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WITH FOUR CONFERENCES spread across the calendar and across the country, even if you can't drive a picture desk or picture a press drive, there's sure to be something of interest in production technology and operations at a meeting near in time or place.
The Newspaper Association of America has consolidated its regular slate of prepress, pressroom and post press conferences.
The resulting SuperConference March 3-8 in Miami Beach, devotes a week to technical topics that before had filled three meetings in three cities on different dates.
This leaves the NAA with two big tech conferences, the other being part of the annual Nexpo trade show, this year June 15-19 in Las Vegas.
On a regional level, the America East Newspaper Operations and Technology Conference, which gathers in Hershey, Pa., at the end of March, is going strong after more than 30 years. The annual conference and trade show has expanded its regular program and added a preshow conference on new electronic media.
This year, it includes an NAA-sponsored session on safety and environmental regulatory compliance for smaller papers.
And an idea floated in Hershey three years ago will be realized in October when the first America West sets up shop in Reno, Nev.
This new regional conference commences little more than a year after the Western Newspaper Production Conference was canceled.
In all, the newspaper industry now has four major, seasonally and regionally spaced conferences: SuperConference in winter, America East in spring, Nexpo at midyear and America West in fall. There is no trade show at the SuperConference.
SUPER CONFERENCE, SUPER SHOW
By merging meetings formerly held every 12 or 18 months, the NAA hoped to make its own work and newspaper staffers' attendance easier and less expensive, according to NAA senior vice president/technology, Eric Wolferman.
Sessions at the SuperConference, said Wolferman, will be more specific and "educational" than those planned for Nexpo, and will include more discussion of over-the-horizon technologies. The Nexpo '96 conference program, he said, is being drawn up to treat somewhat broader topics, with sessions of more general interest, than those presented last year.
From the start, said Wolferman, the "obvious question" arose regarding the impact of the SuperConference on Nexpo. "There is the possibility down the road that it...