I’m just back from the Business Imaging Expo in Las Vegas, held Dec. 10-12. This was my first time attending what used to be the Recharger Show. The name has changed as this show has now become highly focused on workflow and MPS, providing educational sessions, presentations and panels to about 250 industry professionals attending from all over the world.

Beyond being informative with the breakout sessions, this was an extremely impressive networking event, allowing me and my peers to talk with people at all levels and facets from the industry.

I was there to sit on an MPS panel with 5 others – Charley Brewer from Actionable Intelligence, Ed Crowley from Photizo, Randy Dazo of InfoTrends, Jake Fishman from gap intelligence and Robert Palmer from Palmer Consulting Group. The MPS track was going on at the same time as the workflow sessions but even so, we had a packed room with over 100 people attending our panel and we fielded some really interesting questions from attendees.

I have to say the sessions were pretty amazing and included really interesting topics. Here’s a list of a few:

• The Three Pillars of MPS Workflow
• How Cloud-Based Workflow Will Redefine Your Business
• Optimizing Your Workflow with Analytics and Mobile
• How to Perform a Basic and Effective Workflow Analysis
• How, Why and When (and When Not) to Print from a Mobile Environment
• Real-World Social Media Strategies to Grow Your Business
• How to Measure Sales Force Effectiveness
• The Key to Transforming the MPS Model

There were TONS more sessions and the topics were outstanding. After attending so many vendor shows, it was refreshing to come to an event like this. It’s very interesting to go to a Ricoh or Toshiba or Konica Minolta or Sharp dealer show as we did over the last few weeks but when you’re at those events, you’re seeing presentations geared specifically for their dealers. When you come to a show like this, you’re getting perspective from all of those vendors and many more. The only other organization that puts together this kind of educational event on these types of topics is BTA.

The list of presenters was beyond impressive with executives like Terrie Campbell of Ricoh, Peter Richardson of Samsung, Ron Glaz of IDC, Mike Stramaglio of MWA Intelligence, Shannon Cross of Cross Research Group, Ed McGlaughlin of Valderus, Walters & Shutwell, Photizo, LMI, OKI, HP, InfoTrends, and many more.

The timing of the event was tough as it was on the heels of so many vendor dealer shows and because it was between the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, but I encourage you all to consider attending next year. It’s really one of the few places you can go to learn on this subject matter in a truly brand agnostic environment.

Click here to see more information about the show and to view the full list of sessions.  Great job to the organizers from 1105 Media and especially Patricia Ames!