Ten Years After: CIP4 and the Creation of JDF

In those four long years there were a few significant challenges for CIP4 to overcome. First, for JDF to become successful, a significant number of vendors would have to support it, in terms of the practicality of printers integrating systems from different vendors on their shop floor. This meant that CIP4 had to learn to actively promote JDF, not a customary activity for a standards organization. "Many of the early CIP4 officers and Advisory Board Members, such as John Sweeney, then of GMI, spent a lot of time talking to peers and the trade press," said Martin Bailey CTO of Global Graphics Software and CIP4's first CEO. "Ultimately we were successful in that the organization grew rapidly, but public relations were quickly becoming a full-time job." By 2004, CIP4 had 200 members, and had hired Jim Harvey to serve as Executive Director of the organization, taking pressure off of the volunteer leadership. CIP4 members began talking at industry events about JDF almost from the start, but printers understood very little about it other than the term.