Since some people are calling for the death of print I felt it was a good time to explain why I disagree... but see their point.

I have enjoyed creating with all media - Print, Online, Events and Radio and TV. To me, print is still the most rewarding, it may not always get the neat little stat report that the boss wants, but it sticks around.

If you have ever sat down and read a hardcover book, you must notice the difference between this experience and reading a webpage or listening to TV. Reading the printed word is rewarding, enriching and, assuming your not just looking at the pictures...it makes you smarter. You even look more intelligent while you read a book!

I love photography online, kodakgallery, Flickr, Smugmug, photobucket, all great stuff. Editing a little video and pushing it out is cool. Producing a website is very satisfying. I Love to tweet.

I do all this because I like to be productive and I like to collaborate with peers and share with friends and family. But to me, print is a bit little more unique...

I trust a message in print.

I can feel a message in print.

I can carry a message in print.

I can get somewhere with a message in print.

I can prove something with print.

I can save a special message in print.

I can auction off a message in print.

I can build relationships with print.

I can collect and trade print.

...I trust print.

I trust that the newspaper I subscribe to employs a fact checker.

I trust that my drivers license is real and so do the police.

I trust that my passport will get me home.

I trust that the letter my friend mails to me will not contain a virus.

I trust the hotel I stay at wont replace the 'book' with a weblink I have to pay 20 bucks a day for.

I trust that the framed photo on my wall will be there, long after the image on the DVD went corrupt and the hard drive crashed.

I trust that the written contract with my employer, my landlord and my lawyer will still be valid.

I trust that people still require fake ID to get into some places.

I trust that reading print will not damage my eyes like the computer did.

I have a long, trusted relationship with print. Why would I want to wrap my dead fish up in it and throw it away?

• The radio still does what it did 40 years ago
• TV does the same thing it did 20 years ago.

It must be that dang Internet!

How can the internet kill print when the radio and tv have done less to evolve? Why isn't the death of radio imminent?

I can think of 3 reasons...

• WE ARE NOW LAZY...print needs to be interactive and more convenient if it wants to continue being a pillar of society.
• WE ARE NOW STUPID...print needs to show us that keeping up to date on MJ's estate or Britney's latest isn't all that important.
• WE DON'T CARE...we are so busy we don't check facts, we don't have time for anything including a 'trusted source'

Kind of harsh, I know.

TV isn't dead because we are lazy and plasma screens are cool.

Radio isn't dead because the music industry is and its cheaper to listen to the radio.

Print is portable, you can take it anywhere...except we are lazy and we don't go anywhere.

We buy magazines at the airport, we look for a paper when we have to sit and wait, but we don't subscribe. We are lazy.

Companies issue statements and bills but cant quite see the benefits of transpromo? Think about it ...we are lazy-and stupid.

How many years has your DVD player been reminding you it was 12 o'clock?

We are getting stupider.

Print has a glorious opportunity to change dramatically, take risks and explore new adventures in the industry. The industry does not need to be organized by annual reports, magazines, newspapers, books and boxes. We don't really need to play chicken and drop 'fried' from our title.

Print needs to 'be with stupid' and needs to be interactive and cool.

Print needs to be aggressive - it needs to be in our face and our hands a lot faster and in more relevant places. Print needs to fall in love with creativity - fast. We print the boxes that people try to think outside of - print something that people need to read!

Some experts predict the internet will replace books, newspapers, advertising, just about everything.
Just like video killed radio...

Why do content providers get paid less and less if the goal is to get 300 million page views?

Print does not make much of an effort in going on the offensive. Newspapers look like newspapers, books look like books. Perhaps trying new things is an opportunity to fail and these days most companies and employees do not want to associate themselves with that risk. So they stick to the usual and attempt to ride out the storm.

But this storm is a little different. When the dust settles the air will be a little cleaner, the trees in the forest will be stronger. The ones that didn't 'adapt or adopt' will not be here.

And because of this, I think print just turned 55.

My latest marathon trip rounded off three weeks, 6 hotels, 4 countries and 9 flights. Lost track of my room number by the end of the trip, but added two more new South American countries to my list, first Argentina and then Uruguay.

Before you start looking for a map, Uruguay is a small country between the north of Argentina and south of Brazil, on the Atlantic coast, about the same size as Italy, with just 3.3 million people, but 30 million sheep and 15 million cattle.

The flexo market in Argentina is large, about the 3rd largest in Latin America, similar to Colombia, significantly smaller than Brazil and Mexico, but again with a relatively small percentage of traditional digital LAMS flexo plate making. Here few of the printers seem to have their own plate making operations The vast majority of Flexo plates are made by trade shops, but only half a dozen or so of the largest trade shops have traditional LAMS digital flexo plate making, meaning analog is still the most common plate making method used.

There are however clear signs that this will change in the next few years. Concerns about supply of silver-halide film, the push for higher print capabilities, and more printers indicating a desire to make their own plates, show that this is likely to be a significant transition.

Again, like in Chile, there are a great deal of Italian and southern European presses here, with new equipment in many facilities. When visiting Argentina I learned that there are many Italian descendents and speaking Italian is common in the southern cone of South America, explaining the strength of these manufacturers. There is also a good percentage of gravure here, indicating high print quality again.


 
The visit to Uruguay focused on a new Flexcel NX System installation in Cromograf, who were the first to order a system in Latin America, and a significant trade shop for some of the biggest international brand names, currently exporting plates to as far away as Peru and Chile. The new purchase represents a huge step up for Cromograf with all new plate processing as well as the Flexcel NX System. The team from Cromograf, the dealers, Lumila and Kodak personnel are shown here.

Miguel Angel Acosta Stabile, Director of Cromograf, third from the left, with 35 years experience in Flexo, and achieving amazing things with his team, demonstrated to us an incredible amount of flexo knowledge, know how, and experience. Part of the joy for me of doing these types of trips, is the people I meet and what I learn along the way. Between the Kodak team of Tom, Walter and I we have over 60 years of Flexo experience, and even though Miguel out ranks us all, he is happy and amazed to see what he can now do using Flexo, and still learns more every day.

The team was joined in Uruguay by Paul Lancelle, Kodak flexo specialist and former FFTA chairman, who had come to work with Cromograf and Lumila on the setup of the new Flexcel NX System. Paul can be seen here demonstrating the system to Cromograf customers who were so curious after press trials that they just had to see for themselves.


 
Uruguay is an interesting country. It supposedly has great beaches for the summer - not that I got to see them, as it is winter there now (pretty mild compared to US winters though!) and Montevideo has great places to eat. I am sure I will upset my colleagues from Argentina when I tell you that to date the best beef I have eaten was in Uruguay, along with some of the best meals overall. I guess I'll reserve my final verdict on the best beef in Latin America until I've ticked Brazil off the list.

I know that the team all enjoy working with the flexo industry in Latin America, in many ways an industry on the edge of transformation. The customers and team members are excited, looking to learn, with the full knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of all of their options available. The people are really what make the flexo industry such fun, even in the current economy, and Latin America is no exception.

I'll next blog from Latin America at the start of another 3 week trip that kicks off with the Brazilian FTA event in Sao Paulo, where I am presenting and looking to learn more. I look forward to sharing those learnings with you all.

People love nice business cards...

Some startups, long before they get the funding to do the next big thing online - get a card done.

A business card is arguably the single most important marketing tool a startup or an established business has in its arsenal. It's the first thing you offer to a new client. It's the first impression, it's the only thing in your pocket at a networking event besides your camera, phone and wallet.

Sure, websites are supporting material...but most people don't leave your booth or event looking at a screen - you need to do something unique and discreet.

Ever take your business on a roadshow only to realize you have so many products and so little room to transport your supporting material that you have to pare down the list?

With seminars being an expensive adventure its important that all your products are represented well. To reduce the expense of shipping, handling and managing volumes its worth considering an alternate method.

A few years ago, in preparation for an extensive roadshow in New Zealand and various shows in Australia we took stock of all the brochures we had on hand, looked at the cost of shipping and handling and considered taking a small sampling of only the key products. Airlines charge quite a bit for extra weight.

The concern was missed opportunities and the price of sacrifice.

But - we have the Kodak Nexpress Digital Production Press.

We don't need to reduce our inventory of titles, we simply need to reduce the volume and size - no compromise!

Here is what we did...

We took our existing business card template, designed a basic acrylic desktop stand and added a set of 'postcard styled racks' for the major shows to hold the complete set.

In all, we designed 90 cards, each had a single image on the front



and highlighted 4 or 5 benefits, functions or features of the technology. The back of the cards had a variable watermark and a basic design with contact details to reach the marketing team and a www unique landing page - at the time, only advertised on these cards. The cards were not designed to replace existing collateral - they were designed to tease.

The time to design 90 cards was about a month, we used existing images, copy and added an amusing slogan to get folks to pay attention. For software we livened it up a little and had some fun.

In all we did a print run of 85,000 cards and by years end we had given out an estimated 65,000. Perhaps a bit eager on the first run - after all, it is short run variable data!

The cards could be stored in traditional business card boxes making it easy to stack-n-ship. We took only as many as needed - but every product was represented.



The desktop stands are made of white and clear acrylic, the Kodak logo is vinyl adhesive making the costs low and the potential to modify easy. They stack like lawn chairs meaning you can take 3 of these in a large suitcase and about 12000 cards without paying extra at the airport.

This means we were able to have marketing material for 21 products and with the help of the unique landing page, we were able to capture responses long after the show, knowing they were from the feature cards. You could probably redesign this basic stand to include a Kodak digital frame...wireless...hmmm.



The postcard racks were a different story, again, perhaps a bit ambitious at the start, however they were built quite well and 3 years later still show up in the demo centre in Australia. They also have space for 8 A4 sized brochures.

We took this one step further after the roadshow...

Most companies offer some sort of thank you/give away product at a stand. What we did was take a nice business card holder with the Kodak logo engraved on it and insert 15 feature cards in each in advance of roadshow dates or events. A bit of work, but a great learning tool for new staff and even existing customers to understand the extent of our huge product portfolio... and a unique form of demand generation to boot!



For an Awards show, we had 500 guests seated. In advance of their arrival, we took 500 card holders, inserted 15 cards each and added two 'wild cards' for prize draws. We placed them on the seats, so when they arrived they picked them up and took a look at the contents prior to the start of the festivities. That's 7500 cards in one evening...and two Kodak cameras! People were happy, impressed and talkative after the event. We simply could not have been as effective with A4 material, a website or a TVC.

Now try it with Kodak Dimensional Ink!

What did we learn?

• A company that uses competitive products does not want to be seen at a tradeshow with a handful of your brochures? This solves the problem.
• After a 1-on-1 presentation, Product demonstrators hand an elegant business card holder with their own card and several product feature cards.
• 300-350gsm paper and 20 cards per A3 sheet equaled one set per holder printed and cut on a single page - made insertion and collating easy.
• leads were generated for products that would have otherwise not have made the trip.
• people discovered we had more products than they originally thought.
• you can add exclusive offers on the back, hand them out at shows.

The cost? The card holders were less than A$1.75 each. The printing was no different than your typical business card run. (how much do u spent per unit on give aways?)

Have a seminar with 100 invited guests? Do some variable data short run printing and spend $200 on the card holders. Less expensive then an A4 run and you can utilize custom URLS to keep the content fresh.

Think about it...how much $ did your last banner ad cost to design and post?

These days lots of people are saying print needs to think outside the box.

...Its time to print a new box.

If you came to the TransPromo Summit to learn more about TransPromo the content of the sessions was more than sufficient. In addition to updates from customers who have presented at past events, there was a new emphasis on the importance of data and campaign measurement. What SHOULD you measure, what CAN you measure, and how to evaluate the results in the context of the campaign were key questions.

While it was a great event for content, sadly we didn't see many customers. Marc Johnson and I held down the fort for Kodak, though even some of the usual vendors were missing or made limited appearances. It may be that this is an event that needs to happen attached to another event, or perhaps only every other year. It's hard to know, too, how much the economy and the August timeframe impacted the attendees. We counted 141 people in the opening session, and that was the most attended presentation.

For Kodak, though, we'll call it a success as we supported Chris Nicholson from Humana by co-presenting in the TransPromo Strategy session. Chris shared that they now have 19 applications using the philosophy and workflow created for the Smart Summary RX application he discussed last year. (It prints on Kodak Versamark printers!) We also had a chance to catch up with our fabulous customers from Speos in Belgium, Wilen Direct (one of our PROSPER S10 beta sites), and a few prospects from around the world. Any time we can talk to customers it's a good day!

The next big opportunity to talk with customers will be Print '09! I hope to see you there!

Just 6 weeks or so after the first visit to South America and Colombia I find myself back in the beautiful country with interesting and beautiful people. It is a visit that opens up my eyes even further to the changes and potential that this will become a power house for packaging, and particularly flexible packaging in the future. To reinforce the warning that the US&C risks falling behind countries like Colombia when we start to come out of recession, the first orders for Flexcel NX Systems in Colombia were taken, all into printers, both narrow and wide web. Combining the newest equipment with the best in plate technology will allow these printers to easily move forward and reinforce their positions as suppliers to the biggest brand owners.

One of the examples of where the newest press combines with the newest press, was a print trial on an OMET XFLEX. The XFLEX won the FFTA Technical Innovation Award last year, as did the Flexcel NX System this year. This is the first time I have seen these two industry leading innovations for Flexo together, and I have to say it was a beauty to behold. The speed to color, ease to change anilox rolls, print cylinders between jobs, ink tray loading unloading, minimal web path during the job, auto registration all worked simply and perfectly. The printer actually setup the first job twice, to prove to the prepress manager, and just to confirm that the press and plates combination really was so fast coming to commercially acceptable print together.



The picture in this Blog comes from a visit to the old Spanish capital in Colombia, and we have titled it "The 3 Tom's Looking For Dr John", where I shot a panoramic, and Tom accidentally managed to move into every shot, looking a different direction each time! It is a little freaky in some ways, but an interesting shot, automatically produced using a Kodak Easyshare M1093IS. The other lesson from that trip is distance as the crow flies is not important, how big a mountain you have to go up and down the side of controls travel time, and the degree of headache at the other end!

Colombia seems to be the country in South America with the highest penetration of traditional digital flexo plates, high percentage of Comexi wide web presses, and a smaller percentage of gravure to flexo.

Chile on the other hand was very different. From the flight from hell overnight Sunday with all the families returning from vacations, to arriving at the hotel to go to bed in the dark, and the getting out of bed at noon for the first appointment, to opening the curtains to see for the first time the snow covered Andes mountains seemingly a few blocks away, that was a real WOW sight to wake to!

The Flexo industry in Chile was different, far fewer CTP for Flexo, about 20% of Colombia, much more analog, very good analog, more Italian presses than anything, and a higher percentage of gravure than in Colombia. But here again a market ready to transition, Chile is a big exporter, so their packaging appears on our shelves all of the time, and they will continue to grow this trend. Here converting Flexo is really also going after gravure conversion, so the densities that can be produced with as few colors as possible is important.

As I visit super markets in other countries, that gets really interesting trying to explain you are "just looking" with a loop when you don't speak Spanish, it is clear that there are some significant market differences too. Quantities are smaller, many weekly instead of monthly purchases as in US, more flexible packaging, stronger brighter colors, more competition for sales. You come to the conclusion that the packaging in Latin America is at least as good and in most cases better than the majority in the US today. This too will help understand how they can become a threat to the US producers.

The next issue of the blog will come from Argentina and Uruguay, and my verdict to date on the beef, and who for Latin America reins supreme!