IPEX connects to RIT, but what about Arts London, London College of Whatever?

This is March now so the same month as IPEX. I think this is a very significant event, maybe for who is not there as well as who is there. Also for what will not happen. More later about Heidelberg and Xerox. But while still trying to get some bearings I notice that there seems to be no presence for the London College of Communication, part of the University of the Arts London. Maybe this will appear later but it is worth a blog post just to get some feedback.

One session to look forward to is talk by Benny Landa on Tuesday 25th March at 2pm. In the advance article for an IPEX magazine he describes the print industry as "600 years old and gigantic. It's like a huge tanker - its momentum takes it a long way before it can make a significant turn." This partly explains why he has got so many dates wrong in predictions about a move to digital. He claims that so far only 2% of pages are printed digital so there is no short term threat to offset, gravure or flexo. But he also says that only $80 billion of the $800 annual print spend is in newspapers and books. "When you look at the rest, that's not going away at all."

Hang on a minute. If print for books and newspapers just went away, that would be a news event. Somebody should ask a follow up question. The moderator is Frank Romano, Professor Emeritus from the Rochester Institute of Technology.

I think one of the problems in the UK is that the universities try to avoid words in the title such as "Technology" or "Polytechnic". "Arts" sounds better maybe but the funding might not recognise that some creative industries need a budget for equipment. What was the London College of Printing is now the London College of Communication but it still seems a bit vague what this means and where print fits in. The main university branding seems stronger but still needs some explanation about the various sites.

There has been a series of conferences about Futures, some of which were at Earls Court co-located with earlier versions of the Cross Media Show. "Total Print " was a bit of a detour in some ways. More on this later. Main thing is that so far as I know the LCC Futures conference has yet to co-locate with Cross Media or Cross Media / IPEX. I think if it did it could get clearer what Cross Media means and also what the LC of Communication is about.

By the way, there was only one university at Earl's Court last week for the shows about technology and publishing - The University of Bournemouth.