APSU sessions focus on Y2K as worries over Atex recede

PALM SPRINGS, Calif. -- It was probably 110 in the shade, and the living was easy at the annual meeting of the Association of Publishing Systems Users held here Sept. 12-16.

Despite the distractions offered by desert hikes and myriad golf courses greening up the Palm Springs landscape, most of the two-hour sessions had few empty chairs. This may be because breakout session topics were geared toward some of the very concrete issues users face back at their newspapers.

John Pereira, newsroom systems editor at the Contra Costa Times of Walnut Creek, Calif., thought his was time well spent. "It helps to know what other people are doing that we aren't -- particularly if other sites take those things for granted," Pereira said. "I brought home a couple examples of that."

Sixty-three newspaper publishing systems users, nearly one-third of them first-time attendees, registered for the combination of business meetings, special interest groups and breakout sessions geared toward increasing both practical and planning skills.

"APSU and its predecessor, Anug, helped me get where I am today by providing a helping hand through the trials and tribulations that face a publishing systems manager," said Mark Siple, publishing systems engineer at the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, who also manages the group's list server. "It is my sincere wish that the organization will continue to help the new managers who are coming up in the industry."

APSU, which started life as the Atex Newspaper Users Group 25-plus years ago, reorganized three years ago under the new moniker in order to include newspaper users of various other systems that have become almost symbiotically entwined with the original Atex product. The change was a welcome one.

"I think the group needs to refocus," said Pereira. "The focus can be wider (bring in more vendors on a more equal basis with Atex) or it can be narrower (tighter focus on special interest groups such as DewarView and Atex Enterprise). Or it can do both."

But, he suggested, "I don't think the half-in, half-out, mostly-Atex approach works anymore. Many of us use third-party vendors and our business with Atex, while it is our most important vendor, is limited to certain pieces of our systems."

The structure of the four-day meetings nonetheless continues to reflect an Atex influence (the company now is Atex Media Solutions Inc. of Bedford, Mass.). On Sunday, Atex sponsored a "meet-the-users" session (closed to the press) as well as inviting attendees (including press) to a generous reception at Palm Springs' St. James Cafe.

At the closed session, attendees were "encouraged" to submit their questions in advance to the 19 Atex representatives, including CEO Larry Mihalchik and Richard Simpson Jr., the new senior vice president for North American sales and operations. (One question: "Why did you want questions in advance this year?")

Users who attended the closed-door meeting said Atex executives were told of users' concerns about Y2K upgrades, new installs, support, the future of DewarView (it's not going away), whither Edpage (it will exist in a significantly different incarnation) and the relevance of small customers (of course they're important).

The questions were more interesting than most of the answers, according to reports from users. However, when users questioned Atex's economic viability, they were pleased with both the news and the straightforwardness with which it was delivered. Long-time Atex user Bruce Adomeit, news technology coordinator at the Star Tribune in Minneapolis, was reassured by the financial report.

"There's no question now about whether Atex will be around next year," Adomeit said. "Newspapers are spending dollars, which translates to R&D funds for vendors -- and new products for customers. It's a non-vicious circle."

While the overall function of a systems users group is to address common needs, the varied backgrounds of the users at this meeting led to the implementation of special interest groups to address their diverse needs. They focused on suppliers (Autologic Information International, Cascade Systems, Edgil Associates, SoftAd, Unisys) or Atex products (Enterprise, DewarView, Press2Go, Edpage, ClassPag).

Adomeit said he believed the same good fiscal news presented by Atex is shared by the other suppliers at the conference, including Monotype Systems Inc. of Rolling Meadows, Ill., Harris Publishing Systems Corp. of Melbourne Fla., and FutureTense of Acton, Mass.

While a shared demo room was provided (at supplier cost), suppliers had to compete with special interest groups or breakouts for demo time -- which led to an occasional hallway grumble from exhibitors who felt they got less than their fair share of attention.

Jan. 1, 2000, is coming
Tick, tick, tick.

It was not just the future of the suppliers that provided fodder for conference sessions -- fewer than 500 days remain before the world finds out exactly what the Year 2000 has in store for virtually every one of the billions of computers ever made.

So scheduling a day's worth of Y2K breakout sessions was well-timed, to say the least. The sessions addressed Y2K issues through case studies, a roundtable on Y2K preparation (as related to suppliers, wire, advertisers and consultants) and developing a plan to test systems for Y2K compliance.

Generically, of course, citizens have been warned to prepare for Y2K in ways similar to the advice on earthquake preparedness found in any California phone book: Keep a six-week supply of cash, water and groceries on hand, and anticipate that power will be off so have plenty of blankets on hand.

And of course, there's the more Y2K-specific advice -- avoid flying or elective surgery come 1/1/2000. (Even the U.S. government is printing billions of additional dollar bills -- roughly a 20 percent increase.)

The consequences of clicking over to a new millennium are far-reaching, with a separate set of concerns for every domain. Breakout attendees, most of whose newspapers are already deeply engaged in Y2K projects, had no shortage of problems, advice and warnings to share: