Dustin talks with Andrew Boyd about his philosophy behind adding fixed assets and managing expansion as a decently-sized label and packaging company that experienced huge demand spikes during the pandemic. He also talks about utilizing automation in the backend process and how it is necessary to offset scale and keep cost controls.

Dustin chats with Tyler Thompson, Global Solutions Manager at Tilia Labs, about AI’s current place in the digital packaging landscape. They discuss why packaging risks losing the next generation of talent, why there’s too much human error in digital workflows right now, and whether AI is too soon for the packaging industry.

Dustin talks with Justin Stacey, VP of eCommece Solutions at Fantastapack, about the journey of incubating the future of their analog company, Box Maker, through their eCommerce effort at Fantastapack. Justin gives tons of great insight into scaling with technology, inflection points that drove the decision to go digital, what the journey looks like, and the big traps to avoid.

Dustin, Sean, and the DPD Live audience discuss Label Expo’s first show in 4 years and how the landscape of packaging has changed since. They talk about technological advancements, digital transformation, and the strong message being sent by the print hardware space at the show.

Dustin chats with Goldleaf / DMS Color CEO Matthew Greer about his company’s journey to digital packaging, their foray into packaging for the cannabis industry, and how they measure and showcase their sustainability impact for both them and their individual customers.

Dustin, Sean, and the DPD Live audience discuss the huge shift of the workforce moving from being run by Native Analogs to increasingly being run by Native Digitals. The touch of some fo the CPG brands that have been Native Digital, how they think and act and what that will mean in other packaging good industries, and the role of the salesperson as Native Digitals take an even larger role in the packaging economy.

Dustin talks about how packaging companies are setting their sales departments up for failure by asking them to bring in new business and be account managers. He then discusses different approaches to making these functions work and complement one another and how to approach this today if your sales team is feeling burnout from having to be both a Hunter and a Farmer.

The DPD Live crew has a lively discussion with the audience about the factors that are and will drive digital adoption. They talk about digital’s ability to meet sustainability, what is vs. what should be driving digital adoption, the biggest threats out there for packaging and why packaging execs are missing it, and what the history of the barcode suggests about digital’s ramp into the broader packaging marketplace.

Dustin talks with George Perreira, VP of Business Development at Whitebird, and their transformation to digital packaging. George discusses the way buyers changed, how that impacted their thinking, why he thinks others should start with the front-end experience before the press, how design proofs have changed with digital, and how the sales function is going to forever be different in a digital-first packaging world.

Dustin and Sean kick DPD Live back off by discussing the bottom-up market of packaging. They talk with the audience about how packaging is still operating a decade behind the times, how the subscription economy and onshoring are changing packaging, why converters aren’t adopting digital as fast as they should, and why commercial printers are a real threat to converters still standing on the digital sidelines.