Monday, December 5, 2005
Xerox's Hatch Center Hosts RIT School of Print Media
Last summer/early fall I worked for Xerox PSG Marketing Communications as a Print Industry Center Graduate Intern. Most of the work I did was preparing for PRINT '05 where Xerox had the biggest all-digital display.
I was fortunate enough to work in the new state-of-the-art Gil Hatch Center for Customer Innovation. The center is a 100,000-square-foot facility consisting of offices, meeting rooms, a theatre, dining areas, and a production room containing all of Xerox's productions systems. Xerox uses the center to host customers, prospective customers, industry leaders, press and consultants for sales and marketing events, thought leadership conferences and other industry engagement activities.
One of my last requests before leaving, was to have Xerox host the RIT School of Print Media for a day long seminar that would allow the students access to some Xerox's decision makers, engineers and specialists.
The press release does a good job of summing it up the event.
On Dec. 5, a group of 60 students and faculty from the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) School of Print Media will visit Xerox's Gil Hatch Center for Customer Innovation for a day of networking and educational sessions about the evolving digital printing and publishing market. The event demonstrates Xerox's commitment to the future of the graphic communications industry and dedication to educating and partnering with the next wave of printing professionals.
The Event
The event kicked off at 9:00am with a welcome message from Barb Anselm, VP Marketing Communications. Then Paul Butterfield, a systems engineer on the Xerox iGen3 team spoke about imaging technology for the 21st century. After Paul, Mike Harvey, VP Workflow Marketing talked about the Xerox FreeFlow workflow collection and covered topics ranging from web-to-print to offset and digital integration. This was followed by a panel discussion that allowed the students to ask the hard hitting questions they've been itching to have answered about Xerox technology and digital printing in general.
Following the morning speaking event, Xerox provided lunch which allowed the students an opportunity to dialogue with Xerox employees from a wide range of technical, engineering, business, and marketing functions. Normally, you would serve students pizza (a college staple), but Xerox rolled out the white linen table cloths and silver and served gourmet sandwiches and salads.
As I walked around the dining room I heard discussions taking place about product marketing, workflow, printing standards, and employment opportunities.
After lunch, the production floor was opened up to students to explore and get hands-on experience by interacting with product specialists and having their own files printed.
The day ended up being a huge success and worthwhile for both the students and faculty that attended and for Xerox.
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