I recently attended the Canon Solutions America PPS Leadership Forum at its Poing factory on March 18^th & 19^th and took the opportunity to catch up with the Océ team.

Canon Solutions America, formerly Océ, frequently hosts customers, and prospects at its newly redesigned Customer Engagement Center (CEC), an entire hall in its manufacturing complex. The user friendly CEC environment included a coffee bar, tables for small group discussions, a lounge area, meeting rooms, information & hospitality desk, as well as a floor map to aid visitors in finding solutions of interest. The CEC was thoughtfully arranged and included the newest product announcements from Canon Solutions America, the Océ JetStream 5500 and Océ ColorStream 3900s with fast MICR and invisible ink.  .

The agenda included a flexible schedule with industry tracks led by industry analysts & experts. Océ clients and prospects were allowed to select the most appropriate sessions and have deep interactions with both Océ staff and presenters.

Here are a few important take-aways from my visit:

• Canon integration appears complete. Canon’s integration of Océ production printing, especially for North America appears to be successful and complete. I dined with Toyotsugu “Toyo” Kuwamura, president of Canon Solutions America, and he outlined his vision for the future Océ. His plans of continued investment and pursuit of new markets with the combined Canon/Océ solutions will extend the reach of both organizations into new markets.

• Migration to Color Inkjet successful. From virtually zero market share in 2008 in the inkjet market, to the identified market share leader (>35%) in both placements and images, Océ has successfully reinvented its product line to stay ahead of the market demand.

• Continued technology advancements. Canon Solutions America is not content to rest on past successes, and is extending its Océ ColorStream & Océ JetStream product lines to support additional applications. The introduction of new security inks, including MICR, Fugitive and Invisible, extends the toolset for secure document creation already available from Canon Solutions America.

While not new, but still visually impressive, are the clean lines and paper path of the Océ ColorStream 3000 series. During our demonstration, the front doors were left open, and the speed, image quality, and simplicity of the device was readily apparent. An Océ ColorStream prospect present noted “it’s no wonder these are the leading placement devices in its class”. Here is a photo of the inside:

Note the new, refined and slimmer drying unit. By using less water, there is less liquid to evaporate, and therefore no need for industrial strength drying units, and their power consumption and heat byproduct. In fact, Canon Solutions America reports that the Océ ColorStream 3000 series uses up to 1/3 the power consumption of alternative inkjet solutions.

The March 1^st issue of In-Plant Graphics had an article titled “Inkjet Summit’s Unique Format is a Win-Win.  The article talks about the upcoming invitation-only three day event for  ” for senior managers and business executives who want to understand how current and future inkjet technology trends, software, consumables and finishing solutions are and will impact their businesses and help them shape their visions and strategies for the future.”

Each of the past two Drupa events, in 2012 and 2008, was dubbed the “Inkjet Drupa” by many experts. Inkjet installations are increasing and projected to increase rapidly through 2016, driven by the conversion to digital print, growth in color applications, and system flexibility.  In November 12, 2012, David Zwang stated, “It is estimated that there were 46.1 billion color digital pages printed in 2010, and that number will jump to nearly 130 billion by 2015. While this estimate is comprised of all digital print pages, more importantly than the market share growth is the fact that the value of that digital print has jumped sharply, bringing better returns to the global print market.”  With all this hype, print business leaders have been considering the options and need for Inkjet Color printing, and considering migrating from their offset print or black and white digital.  They have been seeking answers.

What is of great interest at the Inkjet Summit is the potential for these senior operations and business leaders to get up close and personal with a number of the leading suppliers at one time.  Unlike Graph Expo and Drupa, the seriously interested leaders will have full access to leading suppliers in a small group environment.  In addition, unlike a one-on-one interaction with a single supplier in a typical sales meeting, the representatives from the user side and the service and equipment providers will be able to meet and compare all at one time.

The attendees will also have access to and hear reports from key independent industry leaders and experts who will be facilitating the event.  Finally, if they dare, the attendees will be able to meet and collaborate with their peers.  Yes, collaborate with their peers!  I hope this happens, because after all our real competition is those who would move everyone away from print to other communication media.

I would appreciate hearing from anyone who is attending this event when it is over, as I truly believe the organizers have a formula which should help print not just survive but thrive in this highly competitive time.
 

The Inkjet Summit 2013 event will be held April 9-11 at the exclusive Ponte Vedra Inn & Club in Ponte Vedra Beach, FL and is organized by Printing Impressions, the leading trade publication serving commercial printers, and nGage Events, the leading producer of specialized hosted model events.  The Inkjet Summit is an invitation-only, hosted event designed for senior managers and business executives who want to understand how current and future inkjet technology trends, software, consumables and finishing solutions are and will impact their businesses and help them shape their visions and strategies for the future.

“Our goal is to bring together suppliers of inkjet solutions with qualified attendees who are serious about investing in these solutions, into an environment facilitated by experts,” commented David Pesko, senior vice president at nGage Events. “Attendees will learn from experts, suppliers, and most importantly their peers on how to approach inkjet and how to be successful. Our event format accomplishes this and it shows in the attendees confirmed thus far and the overwhelming requests we receive daily.  This event is truly a win-win for sponsors and attendees.”

As the interest in inkjet printing continues to grow, print providers and corporate enterprises are seeking guidance from industry experts, peers and market leaders to help them develop sound business strategies, understand their technology options, and make major investment decisions concerning inkjet printing capabilities.  Vendors are also looking for ways to better identify and develop more intimate relationships with those buyers specifically interested in inkjet solutions.  Inkjet Summit’s unique format provides sponsors with Boardroom and 1:1 meetings with executives intimately involved with strategy, purchasing authority and buying intentions.

“Canon Solutions America is pleased to sponsor the Inkjet Summit. The format enables us to meet 1:1 with qualified decision makers who are serious about inkjet solutions,” stated Francis McMahon, vice president marketing, Canon Solutions America, and Production Printing Solutions. “With Océ inkjet production printing solutions making up approximately 32 percent of the worldwide inkjet market, our customers know they can count on us to partner with them for success.  This event gives us the opportunity to discuss and understand specific customer issues and work with them to ensure they have the right capital investment strategy and solutions needed to profitably produce books, magazines, direct mail, transaction, and transpromo.”

“Inkjet technology is a disruptive technology that will touch everyone’s life in the future,” relays George Promis, vice president, Continuous Forms Production Solutions and Technology Alliances, Ricoh. “Bringing industry integrators, developers and businesses face to face is important to exploit and help direct its future. Ricoh is proud to participate in the inaugural summit.  It’s a unique opportunity to build and strengthen relationships with a diverse group of output solution businesses and share our view on what the future holds for inkjet and its ecosystem.”

Last week, Canon hosted a cross-section of prominent companies from the graphic arts, book, direct mail and transaction printing segments in Munich Germany. I was pleased to be invited, along with other expert presenters from Gartner, InfoTrends, InterQuest, IT Strategies, Madison Advisors and NAPL. The  Leadership  Forum was held at Canon’s impressive 14,000 square foot Customer Experience Center where several cutsheet toner presses and a huge array of high-volume, continuous feed inkjet presses were configured as custom application demonstrations. I had ample opportunity to network with attendees and learn what was driving them to update their technology. While not specifically an inkjet event, the majority of attendees at the Leadership Forum were evaluating the transition to inkjet or expanding on an existing inkjet implementation. The top three reasons cited:

• Speed/Time to market requirements;
• Full-color, white paper efficiencies;
• Plans to enter new markets.

My charter was to prepare a wrap-up session on “Preparing Your Business for Inkjet ” along with two customers; Bob Radzis of SG360 (a direct mailer) and Mike McCombs of RevSpring (a transaction printer.) These two gentlemen shared their successes with transitioning to inkjet along with candid feedback on the challenges they faced as early adopters. Dialogue with attendees focused on perceived challenges with inkjet adoption but, there were very few actual barriers cited. Some key take-aways were:

• Inkjet has clearly reached a tipping point among high-volume printers of variable applications;
• Quality is no longer perceived as a barrier to adoption;
• Customers were encouraged by the increasing variety and availability of inkjet papers and seemed confident that the trend would continue;
• Customer seemed to recognize that the right workflow solution was as critical as selecting the right press but were less aware of the critical tradeoffs between paper selection and ink usage;
• The major remaining obstacle to inkjet adoption is production volume. Mid-volume companies often can’t generate the business case for inkjet.

While this was a working trip for me, it was also an opportunity to attend great sessions covering the social, economic and technical factors that are changing the print industry in general, as well as, drill-down sessions on key drivers of change in book printing, direct mail and transaction printing specifically. Whether you are a print provider or a consultant there is constantly more to learn in our industry and the Canon Leadership Forum did a great job of blending business, technical and market related content with product demonstrations and networking opportunities. If you ever have the opportunity to visit Canon’s CEC, or attend a future Leadership Forum I highly recommend the trip.

Elizabeth Gooding is the President of Gooding Communications Group and editor of the Insight Forums blog. She writes and speaks and provides training on trends and opportunities for business communications professionals within regulated vertical industries.

Graph Expo 2012 has officially begun. Months of preparation on the part of exhibitors has paid off to create a lively and stimulating environment. I’m always amazed at how exhibitors transform an enormous hall into a series of inviting showcases. As usual, exhibitors compete with each other to drive traffic to their booths.

Stages are big this year. I remember two years ago when Xerox had the biggest stage. But this year, Océ /Canon and HP clearly take the prize. HP has an impressive stage set up that delivers engaging sales pitches on steroids. But if you are looking for a more enlightening experience, be sure to stop by the Canon Live Theater where Canon and Océ partnered with WhatTheyThink to host informative sessions throughout the show. Topics will include: Affordable Sustainability, Supply Chain Optimization, the Changing Face of Publishing, and What to look for in a business partner. I caught today’s first session on Digital Packaging Trends which featured a real customer speaking about his operations and how digital printing and print-on-demand allowed him to keep up with industry change and manage his printed inventories better. The list of live sessions can be found here including a link to watch everything streaming live. Xerox does have a new idea this year – improv session. I’ll have to check one out Monday. As I walked around the show floor more, I noticed numerous other presentations and mini-stages set up… so it certainly is a popular way to reach show attendees!

Like every other year, posters are also quite popular this year, as evidenced by the crowds of people walking around with poster bags. The leading poster providers seem to be Komori, KBA, and Scodix. Gunther smartly realized that so many people walk around carrying their loot and decided to brand wheeling storage units that people can cart with them. Free stuff galore!

Judging from Day 1, there are a few hot topics this year that numerous exhibitors are demonstrating their capabilities in. Inkjet Printing is big this year and is being covered by live sessions on both the Océ/Canon stage and on the HP stage. Automation and software seem to also be a popular topics as print providers today are striving for more streamlined end-to-end solutions. We’re talking automation at the beginning (with feeders) and automation at the end (like envelope inserting). Print-on-demand is yet another key topic. In-RoomPlus described today in the Digital Packaging Trends session at Canon Live Theater how they are able to quickly reprint catalogs as their prices change and how they can print small batches of product mock-ups to use as aids with customers during the sales process. Print-on-demand is so big now in the publishing world that Océ will help launch Daydream Alchemy Press – a publisher inspired by bringing projects to life using today’s print technologies – during Graph Expo.

All in all, there is a lot to see and do at Graph Expo 2012. It will surely be a busy, yet exciting, few days!

Back in March, we posted about drupa 2012 deaming it the “Inkjet drupa” based on predictions leading up to the event. We mentioned that there would be a recap webinar which you can view below. In this webinar, join Cary Sherburne of WhatTheyThink and Kris Albee of Océ as they review and analyze the key product and technology announcements from drupa 2012.

So was our nick-name accurate? What other drupa announcements are sure to rock the Printing World? You can find out by watching the webinar below – Enjoy!

I just heard some very strange news. A U.S. division of Toshiba has announced October 23 as “National No Print Day” and is asking companies not to print anything — yes, anything — on that day.

I’m sorry. Did I miss something? Doesn’t Toshiba manufacture print production machines?

This would almost be comical if Toshiba weren’t embarking upon a national ad campaign to promote the idea. The Dead Tree Edition did a really nice job of dissecting the inaccuracies and greenwashing in the campaign (see its post here). But unfortunately, far more people will see the national Toshiba ads than will read that post.

Such initiatives continue to feed the misperception that harvesting trees is bad for the planet. The impact is more far-reaching than just Toshiba. The inaccuracies of such a campaign impact an entire industry.

Here are my favorite three responses posted by the blog site:

• Paper is made mostly from renewable resources and has a high recycling rate. Ink and toner cartridges, including those with the Toshiba brand, are made mostly from non-renewable resources and are not often recycled. Have you considered that much of printing’s impact on our planet has nothing to do with paper usage?
• Toshiba makes a variety of electronic products. Are you planning to celebrate a No-Toxic-Materials-in-Laptops Day?
• Why the [$#*&!] did Toshiba just exhibit at Drupa, the world’s largest trade fair for printers, if one of its divisions was going to turn around and publicly trash the entire printing industry?

The Dead Tree Edition certainly has its response ready. How about you? What will you tell your customers if you catch them considering the possibility of buying into this ridiculous idea?

You’ve got four months to think about it.

The last drupa international print fair and the upcoming one have both been characterized as the “inkjet drupa.” This seems appropriate especially given how inkjet technology has steadily advanced and become buzz-worthy in recent years. This year, high-speed inkjet manufacturers will be out in full force to display their newest and greatest inkjet solutions at drupa 2012.

Pat Henry of WhatTheyThink recently spoke with Roland Stasiczek, Director of Marketing, Continuous Feed Printers, Océ Printing Systems to discuss the Océ briefing presented in Munich. Roland also previews what to expect from Océ at drupa 2012 including the newest addition of the ColorStream 3700 inkjet press.

Sticking with the inkjet trend, Océ predicts that digital printing will account for %14 of global printing revenues by 2014. Roland sites three main factors driving this growth including:

1. Increasing media fragmentation.
2. Information supply and demand which drives on-demand printing.
3. Increase of personalized and targeted communications.

For more detail, check out the interview video.

With the growing trend of printer’s desire to have “one-stop-shop” printing systems, one wonders if we will also see an increase in finishing solutions and options at this year’s drupa. It seems logical given the shift to providing complete and customizable end-to-end solutions. Printers are looking for finishing systems that will fit seamlessly into their digital technology production lines that will further automate the printing process.

So what will we see at drupa 2012??? Stay tuned for a post-conference recap webinar coming in June 2012!

The Document Strategy Forum just celebrated its fourth birthday last week. This event is unique for its focus and its size. The focus on transactional documents brings together an audience with a common need: how to keep up with all the changes in regulation, technology, and customer demands surrounding transactional communication, which is at the center of every business’ interaction with its customers. The organizers stay tuned in to what is of interest to their audience, with an example being this year’s addition of both a track and an exhibit floor pavilion for SharePoint. The narrower scope and smaller venue, as compared to the mega-events such as Graph Expo or On Demand, leads to superior interaction opportunities for both attendees and the solution providers.

The focus and size in no way limit the value and learning opportunity provided. There are six tracks and over forty-five sessions dedicated to providing information and insight. The best part of the sessions provided is that they often lead to very interactive discussions amongst the speaker and the attendees, leading to a sharing of perspectives across different functions and industries. I attended a session on Managed Print Services where I was reminded that when speaking about anything with documents, it is a good idea to set the stage by explaining whether you are referring to internal business documents, business-to-business documents, or business-to-customer documents.

The opening keynote presentation by Forrester Research, “The State of the Document Processing Services Industry 2011”, provided great background and thought provoking information for the rest of the conference. The presentation states it is time to change our process approach. We think we’ve got it all under control and we do to a certain point, but firms still struggle to manage untamed business processes: customer onboarding, claims processing and invoicing process. “1998 – 2009 marks a lost decade consumed with packaged apps and leaving enterprises stuck in cement, unable to rapidly change, compete and innovate. 48% will invest in collaborative technology to improve app performance.

Another part of the Forrester presentation described Customer Communication categories and primary applications. They defined the categories as: structured, interactive and on-demand. Key industry concerns include: enterprises trying to get rid of a big headache – aging structured output systems, the ability to quickly comply with new regulations; rapid movement to on-demand and interactive transactions and archaic fulfillment process.

Another unique take away I got from this year’s event was to remember that when talking about “multi-channel”, (and who isn’t?), we need to not only think about the broad variety of output channels with print, email, web-hosted, social media, mobile, etc., but we also need to focus on the breadth of the input information channels from multiple administrative, transactional, marketing, and yes, even customer response sources. As a process-focused individual, this suddenly seemed obvious; you need to look at the inputs, tasks, and outputs in any process to be effective, I do not think I have experienced any other time which highlighted the input side.

I believe that the focus provides superior interaction and networking opportunities. The attendees are mostly high level individuals with 45% of them holding C-level or Director/Department Head Positions. 28% of the companies represented generate 3+ million outbound transactional documents per month (and 13% of those are generating 10+ million per month). I personally have met and established ongoing relationships with many key contacts through participating over the past four years.

This event may be one of the best kept secrets in the industry, and I am looking forward to what the show organizers will do to keep improving for their 5th anniversary event in 2012.

For more information on transactional document solutions, visit Océ Production Printing – Transactional Resources.

Recently, I had the chance to spend some time at the DMA 2011 conference in Boston. While I absolutely enjoyed my time at Graph Expo, I was excited to attend a show that primarily consisted of marketing agencies and in-house marketers. I was looking forward to seeing what topics were trending, what challenges were being hotly discussed, and what technologies and channels were being debated.

It’s certainly very important for all of us that are associated to the printing industry to understand what marketers are thinking and talking about. Thus, I’d like to share some of my observations from DMA 2011. I hope that you find them helpful!

1. Marketers are absolutely in need of integrated solutions:

One theme that seemed to exist in many of the conference sessions was the need to break down silos and to integrate marketing efforts. As more and more marketers move to reach their customers and prospects through multiple channels, many of them have fallen into the trouble of storing and managing multiple databases. Those databases might store conflicting or simply varying bits of information about their contacts. This harms a marketer’s need to try to communicate with their audience in real-time. It also prevents a marketer from truly delivering one-to-one and relevant messages.

Thus, service providers (especially those that are committed to offering marketing services through multiple channels as opposed to only print, mail, or fulfillment) have a tremendous opportunity to promote and offer solutions of that nature to their customers to help them solve those challenges.

2. The Primary Discussion was Digital — But Print Still Has a Place in the Marketing Mix!:

I won’t lie – many of the discussions at DMA 2011 centered around online marketing and other digital marketing initiatives. But there were still a number of great case studies shared that involved print and direct mail components. Some of the main reasons why I heard marketers share why they still chose print as a channel included:

• It is tangible.
• It can be personalized.
• It can create a deeper emotional impact.
• It can be a very effective way to drive people to online content.

3. When it comes to social networks, businesses have a lot to learn:

Judging by the attendance of various sessions, many companies are still striving to learn how to effectively use social networks in the B-to-B space. Here were a few of the tips that I heard that I’d like to share:

• Twitter’s search features can be one of the most powerful websites for companies to utilize. It enables us to really listen to what’s on the minds of customers and prospects.
• Facebook’s dominance in the social networking space is truly astounding — thus, we most likely all need to invest more resources there. They have 800 million users! Nearly half of them log in each day.  30 billion pieces of content are shared there each month! Those numbers clearly dwarf the activity that other social networks can share. With that much volume, it’s certain that some of the content being shared and discussed has to do with companies and products. In order to capitalize on the opportunities there, business of all shapes and sizes must be on Facebook too.
• People love video. It’s true. Video is being used more and more by marketing agencies and other companies to tell their stories. I truly think that many service providers can utilize video to do the same thing

4. Mobile and QR Codes Were Huge… and Growing:

There were a ton of QR Codes at the conference. They were on posters, signs, collateral, and clothes. While that is a good sign to me when it comes to printing, I also noticed that most of the QR Codes were not used 100% properly.

• Primarily, most of them seemed to point to non-mobile websites. I truly think that there is a tremendous opportunity for service providers to grow their business by doing more than just providing or printing the QR Code; but rather, to also offer the building and hosting of the mobile website or mobile landing page.

In February Iwrote about my confusion on the re-branding of the On Demand Conference to Publishing Exchange.  I attended the On Demand Expo and the Publishing Exchange Conference and my confusion continued. Like the many other comments which have been written about the event,  over all I am concerned and was disappointed.  Some other comments regarding the event were:

 “I think the lack of turnout was because prospective attendees could not figure out who the target audience was for this content”- Chuck Gehman; “  

 “The challenge for On Demand is that it must keep the print providers (and vendors) and add the publishers and new media types” – Charles Corr.

On the one hand there were some excellent sessions. On the other hand – there were  just not enough of them.  The print industry and digital print experts continue to talk about reinventing and finding ways to improve print but, the whole first day of the conference was pretty much dedicated to Publishing which in my opinion itself was being redefined. 

As a consultant I find all of this very interesting, however as a former print operations executive I long for the old days when I could hear from customers and supplier resources about what they needed and how I could meet their needs.  I question whether those providing equipment or involved in the print industry will spend their discretionary funds for conferences and expositions in the future.  Many have already started offering their own events for their customers and prospective customers.

What drives the choice to attend?  

Personally the amount of content I have to choose from is very important.  This year Publishing Exchange had less than 40 conference sessions while the co-located AIIM Info 360 had over 100 and Xplor over 60 plus 2 facility visits. I want to have clearly defined tracks and a good selection of sessions in each. I want the information to be useful in the near term, if we don’t pay attention to the near term performance and profitability we will not survive to the future. 

With so manyevents both in the spring and in the fall my question to you is how you choose which ones to attend? What are the most important factors for you and your company?  

I have already stated my bias for content, but more importantly if I am paying to attend an independently produced event, I expect the content to be balanced and independent not slanted to the sponsors. If interested in a specific supplier you would be better off in seeking out a service or equipment suppliers free educational offerings.  Interestingly, many of the former sponsors of these shows are now producing their own events and bringing in top notch, independent speakers. They may in fact be more concerned about not appearing biased at their own events than at those they pay to sponsor.

I am less concerned about the location, however the cost of transportation, hotels and food is important as these easily add up to more than the conference cost itself.  Is having more detailed information of the presentations in advance important to you and what about full copies of all session presentations being available after the conference?  Do we find more narrowly focused offerings or broad sweeping events more valuable? The conference organizers are struggling to keep pace with changing dynamics of our industry and making their organizations successful at the same time.  Telling producers more about what is important to us before the events rather than offering a critique after might be helpful.  Having a venue to do this across multiple venues as well as the possibility of a show guide comparing all of the options for different events would seem very beneficial to all parties.

If we want better events to attend we need to speak up on what we want and make sure to give credit when someone gets it right.

In the last couple of years, full color production digital printing has become a cost-effective reality for many applications. Many more marketing departments are considering adding color to transaction documents or making their color direct mail pieces more dynamic (rather than printing black over color shells). This led me to ask some of my colleagues at agencies, marketing services providers and plain old printers for their two cents.

I asked if they felt that it was critical to be able to offer clients exact Pantone or PMS color or if it was more important to be able to offer color consistency from run to run. I wondered if their marketing clients were asking for a standard that the recipients of the mail don’t care about. Within the context of delivering a full-color, white paper solution to customers, what are the “must haves” and what are the “nice to haves.”

After a lot of discussion and debate among some pretty knowledgeable industry professionals it boiled down to the following key points:

• Marketing departments have a lot invested in branding, and color is a key component of branding. With that said, any marketing department that chooses to deliver multi-channel campaigns is, by definition, making compromises on color. Color will not be consistent across email, web, mobile phones, various papers, signage etc. That is an important discussion to have, and can set the baseline for color consistency tolerance.
• Most recipients of mail have a much higher tolerance for variations in color than the business professionals sending them. If you were using a spectrophotometer and running a test in a lab, a color variation measured as a Delta e of 1.0 is generally considered to be barely perceptible to the human eye. Outside of the lab, a Delta e of 3.0 to 5.0 may go unnoticed by the average consumer.
• Setting expectations on color capabilities, educating marketers on variations in color across substrates (something they should know but often don’t) and agreeing on acceptable and MEASURABLE tolerances is critical to success. Don’t just let them tell you that they are looking for “luscious.” (Shout out to the Off Register folks.)More research on how consumers view color (real quantitative studies folks) would make it a lot easier to reach reasonable compromises with marketers. Sponsors wanted!
• If you have the ability to print CMYK plus 1, 2 or 3 Pantone colors, you should be able to charge more for it as long as you have the color management and color measurement tools in place to back up the promises.

At the end of the day, it is the design (information transfer not pretty pictures) and the content (information to be transferred) that should rule – not AT&T orange (probably not allowed to call it orange) or Coca-Cola red (they probably think they own the term “red”) or Luscious pink – but we all know that if we want the business, we need to be able to give the customer what they want.

 How much color is enough? How much do you want the business? How much is the client willing to pay?  So, ask them, agree on measurement for color tolerances and set prices accordingly. There needs to be a “pain and suffering” charge at certain levels of color management and client management. Enough is enough!

I’m going to be presenting a webinar on the business issues related to transitioning to color next Tuesday, March 1 at 2 pm EST. You can register here. I’ll be sharing some more thoughts on the myths and realities of moving to color and DST Output will also be sharing some of their “lessons learned” from transitioning to color. Let me know if there are some key points you’d like to hear about.

You can find a copy of the presentation at www.insightforums.com

Has anyone else been confused when trying to find the On Demand Conference? I have been a regular attendee for years and received the call for conference papers last year. When I hit the link to “Conference Info” and “Register for the Program” on the web site and ended up at Publishing Xchange I was sure I must have done something wrong. I went back to the home page and saw the separate information at the bottom of the page on Publishing Xchange and that it was now co-located with On Demand and Info 360. So I scrolled back up to the On Demand section and clicked on the highlighted phrase in the text, “new conference program”. I again ended up at the Publishing Xchange web page. After clicking around the site for awhile, FINALLY I found a link that said “Attend the Print-Centric Sessions Produced by WhatTheyThink”, and clicked through to . . . the Publishing Xchange Conference-At-A-Glance page.

The emphasis on publishing was not what I expected from On Demand; cross media communication, yes, but publishing? The Corporate sponsorship of the different tracks was also a surprise. In past On Demand conferences, the sessions provided opportunities to understand how technology, suppliers, and customers came together to solve Business Communication issues. I wondered what drove this to change from what seemed to be a very useful and well attended format. There was no communication beforehand that the title, format, just about everything had changed. Where do I go now to get information on postal issues like IMB, and on fulfillment or distribution or the many other business communications topics that On Demand was known for?

Finally after looking a couple more times and reading more of the marketing materials I concluded this was the only conference at the ON DEMAND Expo this year. Based on my positive past experience and a bit of curiosity I decided to go ahead and register for the Publishing Xchange Conference. We will have to wait until March to see if that was a smart thing to do. I am still struggling however with how Business Communications (Direct Marketing and Critical Customer Documents) are Publishing. It appears that service providers, suppliers and clients representing a broad spectrum of offerings are being driven together under Publishing, Why?

Have you seen the television show “V”, where lizard aliens look human until they are wounded and you can see the lizard underneath? It appears On Demand has suffered a similar fate. Someone put an On Demand shell over a publishing conference. What’s the message here? When they talk about business transformation and industry restructuring on the On Demand home page, do they mean all of us in Direct Marketing and Critical Customer Communications should throw in the towel and try Publishing? Is it “invasion of the conference snatchers?” Or maybe it’s a Borg plot and “resistance is futile.”

Have aliens taken over ON DEMAND? Should I be afraid?

I just returned from the PODi 2011 AppForum in Las Vegas.  It was a great event and my colleagues and I had an opportunity to meet with many of our customers in addition to many Print Service Providers (PSP’s) trying to find the “silver bullet” for new revenue growth. During my flight home I was thinking about the many attendees that regularly attend events like AppForum and get all fired up about exciting new opportunities for growth and then go back to their business and continue to do the same things, day in and day out.  By doing so they miss out on the success that others enjoy.

I thought about this and I identified a possible reason that Print Service Providers (PSPs) don’t “embrace change” and continue to use the same approach for their business.

I call it – The Fear Factor!

Let me explain.  During this year’s PODI AppForum there were many excellent presentations where PSPs demonstrated how they had embraced new solutions and were growing their business in many new, exciting areas of opportunity.  Several Print Service Providers (now Marketing Service Providers) introduced example after example where they had generated millions of new printed pages (higher value pages with new services) as a result of embracing change in their business and building new capabilities.

Was it easy – NO!  But is it possible – absolutely!

Why is it so difficult to embrace change?

Here’s a short list of PSP Fear Factors that have been shared with me over the years:

• The FEAR of failure
• The FEAR of change on their business
• The FEAR of change on their customer
• The FEAR of their competition
• The FEAR of change on their employees
• The FEAR of a new technology impact in their organization
• The FEAR of commitment to something new and the learning curve
• The FEAR of “can the sales team sell new offerings”
• The FEAR of any change on core offerings

Every one of these concerns is valid and worthy of further analysis.  Rather than viewing these concerns as threats what if we viewed them as opportunities? As executives continue to face the fear of the unknown they will just as quickly tell you that they are working hard for business improvement. The executives I have spoken with will typically tell you that they would like to achieve improvement in the following areas

• Grow top line revenue
• Secure new customer wins in new areas of opportunity
• Improve shop floor efficiencies
• Lower production costs
• Grow bottom-line profit
• Grow the business with new capabilities

If executives seek business improvement, but at the same time, fear the changes that drive it, what should they do?

Here’s a short list that might help answer that question.

• Identify market opportunities that complement your business capabilities
• Identify services that are an extension of your business
• Build capabilities that your customers are investing in
• Seek market opportunities that are generating significant growth
• Invest in the necessary resources for success
• Make the time to meet with others that have made the journey successfully – learn from them
• Identify partners that have the means to help you achieve success
• Do the research, embrace the change and develop a plan for success

There are just too many examples of new growth in our industry to not pay attention to how this is being accomplished and to learn from it!

In closing, there are a number of significant growth arenas available to every Print Service Provider in the industry.  The growing number of successful companies achieving business transformation is a reality!  Fear is good as a guide to what you need to plan for but not if it leads to paralysis.  Embrace the growth opportunities in front of you, learn from others and find the right partners for success!

I posted Fans and Foes of Fonts awhile back about the fanaticism and activism that is out there related to the use of fonts (seriously.) I recently saw a video on design:related promoting submissions for this year’s Type Directors Club competitions. This video talks about being a “type snob” and being darn proud of it!

I would just like to say to Matteo Bologna – with great mustache comes great responsibility. If he takes typography as seriously as his mustache, the man is very, very serious.

If you think you have typography worthy of submission – the deadline is next week. Finalists and winners may be included in the TDC Annual (#32) which is quite an honor. Are you a type snob?