Capture the Magic BTA West hosts event in Las Vegas

BTA West hosted its annual Capture the Magic event Dec. 6-7 at the Palazzo in Las Vegas, Nevada. The event featured a keynote address, “Four Habits to

Radically Increase Productivity & Potential,” led by Dr. Coyte Cooper of Ollin Leadership. The event also included a featured speaker and six additional educational sessions.

Featured speaker Mike Marusic of Sharp Imaging and Information Company of America presented “Changing Our ‘Mental Models’ for Growth.” The six additional ses-sions were: “2018 Top Trends, Threats & Defenses,” led by Bob Goldberg of BTA; “Selling From the Inside Out,” led by Larry Coco of Coco Training & Coaching LLC; “How to Deliver Ongoing Success With Periodic Business Re-views,” led by Laurie McLevish of Print Audit and the Managed Print Services Association; “Animals, Bacon & Craft Beer: The ABC’s of Creating a Winning Culture in the Modern Workplace,” led by James Foxall of Tigerpaw Software Inc.; “The Principles of Change Management: Lessons Learned on the Back of a Personal Water Craft,” led by Sally Brause of GreatAmerica Financial Services Corp.; and “Digital & Social Media ‘Quick-Start’ Tips for the Time-Strapped BTA Dealer,” led by Harry Hecht, a business coach, industry advisor and consultant.

The Capture the Magic exhibiting sponsors: ACDI, Agent Dealer, BEI Services, Bicom Systems, Brother (keynote sponsor), Clover Imaging Group, Crawford Thomas, Da-tablaze, Demand, ECi Software Solutions, Epson, ESP AM-ETEK, Express Sales Corp., FP Mailing Solutions, Great-America Financial Services Corp., Image Star, Imaging Solutions Direct, Katun, Laserfiche, LD Products, LEAF, LMI Solutions, Muratec, OKI Data Americas, Panasonic Scanners, Print Management Partners, Sentry File, Static Control, Supplies Network, Supplies Wholesalers, Technol-ogy Assurance Group (breaks sponsor), TIAA Bank, Tiger-paw (lunch sponsor), TonerCycle/InkCycle, Toshiba, Uni-tone, Wells Fargo and Xerox (breakfast sponsor). nBrent Hoskins, executive director of the Business Technology

Association, is editor of Office Technology magazine. He can be reached at (816) 303-4040 or brent@bta.org.

Clockwise from top: Cooper presents his keynote address; Cameron Powell (left) of Datablaze visits with Roger Gor-man of General Mailing Equipment Inc., Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, during a break; the Capture the Magic event included a keynote address, a featured speaker and six additional educational sessions; and 2018-19 BTA West President Mike McCurdy serves as the event’s emcee.

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by: Brent Hoskins, Office Technology Magazine

Mental ModelsMike Marusic, president and CEO of Sharp Imaging and In-

formation Company of America, presented “Changing Our ‘Mental Models’ for Growth,” as the Capture the Magic featured speaker. He challenged dealers to view their businesses in a dif-ferent way in order to achieve continued growth. “I want to talk about something that is very important in the industry — ‘mental models,’” Marusic said. “What is a mental model? It’s how your mind wraps around a topic and the bound-aries you put around a topic ... So often, when we talk in the copier industry about ‘How do we improve the business? How do we grow our business?’ we’re confined within that idea of the copier alone.” Marusic shared a slide titled “Available Revenue Shrinking,” showing the imaging industry’s declining numbers. “This is what the business looks like right now,” he said. “You have the units declining and selling prices declining. You have the page volumes declining and the amounts you can charge for those page volumes declining ... That’s what we are facing, and so everybody is trying to find the next thing.” Consequently, there is a focus in the industry today on the promise of “disruption,” Marusic said, noting that he does not embrace that focus. “What we end up doing is just more of the same, right?” he said. “What does disruption look like? Maybe we’ll change our pricing models or maybe we’ll reduce service calls, but it’s still within that mental model of ‘copiers.’” Instead, it is important to embrace a broader view of the indus-try, Marusic said. “You’re in the right business — the information-sharing business, managing information for your customers,” he said. “You really need to think about what we’re doing. Is it ‘information sharing’ or are we only about the prints?” If it is “only about the prints,” Marusic reminded attendees about his “Available Revenue Shrinking” slide. “But if it’s about information sharing, the world is our oyster,” he said. “There are a lot of different things we can do ... [But] you have got to think about other consumption models and, most importantly, you have got to think about the changes in user requirements.” Those changes are the result of the rise in the number of mil-lennials in the workplace, Marusic explained, citing the emer-gence of informal work environments and the requirement for mobility. “If you look at how an office works today, the largest single group in the office is millennials,” he said. “If we ignore what is happening around us and just focus on ‘How do we get more clicks?’ we’re missing the bigger picture.” For dealers, Marusic said, that “bigger picture” could include offering such information-sharing technologies as electronic whiteboard displays or video conferencing. He also cited the ultimate focus at Sharp of “follow-me work” whereby as “you move around the building, your phone identifies where you are in the building” and in a conference room, for example, “with password protection, just to make sure it’s you, all your desktop information moves to that display.” Marusic said he looks to the future with optimism. “I truly feel that this is going to be the best 10 years coming up,” he said. “It will be a period where if you’re trying to grow and you make some changes, you’re going to grow ... If you broaden your ho-rizons and change the mental model — what business you think you’re in to ‘you’re in the information-sharing business’ — there is huge growth opportunity.” n

— Brent Hoskins

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Clockwise from top: Rohan Santora (left) of Agent Dealer visits with Mark Javitch (center) of Elevated Printech, Omaha, Nebraska, and Walt Buyea of Advanced Business Solutions Inc., Lub-bock, Texas, during a break; Marusic presents the featured educational ses-sion; and Brian Suerth (left) of Technol-ogy Assurance Group visits with Jeriel Farias of International Copy Machine Center, El Paso, Texas, during a break.

Clockwise from top left: Goldberg; Coco; McLevish; Hecht; Brause; and Foxall.