Israel Diary Day 7: Nazareth and the Sea of Galilee (+photos)

April 13, 2013 Leave a comment

israel_day_7This is the seventh day in my Israel diary, where I’m attending the HP Indigo VIP Event in Tel Aviv.  See Day 1 in Tel Aviv here, Day 2 in Jerusalem and Bethlehem here, Day 3 at the HP Indigo offices in Nes-Ziona here, Day 4 at Pageflex and Caesarea here, Day 5 at the HP Indigo Plant in Kiryat Gat here, and Day 6 here.

Today, HP has arranged for two tour options: Jerusalem, or Nazareth and the Sea of Galilee.  Since I’ve already visited Jerusalem, and given that President Obama is said to be tying up significant amounts of the city and corresponding traffic, I decide to head to Nazareth and Galilee.

A fantastic tour guide leads our bus, and two Vision staff members join us for the day.  Vision is the company that HP used to facilitate the HP Indigo event.

Yonatan is our 24-year old security detail, and is tall (probably 6’3″), and armed with a pistol stuck in his Read more of this post

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Israel Diary Day 6: HP Indigo VIP Event, Tel Aviv (+photos)

April 2, 2013 2 Comments

cover_shot_joffa_goodThis is the sixth day in my Israel diary, where I’m attending the HP Indigo VIP Event in Tel Aviv.  See Day 1 in Tel Aviv here, Day 2 in Jerusalem and Bethlehem here, Day 3 at the HP Indigo offices in Nes-Ziona here, Day 4 at Pageflex and Caesarea here, and Day 5 at the HP Indigo Plant in Kiryat Gat here.

Today, HP has arranged another full day of events.  In the morning, I take part in a session conducted by Vivian Cohen-Leisorek, who is Strategic Marketing Product Manager for HP, where she discusses various creative applications of digital printing powered by the Indigo.  It’s exciting to see how Clients have utilized the technology — and many of them are MindFire Clients.  Love seeing that!

Next, Lior Krasnovsky reviews SmartStream Production Center, which is a product we’ve integrated with, and describes how it helps to improve the processing of a large volume of short-run jobs. Read more of this post

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Israel Diary Day 5: HP Indigo Plant in Kiryat Gat (+photos)

March 30, 2013 2 Comments

day_5_coverToday’s agenda is scheduled from start to finish by HP, and is focused on events at the Kiryat Gat Indigo plant.  At 7:45, a bus picks us up to take us on an hour’s journey.

On the bus, I meet Frank Hood, who runs InfoVine in Houston, Texas.  We have a great conversation, and end up seeing quite a bit of each other over the next few days.  Frank is working on his second company, having built and sold the first a few years back.

At the plant, we are scheduled to see various parts of the facility, demonstrating the enormous amount of innovation and engineering that goes into supporting the Indigo.  We start by hearing from Alon Bar-Shany, who runs the entire Indigo Division.  After Alon, we hear from various parts of the organization, and I pick up a lot of interesting ideas.

For example, I learn that HP has a support mechanism called “shared support,” which Frank explains to me is devised to motivate clients like him to invest in training their press operators to a designated level of competency.  When the operator reaches that level, the support fees charged by HP drop considerably (something like 60%).  The idea resonates with me, and I immediately think about how we might be able to apply that to our multichannel marketing automation.

In the evening, HP arranges for dinner at Reading 3, which is at the Tel Aviv port.  We have an enjoyable dinner, and are treated to a show by a local group of entertainers.  Plenty of laughs ensue!

We arrive home around 11:30, and although I’m a bit wound up, sleep is necessary, as tomorrow is filled with more HP activities.

Here are some photos from the day; click to enjoy!

Arriving at the HP plant!
This is Lisa, one of our Clients, taking a picture of me as I take a picture of her 🙂
Alon giving everyone an update.
Most of the presentation focused on the HP Indigo 10000
Simon discussed the history of the 10000’s development and led a customer panel discussion
Alon’s presentation included many interesting stats
Inside the plant, there was a visual history of Indigo, stretching back to the start in the late 70’s
Many of the buildings I was in had a shelter like this one
A beautiful facility
We got to tour the plant, and hear from various people about how the Indigo is built
This is where the ink is made
The entrance to the building

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[VIDEO] MindFire & HP SmartStream Production Center Integration

March 26, 2013 Leave a comment

At last month’s DSCOOP in Nashville, we unveiled integration we’ve been working on with the HP SmartStream team.  It’s been fun working with their team, as they’re dedicated, passionate, and very hands-on (as you’ve seen from the Israel diary, I got to spend some quality time at their office in Israel).

In short, our marketing automation workflows can now easily output print-ready PDFs (via the HP Composer), and those PDFs are sent to HP’s Production Center for print on the Indigo.  This is what our Marketing Studio looks like, and an example of marketing automation workflow:

multi-touch

Our Marketing Studio, which is a drag-and-drop environment for creating multi-channel workflows

We invested in this integration because both MindFire and HP believe that marketers are rapidly adopting marketing automation technology to optimize their lead generation.  While most marketing automation campaigns use digital channels (like email, mobile and social media), print is sometimes underutilized because of workflow complexities.  (Or in some cases, not used at all!)

This is why we made it our goal to enable our mutual users to generate a triggered print piece as easily as a triggered email or text message.  While there’s more work to do, I certainly think we’re on our way.

Above is a short video the HP team put together on their Production Center, showing how marketing automation print pieces are prepared for print.  Enjoy!

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Israel Diary Day 4: Pageflex and Caesarea (+photos)

March 25, 2013 1 Comment

israel_day_4

This is the fourth day in my Israel diary, where I’m attending the HP Indigo VIP Event in Tel Aviv.  See Day 1 in Tel Aviv here, Day 2 in Jerusalem and Bethlehem here, and Day 3 at the HP Indigo offices in Nes-Ziona here.

Another successful night of sleep.  After a great breakfast downstairs, I make my way back to the room to take care of some emails.  There’s some follow-up to do on a patent we just filed (here’s a post on what the patent process is like), as well as a few other things to check on back home.  Overall, there don’t appear to be any major fires (a concern whenever I travel).

At 9:00, Gadi from Pageflex picks me up to head to their office.  Gadi is responsible for customer support at Pageflex, and we have an engaging conversation about life, work, and Israel/US relations.  As we’re traveling on the freeway, traffic comes to a complete standstill.  I don’t mean we’re moving a few miles an hour — I mean that people are completely stopped, getting out of their cars and walking around.  Waze tells us there’s an accident ahead.

After waiting about 20 minutes, we notice Read more of this post

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Israel Diary Day 3: HP Indigo and Nes-Ziona (+photos)

March 23, 2013 4 Comments

israel_day_3_coverThe third day in my Israel diary, where I’m attending the HP Indigo VIP Event in Tel Aviv.  See Day 1 in Tel Aviv here, Day 2 in Jerusalem and Bethlehem here.

Finally, I slept a complete night, and awoke feeling rested.  I can’t recall how long it took my body to adjust last time I traveled to this part of the world, but I’m starting to feel a bit more alive.

After a wonderful breakfast, I retreated to my room to write, respond to emails, and check on my wife and baby.   All seems OK at home, except that Abby has been a bit more difficult that usual.  I hope she doesn’t drive mommy crazy!

On my agenda today is a visit to the HP Indigo offices in Nes-Ziona, to meet with Gershon Alon (he oversees the Workflow Solutions at HP Indigo) and further our integration with SmartStream (which we unveiled in Nashville a month ago), and discuss other cooperative goals.

I struggle to find a Read more of this post

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Israel Diary Day 2: Jerusalem & Bethlehem (+photos)

March 20, 2013 5 Comments

Israel Diary day 2

The second day in my Israel diary, where I’m attending the HP Indigo VIP Event in Tel Aviv.  See Day 1 in Tel Aviv here.

I awoke at 3:30 AM, fully aware that it was too early to get up, but unable to coax myself back to sleep.  So around 4:30 I gave up, and resorted to responding to emails and checking the news.

At 6:30, the hotel’s breakfast opened, which provided a wonderful array of options.  The display reminded me of being on a cruise — so many yummy things to try!

After eating and pounding a few cups of coffee, I made my way to the front of the hotel to wait for a tour bus (which I arranged the night before).  I choose a tour of Jerusalem and Bethlehem, which cost around $90.  Compared to what I’ve paid in other countries, it wasn’t too expensive.

Promptly at 7:20, our tour guide (Absalom) appeared, requesting that I follow him to boarded his tour bus.  He was a friendly and very helpful guide, and when I return to Israel, I’ll definitely look him up again.  After picking up a few more tourists, we made our way for about 45 minutes to Jerusalem.  I made friends with a number of my fellow passengers, including an attorney from Ohio, and an auditor for Shell.

For the next 8 hours, he led us on a journey of Jerusalem, Bethlehem, a kibbutz, and back to the old city of Jerusalem.  Here are some (but certainly not all!) of the highlights: Read more of this post

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Israel Diary Day 1: Tel Aviv (+photos)

March 16, 2013 6 Comments

israel_covershot2Leaving my wife and baby was harder than usual.  I’m headed to the HP Indigo VIP Event in Tel Aviv, Israel.

As we stood outside LAX’s Bradley Terminal, Abby seemed to know something was up.  Usually, she seems oblivious to what’s going on, but this time she held on to me, and even seemed hesitant to go back to mom.

She gave me a bunch of little hugs and squeezes.

Dave, Abby, and Sarah

One last picture before flying to Israel. Going to miss these sweet girls of mine!

We took our usual family picture, and I watched as they pulled away.  I said a prayer for their safety and protection.

Arriving at the El Al check-in, there were at least a dozen people ahead of me.  I wasn’t in line for more than one minute, when an El Al official came up to me.

“Sir, may I see your passport?” he asked.  I handed it to him.  “Sir, I’m going to need to ask you some questions,” he said, leading me towards the front of the line.  He asked me where I was going, and what my plans were.  After a few minutes he left, but returned with a young lady.  She introduced herself, apologized, and said that she would need to learn more about my trip.

I nodded and smiled.  In these types of situations, I enjoy experiencing the rush of adrenaline that comes from new situations.  I know I’m weird, but I like practicing remaining calm while my brain goes into overdrive.

“Sir, who are you visiting?” she asked, watching my face as I collected my thoughts.  I told her about the HP VIP event, my plans with Pageflex, and other objectives for the trip.  She continued asking about where I was going, and what I planned to do each day.  She asked who I would be with, and how I knew them.

After a few minutes, she excused herself.  I lost sight of her as she mixed with a sea of El Al reps behind the counter.  A moment later, she returned.  “Did you buy your own ticket? Who made your travel arrangements?” she asked, peppering me with questions about how I arrived at LAX.

Then, to my surprise, she said Read more of this post

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“I’m 54 Years Old, And I’m Not Going To Change!”

March 5, 2013 9 Comments

Sometimes, when I’m engaged in conversation with someone, they’ll say something like:

“You know what?  No way.  I’m 54 years old, and I’m not going to change!  I’m sorry, it’s just not going to happen.“

When confronted with such a response, I don’t know what to say.  I usually just end up looking at the person, scrunching my eyebrows and scratching my head.

Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever said this in conversation, which is why it confuses me.  (If you know me personally, please point out if I’m wrong …)

When I was in my early twenties, I took this response as a put-down (as in: listen you little twerp, I’m far wiser than you; what you’re asking me to do is stupid…), but now that I’m in my 30’s and much more mature (come on, I’m joking), I’m even more confused.

I’m confused because I find myself changing.all.the.freakin’.time.  I don’t think I’m unique in that way.  I see people changing all around me.  Aren’t you changing, too?

As I reflect on this response, I’m left with an observation and two questions:

  • Observation: I think I typically hear this response from people older than me
  • Question: In general, what do people really mean by this?  What are they trying to tell me?
  • Question: Twenty years from now, will I also say this?

What I believe to be true is that I’m 34 years old, and I’m definitely going to change.

What do you think? If you have any insight, or if you’re uttered these words yourself, please share your thoughts.

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Blog Traffic Report: February 2013

March 2, 2013 Leave a comment

February_header

Pageviews continue to grow!

Welcome to February’s traffic report (see January’s here).  My goal in sharing these data is to provide you some encouragement and support in your own blogging journey.  If you blog, I’d love to hear how you did in February in the comments.

A few highlights from last month:

  • I began accepting donations using PayPal, totaling $1,421.  I’ve received many questions on how to use PayPal for donations, so I may post something on that soon.
  • I continued blogging less often (read why I began posting less).  In February, I posted 9 times, compared to 22 in January.  Even so, pageviews increased (see below).

Personally, I was pretty busy in February, with travel, work, and home-life.  Because I knew my time would be limited compared to prior months, I wasn’t sure what to expect going into the month … Read more of this post

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