The big one

As I made clear from my previous blog post about the conference last year, PePcon is something to look forward to. I’m into print and digital publishing workflows, design products and other Adobe solutions. But time and budget restrictions (that thing we all have) only allows me to attend a certain number of conferences a year. Especially when they’re overseas, like in the U.S. This means I need to plan my schedule and budget every year to make sure I spend these two resources as best as I can. And PePcon has been on the top of the list ever since I attended the very first time in San Francisco in 2012.

Other conferences I’m looking forward to this year are the InDesign Conference and Adobe MAX, though I can’t confirm yet if I’ll be able to make it to those. As I explained in a previous blog post, my objectives for visiting conferences are:

1. Sessions: my primary focus is of course learning and attending sessions. So I need to be sure that I’ll pick up tips, new programs, or a new (or updated) sense of direction.
2. Organisation: because I’m personally involved with organising small events in Belgium I think attending sessions overseas gives me a great learning platform because I get to be an attendee myself. So the personal experience I get as an attendee helps me to get things organised for my own sessions and events. The things I pick up could be about how I enrolled, how communication is done, their social media policy, surveys, catering, support, etc.
3. Speakers and keynotes: because I regularly spend time in a classroom environment or on stage as a speaker I constantly pick up tips on improving my own presentations, my slides, technical setup and even get to observe how people improvise, answer questions, introduce themselves or (try to) be funny.
4. Networking: the previous bullets in this list are pretty straightforward and most people just go with the flow. But networking is different and I do believe that the word “work” in “networking” is a true fact. And it sometimes takes some courage to let yourself be heard during a session or just step up to someone out of the blue. But I’ve learned that growing your network and socialising with specialists, Adobe staff and like-minded people is key to growing your own business and staying at the top of your game.

… and PePcon ticks all the boxes!

Me and co-presenter Erica Gamet during a GREP presentation at PePcon ’14 in Chicago. Photo courtesy of PePcon.com

My PePcon 2015

This year I’ll be presenting the “DPS Fundamentals: Building Folios for Digital Publications” session, just like I did in Austin in 2013. This is a half day session that focuses on Adobe’s Digital Publishing Suite solution, and will take place on 1st June. This is one of the so called pre-conference sessions where you get to learn more about a specific topic, and will have the chance to meet other people that share your interest.

Photo courtesy of Padi.com

During this session I’ll explain all the ins and outs about building digital publications using the DPS solution. This means we’ll focus on the Adobe DPS workflow and creation of interactive documents using Adobe InDesign and other CC programs to further enrich your documents. A few of the bullet points I’ll be discussing are:

• Getting started
• Building your first folio
• Converting a print documenten to digital publication
• Design tips
• How to set up a DPS workflow with your client
• Things to be careful for
• Previewing content
• Integrating audio, video, and animation into your layouts
• Engaging the reader with interactivity such as buttons, multi-state objects, and scrollable frames
• Dealing with Apple
• …

If you’re interested in this session, be sure to book a seat while they’re still available! All information, registration and full conference schedule is available on the official PePcon website.

Hope to see you all there, and never hesitate to come and say hi during the conference!

The post Speaking at PePcon 2015 in Philadelphia appeared first on Bart Van de Wiele.

Why I’m excited

My very first visit to the conference in 2012 triggered a lot of change to my career and opened up certain opportunities. First of all it got me into contact with other specialists, both speakers and attendees, which felt very refreshing. I’ve attended conferences in Europe before e.g. Adobe MAX in Barcelona and Milan or other Adobe events, but for some reason these haven’t made any big impressions on me. PePcon was the first conference where I really felt at home. Networking with people there has left permanent results in my address book and I feel a lot more connected to everyone who has an important role to play in the publishing world.

Second, it gave me a chance to present my own professional activities and profile to others, which led to new challenges and even some remote overseas training. Shortly after my return home from the San Francisco edition I got an invitation from Mike Rankin asking if I was interested in writing for InDesign Magazine, and other opportunities quickly followed. I’m still very much in contact with a lot of people from around the world who I have met during one of the PePcon conferences, including someone from Sydney, Australia. And it is through her that my plan to migrate to Australia for one year came about. So if I hadn’t gone to San Francisco, I’d probably not be writing this blog here from Sydney. And despite having to take a 20hr trip to get to the conference from Sydney I still think it’s worth it.

One of my presentations at PePcon ’13 – Austin, TX
Photo courtesy of PePcon: The Print + ePublishing Conference

So next time you visit a world-class conference like PePcon, make sure you take your time to network and get to know other people. You never know what other opportunities might be hiding around the corner.

If you’re interested in attending the conference this year, be sure to use my personal discount code CH23E to get $50 off!

My PePcon 2014 sessions

I will be presenting two sessions in this years edition:

• Head to Head GREP
  This is a session that I’ll be presenting together with my friend Erica Gamet. Erica is a world-class speaker and leader of the Denver InDesign User Group. You can check out her site if you want to know more about her. (But take my word for it, she’s great.)
  As you might have assumed, this session focuses on GREP functionality within Adobe InDesign. Erica and myself will try to dazzle each other with our GREP skills and see who can present the best GREP expressions. We’ll be using real life examples for this session so I’m sure they’ll look very familiar to the attendees. This 1-hour session will take place on monday 16th june.

• Publishing Your iPad App with Adobe DPS: live app building
  This session is one of the post-conference sessions. Attendees are free to book this extra day as a separate visit to the conference where they choose any of the post-conference sessions that are available in the morning or afternoon.
  Live training, videos and tips on building digital publications using the Adobe DPS solutions are getting more and more common these days. But building the actual application from those publications is equally important because it represents your final product. Creating this application for any of the iOS  or Android devices seems to have a reputation of being overly complicated, which is not really true. It does require you to jump through a few hoops but achieving your goal is more easily accomplished than you think if you have the proper preparation, like any other job.
  During my session I’ll be creating an iPad application, “live” on stage, while talking about the ins and outs of the DPS publishing workflow. I’ll talk about how to deal with Apple (or Google), how to get your accounts and/or licenses together and I’ll share tips on how to get your applications approved. If you have some DPS experience but are unsure about taking that next step I’d highly recommend you attend my session.
  This 3-hour session will take place on wednesday 18th june.

If you want more information about the conference sessions, speakers, dates or activities, please visit the PePcon website or follow them on Facebook or Twitter.

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