year 2003, Rob Turner of Distribution alliance. Col Bruce of The University of Queensland (UQ) detailed the UQ POD (print-on-demand) solution for the access and distribution of learning resources in the tertiary education sector. John Weichard of D2P discussed his innovations in automated network print submission. Alec Doran of the University of Western Sydney discussed issues of change management in combining five separate print facilities into one.


Xplor Noosa provided presentations from the specific to the generic across the life cycle of the document and its management. Last but not least, Xplor is a place to learn about what’s going on in the electronic document management industry and to share information. Brett Dashwood of Printsoft emphasised the value of Xplor as a learning organisation in his presentation on EDP (Electronic Document Professional) a peer assessed accreditation service provided to Xplor members world wide.