Yesterday, February 17, our first-ever Partner Summit (the culmination of months of planning and early morning meetings) finally came to fruition for our partners worldwide to enjoy in the form of a two-hour virtual event broadcasted in the APAC, EMEA, and AMER regions.
With the excitement still lingering and the smell of our makeshift command center fresh in my nostrils, I wanted to offer my 8 key takeaways of the event…
https://open.spotify.com/episode/6gUVCQbj68CG52byGVRFrU?si=b3e65be30dbb450a
1. Gus Balbontin says hi from the future!
We kicked off with our keynote, former Lonely Planet CTO Gus Balbontin.
If there’s one word that sums up life and our industry since the pandemic it’s this: change. Now, while that concept is always present, Gus walked us through how to adapt and thrive during periods of upheaval.
He also showcased possibly one of the best primal screams in the game. A hype-fuelled exciting opening to the day’s event.
2. IDC’s 5 industry trends impacting office print
Next up were IDC analysts Robert Palmer and Anne Valaitis taking a deep dive into the five industry trends shaping print in 2022 and beyond. This was followed by direct comment and analysis by Dave Farrell and Noah Wiemken.
While there were no huge surprises in store , it was a fitting pulse check for what areas of growth to focus on for the present and future.
3. Meet the new head of product Jules Boot
It wouldn’t be a PaperCut event without an ample amount of coffee footage and metaphors.
True to form, our CEO and co-founder Chris Dance welcomed our new head of product Julian Boot with a cafe chat followed by a tour of our Melbourne office while discussing PaperCut’s future and current focus areas.
We’re thrilled to have Jules on board and he’ll no doubt have a great impact on our plans for now and to come.
4. Major customer case study delivers
We still can’t say too much publicly about this case study until we officially publish. But I’ll say what I can without getting the side-eye from our communications manager.
Let’s just say, as far as enterprise print management is concerned, this tech giant’s story of finding a print solution had it all: infrastructure compatibility, security, BYOD enablement, cross-platform support, sustainability, and more.
We look forward to releasing it publicly, but boy it felt good to exclusively debut for our partners.
5. Assessing the education and healthcare landscape
PaperCut and education go together like PaperCut and… coffee?
Education is part of our foundations, as well as sustainability. And our service to the healthcare industry has been a passion long before the visibility of COVID-19.
During this segment, education leads Willem Groenewald and Rebecca Ballantyne provided their insight into the main challenge and triumphs faced in school print management.
This was followed by Healthcare lead Mat Buttrey and solutions architect Tyler Alvord sharing PaperCut’s focus areas for the healthcare industry.
6. A man, his blanket, and a tree stole the show
It’s no secret PaperCut hangs our hat on sustainability. Waste reduction was part of how this company got started.
While sustainability was a hot topic throughout the entire event, it was one man, his Akubra, a picnic blanket, and a freshly planted seedling that stole the show.
The hero piece of our sustainability efforts in 2022, product manager Jamie McClunie debuted our approach to forest positivity which will be a part of PaperCut MF 22.0.
7. Enter the PaperCut Multiverse
I won’t say we saved the best for the last, but the Partner Summit definitely ended as strong as it started with Stu Brookes providing a look into the Multiverse…
Well, the PaperCut Multiverse. What’s that? It’s a single pane of glass platform that provides our partners the ability to offer ongoing proactive support to customers and end-users.
More than a remote management tool, PaperCut Multiverse is key to our cloud platform moving forward.
8. Digital Showbag delivers the goodies!
In Australia, carnivals and fairs are only as good as the showbag they deliver - a tote bag filled with goodies to pore over for the weeks that follow. It means the excitement can continue on for days and days even after the initial event.
True to that nature, our Digital Showbag delivers an assortment of extra content with bonus videos and digital assets so attendees can delve deeper into any area of interest from the event.
Thank you, and you, and you, and you!
We’d like to thank all our partners in all our regions who attended. We’d also like to thank everyone involved for a great event!
If you’re a partner and you missed out on this event, get in touch with your Authorized Partner and they’ll give you a detailed rundown.
I’ll say again, this event was for partners only - so apologies to the common public (hi mum) - but watch this space throughout the year for developments on all of the above and more.
