This has to stop. The “Print is not Dead” campaign (sponsored by groups from the printing industry), makes printers sound like a bunch of old folks who are on their death beds, but want to convince themselves that they still have a pulse. It sounds like we are talking to ourselves, not the people who purchase printing & communications. Remember Monte Python “I’m not Dead“?

First off, an observation about printing and smaller print shops today. When I started in this business, printing was considered a craft. You know, picture the old printer looking over the printed sheet to make sure it was just right, and if it was not, we knew secrets to fix it. Then at the beginning of the digital revolution, digital technologies started to replace a lot of our old processes with software that basically took the “mystery” out of what we did. Eventually, print buyers were somewhat justified in seeing a “sameness” in a lot of shops. I feel like print is turning into a craft again,  not in the way we produce it, but the way we apply it. You can get the simple no-brainer stuff at an internet printer, but it’s our job to be creative in our ideas how to apply it, creative ways to use print and ways to make the simple stand out.

There is a very dynamic communications marketplace unfolding in new ways (we never dreamed of) every day. Printing companies must find compelling ways to offer new sets of benefits to their customers. Because response rates for all media have been declining, communicators must deal with sending the same message through more channels. The message sometimes has to be interactive as well as being printed, and it may need to be forwarded to others by the recipient. It’s an amazing challenge, and printers who choose to be can be right in the middle of this mix, as some of the more forward thinking ones are now.

Oregon Printing is fortunately is in a great place. We’ve got the equipment and systems in place to handle our traditional “Print work” as well as the new demands of Variable Data Printing and beyond. And, we are financially strong and ready to go some new places. What makes the most sense to me is to talk to our customers and find out where they want us to go. How do you want to communicate and what services could we offer that will make your life easier. I’ll be calling and talking to a lot of our customer base and I welcome any suggestions and comments.

It’s the task of Print companies like us, and the sales and marketing structures we employee, to create enticing applications for print that are appropriate and forward-looking, solve problems for our clients as well as create opportunities for them. It’s up to us to steer our businesses into offering a new, higher level craft that is very much alive. So the “Print is not dead” crowd can go to the back of the room now, as the rest of us are busy and excited about the future.

Note. Thanks to Dr. Joe Web from the What-They-Think Economics and Research Center for addressing this subject in greater detail in their June 2010 Executive Briefing.

Ball's there before the runner

Flash back to Detroit a couple of weeks ago, and a drama played out in the public eye in which everyone involved acted with a grace that we could all learn something from.

I’ve aways been a baseball lover,  and baseball lovers know the only thing more unlikely than a perfect game is the unassisted triple play and hitting 4 home runs in 1 game. Well by now I’m sure that you are all familiar with the near perfect “perfect” game pitched by Armando Galarrga of the Detroit Tigers  a couple of weeks ago. Galarrga had laid down 26 straight batters, and on the 27th (the fewest number of batters that can be faced in a 9 inning game) umpire Jim Joyce blew the call. Right on national TV, in front of the whole country he made what was an obvious mistake, the ball got to the first baseman’s glove ahead of the batter . Now lets put this in perceptive, what Galarrga would have accomplished has been done only 20 times since the turn of the last century (thats 1900, not 2000!). It’s an honor bestowed on very few people and would have put him in the record books and possibly a trip to Cooperstown, the Baseball hall of fame. But a simple human error wiped it out, and unfortunately it can’t be turned back.

My first reaction was frustration and anger. I listened to Marty Brenneman (the Reds play by play announcer) describe what a blatantly bad call it was and what it cost this poor kid, and I could not help but to co-miserate with him. It does not help that I’m not a big fan of Jim Joyce either, especially after I watched him call 2 balls that should have been strikes (in my opinion) and cost David Weathers & the Reds a game against the Brewers a few years back. I remember him defiantly looking down at Weathers as if to say “question me and your outa here!”.

Galarraga put's a hand on Joyce's shoulder

So I was shocked when I heard that Joyce was in tears after the game saying “I just cost that kid a perfect game”. Joyce said he realized it after going to the umpires room and watching the replay. “I’m not sure what to say right now other than that probably was the most important call of my career, and I missed it”, going on to say “Nothing like this has ever happened to me, and I don’t know what to say”. Wow, it’s brings a new respect for somebody when they are human enough to fess up and say they made a mistake. Equally as powerful was Galarraga’s graceful reply regarding Joyce, that he’s human and everybody makes mistakes. According to Galarraga, I then gave Joyce a hug and said “I think he feels worse that I do”. The next day, Joyce and Galarraga met at Home plate as Tiger fans cheered. Joyce was visibly moved by the pitchers grace as well as the crowds.

So, what’s so powerful about this whole drama? You have something big, a perfect game could commercially make Galarraga a wealthy man with future contract negotiations, not to say the record books. And it will put Jim Joyce up there with Bill Buckner on the biggest “should have been the last out of the game” list. But it was incredible to see Galarraga shake it off, give Joyce a hug and move on. Could you imagine if our politicians, our leaders, our coworkers (even BP), along with you and I had that type of grace . Just be honest, admit mistakes and move on….There’s not enough of that in the world today.

Fast forward back to reality. We live in a world full of litigation, finger-pointing and and more complex issues than ever imagined back in the “good ole days”, but for just a moment, to watch this drama play out in front of all of us was remarkable thing.

The whole group last Christmas. Pretty diverse, but they work great as a team.

Do you own a small business? And if you do, how often does that small business test you? Well, I love small businesses and have become quite a student of the workings of small businesses; I read about them, develop strategies and plans for my business, and over all find the whole subject very stimulating (it helps that I love printing, graphics and visual stuff in general). So what happens when you loose a key employee for 4 to 6 weeks? If you have read the blog post before this one, you know that Mike Green, our general manager got in a car accident and ended up having neck surgery, which laid him up for 4 to 6 weeks. And I have every sympathy for Mike, I’d rather be scrambling around without a key employee, and doing it on hot coals instead of going through surgery on my neck. Period.

So in case you might be wondering, Mike got his staples out (that’s modern for old fasioned stitches) on Friday 5/21, and is scheduled to be back on Monday, June 7. But what goes on in the machine when a part is missing? It’s been a fairly interesting couple of weeks. It starts with a period of adjustment, which means you try to figure out how to squeeze what that employee did into your day and a few other people’s day. And as you make adjustments to the way you operate you start to learn things about your business. It’s kind of strange, and it’s only been about 3 weeks as I write this, but I’ve really been able to look at the Big Picture of our business. Even though I’m working more hours than usual (kind of like the old days) through this period, I’ve been able to step back and view operations a little more methodically. That probably has to do with the fact that I’m right back in the middle of the mix, seeing how the flow of work really happens (reality, not theory), and seeing a lot of things I just might do differently. Thats where I have to be careful though, because our system works great even with 200 jobs in the mix, it really clicks. I wonder how many times small business owner’s find them selves in the middle of operations saying we could do all of this better if we only….

Part of running a small business is trusting your employees. And we have a great team to trust, the more I listen to them, the more I learn. So in trusting them, I find that most things are done for a reason… probably a good reason not to mess with the process (at least till I have a solid plan).  I have learned so much about the inner working of our business over the last 3 weeks, that I’m sure it will lead to some very interesting discussions in future planning meetings. See, the printing business (as well as the whole communications business) is going through some big changes. The digital revolution has turned our industry upside down. So all I’m saying is that as we try to figure out what a print shop like ours will look like in 2013 and 2015, the experience of subbing for key employees will be an invaluable learning tool. It’s a good thing to be on the user side of the estimating and order writing system, opposed to the implementation side (like the guy who purchased it and heard about all these wonderful things it will do).

In the meantime, I never ceased to be amazed; even in the absence of a key employee, the wheels keep turning and incredible stuff keeps rolling out every hour and every day. It’s great to watch your business grow through thick and thin, especially when you get compliments from your customers on a regular basis and your employees like their jobs. It’s a small business and every day is a new adventure, but I don’t think I could do anything else.

Not only are we great printers, we keep our landscaping fairly impeccable!