Designers and Digital Print...The Good News

A couple of years ago, I lead a team of students and faculty who worked with Bob Wagner and Mike Riebesehl from Xerox to produce the Art and Science of Digital Printing, The Parsons Guide to Getting it Right. Back then, it was a pretty big deal. Now a group in Germany got together, decided what they wanted to do, sent it to Lulu.com and it has worldwide distribution. My guess is that the total printing cost was the $19 they are charging on the web. Ain't life grand?

I found the following at Speak Up, an author-based, reader-supported community devoted to graphic design open to conversation and dialogue.

"It's funny how things change. Five years ago I wouldn't have given second thought to producing print material with digital printing. No, only offset printing.. . . . More or less, the art of offset printing has been properly documented and even mastered. Now it's digital printing's turn.

Well, sort of. This past July, fourteen students attended a two-day workshop at Germany's Hochschule Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences with Prof. Frank Philippin and London-based designer James Goggin.

. . .The result of the workshop is Dear Lulu, a fantastic and imaginative resource that puts digital printing to the test through a Do-It-Yourself presentation that fits right in with philosophy of print on demand that makes it such an alluring proposition for designers looking to publish with little financial risk and with pretty decent results in return.

Read the design brief here
You can buy a copy (96 pages) or download a full set of PDF for free here.

Here's what to do to create a revenue stream

I found this at Total Sales Success. It's a blog managed by Tom Hackelman, a Graphic Communications Growth Consultant for Xerox in the Triad area of North Carolina. There is a detailed power point at his site that gives much more detail. It's definitely worth the click. In the meantime, here's what Tom says you have to do. It sounds about right to me.

1. Identify and communicate a consistent and specific value
that your business brings to your customers.
2. Based on the characteristics of your top twenty percent
of accounts, create your ideal customer and focus your
efforts on securing more of those accounts.
3. Create and implement a sales process that is
measurable, has expectations and is consistently
inspected.
4. Stop recruiting subpar talent. Only hire superstars. Hire
the best, hardest working talent. And let go of the
baggage.
5. Create a goal-oriented sales organization that is
committed to growing, changing and reaching new levels
of performance."

My only minor quibble might be to move number 2 to the number 1 position. read the rest

Dr Joe Webb ruffles some feathers, again

Dr. Joe Webb, (he's a real Dr., as in PhD.) is one of my favorite evidence-based observers of the printing world. He tends to say what he sees in the evidence, even if it ruffles some feathers. It's worth the click to Dr. Joe Hits a Postal Nerve: Playing Football with Baseball Bats? at WhatTheyThink.com.

In addition to some entertaining back and forth about the USPS, there are seeds for thought in there for every printer.

Until the Postal Service, and members of the printing industry, firmly grasp that their competitors are digital media and not UPS, FedEx, or DHL, they will be attempting to play a sport with the wrong implements. You can't play football with baseball bats, but that's what they seem to be trying.

The thing is that in 21st century business competitors can quickly become allies. read the rest

An idea worth stealing

I found this at a Beautiful Experience. The post is called 30 Seconds to a Relationship. It's most definitely worth the click through, but in the meantime a selection:

We talked about 3/30/3/30 in our latest version of 4.5 ideas to decommodify your business. Here's more detail about what we mean.

3 seconds This is the benefit of doing business with you.
30 seconds This is the benefit with some elaboration and description.
3 minutes This is the benefit within the context of the problem/solution.
30 minutes This is the benefit applied to the specific client/prospect you are interacting with.

What are you paid to do?

Found this today at The Business of Print It's managed by Mike Philie, a vice president and consultant in the Print Consulting Services Group of NAPL,

We spoke about expectations; as the new sales managers, what does your boss, owner, management team expect from you? Only two of them felt somewhat comfortable about knowing the expectations that lie ahead. Not a good thing.

Alignment in all that we do is a critical component of successful companies. How can we work together as a team if we don't fully understand our goals and objectives?

The problem is that sometimes no one in the company has a goal more than "Get more.. read the rest