KBA Web Offset Users Group Continues Its Annual Meeting
Meeting attracts group members to connect with KBA web offset printing management
Company Supplied -- Graphic Arts Online, November 3, 2009
KBA North America, a global press manufacturer based in Dallas, Texas, continued its popular traditional annual meeting of its KBA Web Offset Users Group by utilizing a new webinar format. More than 40 KBA web offset user members at 14 different print sites participated in the two-day event over a three-hour time period each day in this first-of-its-kind meeting. The KBA Web Offset Users Group is a formally-chartered organization with bylaws, a board of directors, and its own website.
"Our annual users group meeting is an integral interaction between KBA web offset press users and KBA management," says Gary Hall, president of the group and director of production and operations at the Milwaukee Sentinel. "This is an important forum for our members to share information critical to their plant's operational optimization. However, in light of the economy and the high cost of travel, we decided to offer for the first time an interactive audio and video presentation over the web rather than meet in person in Rockford, Ill., which had been the original host site."
Tom Letto, treasurer of the user group and production director of the Louisville Courier Journal, noted that the goal of the annual meeting is to maintain communication between members and KBA management, look at efficiencies, share opportunities, and provide feedback to sustain member operations. "The main focus, however, is our relationship with KBA," says Letto. "By purchasing a KBA web press, we've undertaken an important partnership with them. We want to fully preserve that two-way conversation."
Turning to the new webinar approach after meeting in person at different sites over the years proved to be an effective alternative. The technology to broadcast the event was in place at KBA's new corporate headquarters in Dallas but the user group board of directors needed to promote the two-day event so that members cleared their calendars to participate.
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