Getting on the plane from Detroit to Düsseldorf was relatively painless. I went through security at Detroit Metro quickly as there were few travelers in the airport for flights leaving at 9:15pm on Friday evening. I had just enough time to pick up a couple of newspapers and the new book by Peter Senge, The Necessary Revolution: How Individuals and Organizations Are Working Together to Create a Sustainable World (more about this at the end of the trip) and sit down for a few minutes before boarding.
The best thing about the flight (besides the food … just kidding) was the movie I watched: The Great Debaters. This film — directed by and starring Denzel Washington — is about a professor, Melvin Tolson, at Wiley College in Marsall, Texas and his team of student debaters. This is a very interest fact-based story and was a welcome surprise on the flight. I would recommend seeing it.
I also took the opportunity during the long flight to review the DRUPA 2008 catalog and chart out the topics I would like to focus on during my visit. For those who don’t know it, DRUPA is contraction of the German words for printing (druck) and paper (papier) and it is the largest trade show/fair for the print media industry in the world. The exhibition center has 17 halls (yes, 17), some of which have two sections and multiple floors. DRUPA takes place every four years. This year there are 1,800 exhibitors from 50 countries and the show is expected to draw 400,000 attendees.
I have been told that it would take about 10 days to walk the entire show floor. Since I will be attending for a mere seven days, I will try my best to focus on the following topics:
1. Digital printing equipment
2. Color management solutions
3. Web2Print solutions
4. Publishing workflow solutions
5. MIS systems
6. Web offset press equipment
I will let you know how it goes.
KRD
May 30, 2008
MULTIMEDIAMAN 
