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By Kevin Keane, IAPHC CEO Where has all the Knowledge Gone? "How is it NASA, if they were asked to send another man to the moon, how is it they cannot? The knowledge for a moon walk has quit and is now playing golf in Florida." Xerox Europe President Pierre Danon, in remarks made in Paris on 23 June to prospective Xerox customers seeking to grow in the digital age, International Gallery of Superb Printing Sets New Records! Well dear readers, YOU did it again! From London England, to Hong Kong; from Seoul, South Korea to Ghana, Africa, and all over North America, the entries poured in totalling more than 3,050 and setting all time records by every statistical measure to help make the 25th Anniversary Gallery the best ever. We thank you for your cooperation in not swatting the Gallery Gnat when he bugged you up until the last minute for one more entry. But it worked. Congratulations all around! And now a word from our judges: "I found it to be highly rewarding, and learned more about where my company stands in the pecking order of quality. I have used this to increase quality in my plant and better marketing of Ace Printing, which helped us increase sales by 12% last year." Dan Marantz, Ace Printing, North Jersey Club. "A great experience and a well run competition. Attracts top printing from all over...." Dr. Daniel Baker, Chief Executive Officer, Printware, Inc. "After finishing my first day of judging I am hoping to be back next year. It is a challenge but interesting to see work done that you have never seen before. The group we are working with is great and we are well taken care of. It is a great time!" John Peck, John Peck Graphic Services, Redwood Empire Club. "Wow! I would like to bring my graphic designers to judge with me next time. Very hard to judge, so many excellent pieces." Dale Beane, Insty-Prints, Member-at-large. "Have always looked forward to judging since my first International Gallery. It instills a great sense of pride in and for our industry." Jody Sorsen, Gannett Offset, Fort Wayne Club. "My fourth year as a judge was more fun, educational and rewarding than ever." Tom Conley, Diamond Graphics, Member-at-large. Whither the Web? Last week we mulled over the opinion of James Cramer founder of TheStreet.com who believes that US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan "gets it," in other words, Greenspan understands that the world wide web is the greatest anti-inflationary tool in history. Yet the venerable folks at The Economist believe the US "Goldilocks" economy is headed for a fall attended by increasing inflation unless Mr. Greenspan's board increases short term interest rates as seems likely. Cramer thinks that the phenomenon of being able to shop the web through e-commerce inventions like Priceline.com or the so-called automated "shopbots" is capable of turning almost any product or service into a commodity-like item where lowest price is the final buying criteria. Could it or is it happening to printing? On 14 June we received this press release: "To offer the most efficient response to secure immediate International physical document production and delivery requests, InstantDocuments.com has formed a strategic partnership with Snap Printing of Australia. Developed on the strength of its unique software, printing alliances and courier services alliances, InstantDocuments.com allows users to have professionally printed and bound documents delivered on the same day worldwide. Using InstantDocuments.com's unique browser based software, selections such as color and binding preference are made online, and a real time quote is displayed." InstantDocuments early signed a similar pact with the Sir Speedy chain which is itself affiliated with Snap Printing. On 23 June we received a copy of a story which ran on the Forbes magazine website about a Menlo Park, California based company called Collabria. "Essentially, Collabria offers 'Procurement for Dummies.' A Collabria client logs onto their own customized intranet site. He completes a short order form for, say, a letterhead template that is already sanctioned by his employer. Collabria immediately shoots him a soft proof via e-mail. Further edits flow back and forth until finalized. Then the system ships the approved order to the corporations printer of choice. During production, Collabria also offers expense reports, billing and other transactional information. Since it started in 1998, Collabria has attracted more than 100 clients, including the International Monetary Fund, Hitachi, E*Trade, Yahoo! and Infoseek. 'We see companies ordering everything from pencils and paper to computers on the Net. And doing the same with printing jobs makes a lot of sense.' says Bruce Temkin, research director for Forrester research. 'In many cases, procurement costs are surprisingly high and represent a very large opportunity for savings.' In fact, the University of San Francisco eliminated three full time staff positions in printing procurement after using Collabria. And a national chain, BT Office Products, won 3Com's $1.4 million account for all office supplies including printing." This story was originally posted at www.forbes.com/asap/html/99/0621/feat.htm On 24 June in the keynote address at PC Expo in New York City, Adobe Systems chairman and president Charles Geschke chimed in with remarks aimed at showing how the Internet is driving companies large and small to move core business processes, historically handled on paper, to more efficient electronic document solutions. The news item continued: "While paper is a fundamental and effective medium for consuming information, electronic documents offer businesses tremendous savings in areas where paper is extremely inefficient, such as archiving and searching for valuable information. Additionally, adding value to electronic documents such as easy collaboration and true interactivity for new e-business processes, puts ePaper solutions at the heart of conducting everyday business efficiently." On 25 June we had an illustrative chat with Rab Govil, president of the Print On Demand Initiative (PODi) based in Rochester, New York. He came to the printing industry with a background in computer science and while learning about our industry, visited with Fortune 500 firms to learn about the customer's view of our business. While each of us can relate stories of the ultra picky client wacking out on a 3:00 AM press check, Rab found a pervasive feeling that buying print isn't very enjoyable from the client's viewpoint. This is why the previous items about more efficient procurement should be carefully thought about by all in our industry. And finally, from the "real world, been there and am still doing it" perspective we found this interesting item from the rapidly growing consolidator Master Graphics. On 25 June Master Graphics, a publicly traded concern, said it was experiencing flat sales and business disruption associated with the development of its internet strategy. "The success and continued development of Master Central, our proprietary information clearinghouse between our divisions, is critical to our re-positioning Master Graphics into an integrated national corporation. We began development of our national sales force at the end of the first quarter and should begin to see the effects in the second half of the year. In April, we acquired Eagle Direct, which possesses proprietary internet-based technology that is a linchpin to the future efficient operations and growth of Master Central. Eagle Direct's five years of developing an internet strategy will be capitalized on as we assure the general commercial market that a quality product, delivered on time, is more important than shopping the price through internet brokers." Robert Diehl, Chief Operating Officer. We might ask all our readers to reflect on the import of Mr. Diehl's last sentence. That's the critical challenge for every printer seeking to assure a client that superb printing still matters. While a clear majority of the printing projects received as entries in the just completed 25th International Gallery of Superb Printing were obtained from clients in the traditional manner of face to face salesmanship, a much larger contingent of digitally produced, and internet enabled jobs were submitted this year. Indeed one last minute entry came from a San Francisco printer but was actually printed in South Korea. It would seem we must all think digitally and act globally in the brave new millennial world.
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