Join My "Virtual Blogging Table" on Digital Print
Next week at On Demand, I’m privileged to be the host of a roundtable on the subject of digital print. Big deal, right??? We talk about the transition to digital at Xerox all the time, so what is the difference?
Well, we’re bringing together a group of people around a table that have never sat together before… A people with a passion for PRINT. And we’re just going to talk.
Since many in the industry “are just not there yet” when it comes to the implementation of digital print, the goal of the roundtable is to generate discussion about how to help others get there. In reality, it’s going to be a small table, so I couldn’t host you all—but I can invite you to offer your two cents here on this blog. With your input before and after the virtual blogging table could be limitless.
Below are a couple of the starter questions I’ll be throwing out to the group. Let me know what you think — you’ll be helping us jump start the conversation in Boston:
• What are the key printing applications print providers should be selling in 2007?
• What are the top technical and educational issues vendors should be addressing when working with customers looking to transition to digital?
• What steps are vendors overlooking when it comes to teaching printers to sell digital/articulate the capabilities of digital?
• What should print industry vendors be doing to help print providers grow their volume?
• Where do you see the industry in the next 10-15 years?
Thanks in advance for your input. As for the actual discussion at On Demand, we’re going to podcast and post it here on the blog. Stay tuned…
Gavin Jordan-Smith
Vice President, Commercial Print and Prepress Business
Xerox Production Systems Group
Comments
RE: where is the industry going to be in 10 to 15 years,
I think the quote attributed to William Gibson is relevent.
"The future is here, it's just not evenly distributed yet."
I've been trying to focus on what Google and Wal-Mart are doing to be able to get a glimpse of what's next. I'm calling the emerging world as being driven by a Google-Mart economy.
Both companies have a deep culture of making data driven decisions. They respond in very close to real time, and have flawless execution. And both are growing at what seem sustainable rates.
The market in it's fickleness, values one much higher than the other. But that's just the market.
Google has probably the biggest server farms on the planet. And Wal-Mart has one of the top five ecommerce sites.
So the common wisdom that makes a division between bricks and clicks doesn't really make any sense any more.
Both Google and Wal-Mart have a defined method for innovation.Build prototypes, test them, tweak them until they are proven to work, then roll them out.
But they both keep most of their resources focused directly on delivering the most profitable and appropriate customer experience.
So what's that got to do with printing?
I think that the natural position of the print industry is as the networked print engine of the internet.
Customers decide how much they are willing to pay. They don't care about technology. They want, what they want.
And what they want is the ability to print, from wherever they are, have the trust that the product will be delivered to wherever they want, at whatever time they want with a pleasant customer experience and all at reasonable price.
Not hard to figure out. But very, very hard to do on the ground.
What does this mean for any particular player in the print network?
Different things for different companies at different times.
Posted by: Michael Josefowicz | April 11, 2007 10:08 AM