Kodak has a long history of innovation. It's at the core of everything we do. So it's no surprise that at Print 09, Kodak is bringing innovation to the trade show floor. We're reinventing the trade show experience and it's all about you - the customer.



We're going to give you a personalized experience tailored to your individual needs. We'll provide an entirely new demonstration of how Kodak solutions enable new applications and deliver more value - helping you increase production efficiency and return on marketing investment (ROMI), and ultimately grow your business.

As Cary Sherburne, Senior Editor of What They Think, said in a recent article, "this is something you will not want to miss."

Our new approach to trade shows reflects Kodak's strong commitment to be the best partner to help you grow your business. If you are interested in what you see, the next step is to schedule a one-on-one visit with our team and yours for a more in-depth discussion about your business needs and how Kodak can customize the right solution for you.

What's more, if you're unable to attend the show, this approach allows us to bring the Kodak Print 09 experience to you virtually. Our K-Zone sessions will be streamed live over the Internet at http://www.kodak.com/go/print09 and will also be available online after the show.



The K-Zone is a live talk show set where customers, industry experts, print and marketing service professionals, and Kodak leaders will share insights, expertise and practical advice you can use to grow your business.

The K-Zone kicks off on Friday, September 11, at 11:00 a.m. CST with "What's Print Got to Do with It," a panel featuring Kodak Chairman and CEO Antonio Perez; Shelly Lazarus, Chairman, Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide; Linda Sawyer, Chief Executive Officer, Deutsch Inc.; and Howard Mittman, Publisher, WIRED magazine. Here, we will take the conversation beyond "speeds and feeds" and hear how these global brands view and use print in the communications mix. You can see the full K-Zone schedule here.

The bottom line? Kodak's booth is about what's important to you and your business. It's about you AND Kodak at Print 09. We look forward to seeing you.

Just 6 weeks or so after the first visit to South America and Colombia I find myself back in the beautiful country with interesting and beautiful people. It is a visit that opens up my eyes even further to the changes and potential that this will become a power house for packaging, and particularly flexible packaging in the future. To reinforce the warning that the US&C risks falling behind countries like Colombia when we start to come out of recession, the first orders for Flexcel NX Systems in Colombia were taken, all into printers, both narrow and wide web. Combining the newest equipment with the best in plate technology will allow these printers to easily move forward and reinforce their positions as suppliers to the biggest brand owners.

One of the examples of where the newest press combines with the newest press, was a print trial on an OMET XFLEX. The XFLEX won the FFTA Technical Innovation Award last year, as did the Flexcel NX System this year. This is the first time I have seen these two industry leading innovations for Flexo together, and I have to say it was a beauty to behold. The speed to color, ease to change anilox rolls, print cylinders between jobs, ink tray loading unloading, minimal web path during the job, auto registration all worked simply and perfectly. The printer actually setup the first job twice, to prove to the prepress manager, and just to confirm that the press and plates combination really was so fast coming to commercially acceptable print together.



The picture in this Blog comes from a visit to the old Spanish capital in Colombia, and we have titled it "The 3 Tom's Looking For Dr John", where I shot a panoramic, and Tom accidentally managed to move into every shot, looking a different direction each time! It is a little freaky in some ways, but an interesting shot, automatically produced using a Kodak Easyshare M1093IS. The other lesson from that trip is distance as the crow flies is not important, how big a mountain you have to go up and down the side of controls travel time, and the degree of headache at the other end!

Colombia seems to be the country in South America with the highest penetration of traditional digital flexo plates, high percentage of Comexi wide web presses, and a smaller percentage of gravure to flexo.

Chile on the other hand was very different. From the flight from hell overnight Sunday with all the families returning from vacations, to arriving at the hotel to go to bed in the dark, and the getting out of bed at noon for the first appointment, to opening the curtains to see for the first time the snow covered Andes mountains seemingly a few blocks away, that was a real WOW sight to wake to!

The Flexo industry in Chile was different, far fewer CTP for Flexo, about 20% of Colombia, much more analog, very good analog, more Italian presses than anything, and a higher percentage of gravure than in Colombia. But here again a market ready to transition, Chile is a big exporter, so their packaging appears on our shelves all of the time, and they will continue to grow this trend. Here converting Flexo is really also going after gravure conversion, so the densities that can be produced with as few colors as possible is important.

As I visit super markets in other countries, that gets really interesting trying to explain you are "just looking" with a loop when you don't speak Spanish, it is clear that there are some significant market differences too. Quantities are smaller, many weekly instead of monthly purchases as in US, more flexible packaging, stronger brighter colors, more competition for sales. You come to the conclusion that the packaging in Latin America is at least as good and in most cases better than the majority in the US today. This too will help understand how they can become a threat to the US producers.

The next issue of the blog will come from Argentina and Uruguay, and my verdict to date on the beef, and who for Latin America reins supreme!

Since joining Kodak at the end of 2007, a key part of my role is evangelist for flexo, internally and externally of Kodak, and globally to grow the flexo industry. To date I have been to Europe, North, Central, and South America plus Asia. As I travel all over the world visiting Flexo printers and trade shops, as well as other packaging printers, I learn a lot that people like me to share.

It has been suggested that as I do this I could share my findings in a blog series titled "Where in the Flexo World is Dr John?"



The latest trip was to Colombia, my first to South America and now completing a full count for continents visited except Antarctica. In the current economy, Colombia was a real surprise. There are a few reminders of their troubled past, like each motor bike rider is required to have ID vests, but the country has had 8 years of stable government. Everywhere you look there is construction, investment, and signs of growth (they did not take the bad loans as in the US) and their economy is only a little soft, but doing very well.

What we saw at every printer visited were new investments, many presses less than a year old in every site, the newest and most advanced technology, and a client list of who's who for the top packaging brand owners. They also are keen to listen and learn more to improve the print quality they can achieve. They employ many engineers, and apply total quality management and preventive maintenance throughout their operations. They are often self sufficient operations, with film blowing or ink manufacture operations.

There are some of the best analog printers we have ever seen, achieving resolutions and results that mean that going to traditional LAMS digital plates will be a clear step backwards for them.

It is clear that much of the print is for local use, but increasingly it is for export to the US and Europe, and with the investments they are making now, there is the potential that as the world economies recover and demand increases they will take high quality print from other countries in the Americas, and become a major export force, like Turkey does in Europe, especially flexible packaging.

This is a country Tom Kowalski and I look forward to returning to very soon and continue to learn more before extending our introduction to Latin America with Walter Murillo, with a trip to several of the southern cone countries soon.

Two personal lessons from Bogota is that in traffic red lights and stop signs are only optional, but a U-turn will get you a special spot fine from the police, and yes you really need at least 3 hours at the airport for international flights.