Six months out

We’re now just six months away from SNDVegas, our 30th annual workshop.

And we’ve got a lot planned for you — as would be expected for a milestone workshop in a city that knows how to create an experience.

Our partners — the Associated Press Managing Editors and Associated Press Photo Managers — are moving along in their plans as well. If you didn’t know, we are meeting in conjunction with those two outstanding journalism organizations. While each of us will have our own sessions, we will program two general sessions for everyone on the Tuesday of our workshop. (Remember, we’re meeting Sunday-Monday-Tuesday this year.)

This will be a unique opportunity to network and seriously discuss issues with those who run our photo departments and our newsrooms. Ever been to a workshop and said, “I wish my boss were here.” This year, they will be.

At this point, about 90% of our professional program is set, although we still have many details to work out with our 50+ speakers and trainers. We will have the usual full schedule of design sessions, but we’ll also have aggressive programming in web, multimedia, interactive and graphics. The workshop’s tag line is “Rethink yourself. Rethink everything.” True to that, we will have sessions that focus on where the business is going and some that focus on you (becoming a more effective leader, a better art director, what to do when faced with the latest buyout offer and even what you can do with your skills outside of newspapers).

We’ll have hands-on sessions to sharpen your skills in different software programs, such as Flash, Illustrator, Lightwave, Photoshop, Final Cut and Motion.

This will truly be an international event, with speakers from Mexico, Argentina, Canada, Scotland, Spain, Portugal, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Russia, Germany, the Netherlands and, hopefully, China. There’s a lot of innovation happening worldwide and there will be plenty of opportunities to learn about it.

Beginning this month, we will post brief topic descriptions and the names of speakers we have confirmed. Click on the program tab on the upper left of this page. Over the next three months, we’ll add details to those descriptions as well as speaker bios as we work through those with our presenters. And as quickly as we can we’ll begin to arrange those sessions and speakers into days and time slots to better help you plan.

My best advice is to come early and stay late. We have sessions beginning mid-afternoon on Sunday and ending late Tuesday afternoon. Plus we have a few hands-on sessions on Wednesday and your SND registration gets you into a full day of APME/APPM sessions on Wednesday as well.

Watch this space for updates. If you have any questions, check out our FAQ section. If you don’t find an answer in there, drop me an e-mail at bill.gaspard@vegas.com if it’s an individual question or use the comment box to the right or the feedback tab up top for questions about general issues.

Workshop registration and hotel registration are both available online. Don’t wait… this is the best training bargain of the year!

Bill Gaspard, 2008 Site Chair

bill.gaspard@vegas.com | 702-259-4134