Update from the CEO—September 2020

There is a lot of great news at Idealliance this month.

Idealliance has wrapped up its second successful live online G7 Expert training session, and the reviews from participants have been excellent! Both sessions, which span 5 consecutive half-days, have each included close to 30 aspiring color management experts from around the world. We have another of these live training events scheduled for later in September, and will likely offer these once a month after that, spread across the world with our global network of Idealliance Authorized Trainers making it possible for trainees to pick the time zone and trainer that suits their particular needs. More to come on this as we continue to refresh and redraw how Idealliance promotes color management training throughout the global supply chain for the graphics arts and communications industry.

I am pleased to tell you that our intrepid Jeff Collins is assuming a new and much needed role at Idealliance. He is now our Vice President of Research & Development, and as such will work closely with our Print Properties and Colormetric Council (PPC). Jeff will also be Idealliance’s key point of contact for CGATS and ISO. There is nobody in the world, in my humble opinion, better suited to this role. Jeff has trained hundreds of color management professionals, and aside from all the certifications he has awarded to his trainees, he has also listened closely to the challenges and issues that expert color management resolves. There is nobody better positioned to support our membership and their interest in what the future holds for our industry than Jeff.

Taking Jeff’s place as Idealliance’s key point of contact with our Global Affiliates and OEM Partners is Mike Grady. Mike was formerly the VP Global Marketing for SGS, and as such is an expert on how the graphics arts and communications supply chain works. Like me, Mike is absolutely committed to tightening the supply chain processes through G7, which assures color fidelity and therefore supports growth of content and packaging, while squeezing workflow inefficiencies out of the system. Mike and I will be convening a series of ongoing discussions with our partners focused on one thing – how can we train more people?  Mike, our new Vice President of Global Partnerships, will be in contact with many of you to start these discussions.

And finally, believe it or not, Idealliance is back in the advertising and sponsorship business. I am thrilled to tell you that Tilia Labs, out of Ottawa, Canada, has chosen to be a major sponsor of our highly acclaimed GAMUT Podcast, hosted by Jeff Collins. I love this company’s story. They are a technology developer, started in 2012, that is committed to disruption! Faster prepress workflows, which Tilia supports, means more efficient completion of jobs, and that means more jobs can be scheduled. More work in less time sure sounds like a good idea to me.

Thanks for reading, call (703.837.1077) or email me if you would like to chat. And if you are not already a member of Idealliance please consider joining. Your involvement makes us all better.

Dick Ryan, Acting CEO, Idealliance