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By Stuart Myles

 
As the Chairman of the International Press Communications Council (IPTC), I believe there are hundreds of reasons to attend IPTC’s Autumn 2016 Meeting, 24 – 26 October in Berlin, but let’s focus on just five for now. Our meetings are attended by professionals from the news industry, including media companies, image companies, libraries, digital asset management firms, and more. Photo Metadata is IPTC’s most widely adopted standard, and in Berlin we will be introducing recommendations for video, which we hope will one day be as fundamental.
 
1.) Experience Video Day!
Be there LIVE for the launch of IPTC’s Video Metadata Hub Recommendation. Speakers from video makers, publishers and standards organisations will talk about how video workflows can be improved using the Video Recommendation. They will discuss how storing and exchanging metadata in a standard and consistent way can be done while supporting different technical video file formats.
 
2.) Meet like-minded professionals from all over the globe.
Grow your network – internationally. The IPTC is the global standards body of the news media and provides the technical foundation for the news ecosytem. Our consortium of news agencies and system vendors develop and publish technical specifications to promote the easy, accurate and inexpensive sharing of news and information. Learn from the experience of the leading professionals who constitute the IPTC – who are often facing the same challenges you are.
 
3.) Consider becoming an IPTC member: Influence and contribute to updates to standards.
IPTC membership is an opportunity to be a part of a prestigious and prominent organization. It makes a statement about your business – that it is one of the news industry leaders and is committed to the effective exchange of information. IPTC allows members to request research and development in areas of specific interest to their business activities. Participation in working groups means the ability to request changes or make contributions to the development of standards.
 
4.) Discover existing products and software built from IPTC standards.
There is often no need to re-invent the wheel. Several system vendors attend our meetings and demonstrate IPTC-supported publishing tools, as well as case studies of implementation at media organizations, libraries, and other industries. Companies find that attending these presentations helps clarify what type of program may best fit their organization’s needs.
 
5.) Learn more about the EXTRA project.
Funded by a grant from the Google Digital News Initiative, IPTC is building an open-source rules-based classification Engine, dubbed “EXTRA.” Learn why rules outperform statistical approaches to news classification and how you can participate in this exciting new initiative.

More information: Attend IPTC’s Autumn 2016 meeting, IPTC.org.
Questions? Feel free to contact me or IPTC Managing Director Michael Steidl.
Twitter: @IPTC

LinkedIn: IPTC