Meeting Summary: InDesign User Group Meeting

Tue, May 18th, 2010 at 7:00 PM

Minneapolis College of Art & Design (MCAD)

Event Details

The evening of May 18th was a beautiful Minnesota spring evening...one of the nicest we've had. In spite of the perfect weather, 165 eager InDesign users packed the large auditorium at MCAD to learn more about InDesign CS5.

First off, I have to apologize. For some reason, MCAD wasn't expecting us! So I had to do a mad scramble at the last minute to locate all the AV cables, remotes, microphones, etc. and figure out how to hook it all up. Many thanks to Ed Klemz and James Wamser for the help with this. At any rate, we got it all working and started only 10 minutes late, so I'm thankful for that. I'm really disappointed though because I didn't get a chance to meet and greet attendees beforehand. That's usually a highlight of the evening for me!

Once the meeting got underway, myself (Keith Gilbert, Gilbert Consulting) and James Wamser from Sells Printing "tag teamed" to explain many of the new features, big and small, of InDesign CS5. We had a lot of fun doing the presentation, because there are so many great new improvements and features in CS5 that are a blast to show people. When James showed the new Split Columns feature, there was a huge collective gasp from the audience. I thought they were going to stampede on the spot! James and I showed mostly general design and printing-related features, and only had time to touch on the new Interactive capabilities of InDesign very briefly. We received many, many comments on the survey forms at the end asking for a meeting where we go more into the interactive features in more depth. So I'll try to work that into the next meeting.

As usual, the evening ended with an amazing pile of givaways from Central Coast Solutions, Adobe, InDesign Magazine and Sells Printing. We gave away USB hubs, notebook sleeves, iTunes gift cards, keyboard shortcut posters, magazine subscriptions, tshirts, and one lucky winner walked away with the grand prize, a copy of Creative Suite 5 Design Premium!

Kate Mulinix organized an "AfterHours MeetUp" for after the User Group meeting. People met at Jasmine 26 for a variety of conversations, some about work, some about InDesign, and some about things completely unrelated to either of those. Contact Kate at katiemulinix@gmail.com if you're interested in joining future InDesign-related MeetUps.

Thank you

A big thank you for James Wamser for coming all the way from Milwaukee to co-present at the meeting, and for Sells Printing for sending him. Thank you to Ed Klemz at Central Coast Solutions for underwriting the facility cost and for the great giveaways.

Comments from attendees

This was extremely beneficial! I love CS5! MiniBridge is great, and I'm very excited to able to tell text to split or span across columns! YAY!

Amazing! So much useful stuff!

Tonight's meeting was very helpful for CS5, but also for CS4...Thanks for the great work.

I can hardly wait to get my hands on CS5!

Sweet!

Well worth my time. Thank you.

Excellent presentation! Can't wait to get CS5. So many features I will use immediately. Thank you for the great demos!

As always, I learned things I can use right away to improve work flow.

Presenters were very knowledgeable. I certainly soaked up a lot of info, and I'm excited to learn CS5!

Great to preview CS5 with you guys. Loved the Keith & James show--makes this info packed session lively with a touch of humor...Thank you guys!!

Awesome. Want it (CS5). You've made me a new feature junkie. Can't wait to play with the interactive features...so much less scary than Flash.

Great presentation format! The back and forth between James and Keith made the evening flow efficiently--you got so much information across in just this hour and a half! Very well-prepared, well-delivered presentation that I learned lots from. Thanks!

Fabulous guys! You make a good tag team. As always at this user group meeting, I come out with a lot more USEFUL info to use every day at work! Thank you!

Very excited for CS5!

This was the fourth CS5 demo I've seen, and this is the first useful one! Thank you!

Great presentation! Great tips! Loved James as guest speaker--his experience in the printing industry gave a lot of added value! Thank you.

This has been the best meeting I've been to! I learned tons of new features to use in my everyday workflow.

Excellent topic--and timely! Worth coming inside on a sunny spring evening.