What is it that we are the best in the world at? In today’s world of printing, that’s easy to forget. First off, the Printing & Graphics market  has changed and is changing so quickly still that the way we did things 10 years ago has no resemblance to the way our shop runs today. I’ve said before that we are very lucky; we’ve had the opportunity to invest in modern equipment and workflows plus we’ve hired forward thinking people. That changes a lot, because I think we get it.

Second off, the world and market we all live in changed drastically last year. All of a sudden small runs, variable data, full color are the hot items, and the big burdensome print runs are not so hot. Nobody wants to order a large inventory of items and keep them on a shelf just to get the price down. They don’t have to, the digital revolution changed all of that. Order just what you need and make changes to your printed copy when something changes. Design something once and repurpose it to print, the web, all kinds of digital media and any other places you brand your self. I get excited about all the different technology we have at our fingertips now. I just forget that since I work in the middle of this industry, its all around me. We need to help our customers understand what they can do to think differently about printing and save some money.

So my goal this year is to talk and blog more. I have a lot to say (a lot of hot air I’m told) about the way things have been done and better ways of doing them that save money & time. I know some people probably don’t want to hear it, because they make money doing things the way they have always been done. Remember the commercial 1984, lets break down some of these old walls and embrace the change for the better…It’s a new decade!

Did somebody ever hand you a Business Card that really got your attention? Not because of how nice, thick and rich it felt, but because of the lack of a good feeling?  I never ceased to be amazed at the lack of thought and quality people and companies will put into their Business Card programs, especially in today’s world where marketing your product or service is so important and at  the same times so much more can be achieved digitally producing cool cards.

First off, in an Expert Advice Post we lay it out how important we think Business Cards are as a marketing tool. It is so true that when you leave a client or prospect, most of the literature you gave them will probably end up in the trash and the Business Card will be the only piece that is kept. Like most of us in today’s world, our goal in marketing is to drive people and prospects to our website where they can learn more about us or maybe we just want them to have our email and phone number to contact us when they need us. Thats whats so important about business cards.

Now back to the original idea. Make your Business card something people will remember and want to keep. I believe the first thing that makes the card is the feel (The feel = the weight of the paper it’s on). There’s nothing worse than a flimsy business card, it just feels cheap. Design is important also. Of course,  to get the very best and coolest designs you can spend some money. But don’t let that scare you, we have thought out some pretty cool cards and did not spend a huge chunk of money. A lot of times, thinking through what you want to achieve, what information you want to convey, and some basic design principals, you would be amazed what you can come up with.

Consistency is also another pet peeve of mine. Business Card programs should be designed so that all your cards look consistent. This is usually more true with larger companies that have lots of people getting cards, they need to understand the importance of their brand. Business cards reflect your brand. We have programs that can help with ordering lots of different versions of Business cards, with variable names and consistent brands, that make remote ordering easy and very affordable. And with digital technology, we can put them on heavy paper, use lots of color and generally turn heads when you give somebody your card. Thats when life is good.

I’m big on practicality, and there is so much social media and other stuff that still seems pretty silly to say the least. So I thought I’d share some practical uses I’ve found for a couple of Photo sharing websites.The big three are Picasa (by Google), Flickr (by Yahoo) and Smug Mug (not as large or well known as the other 2). Now don’t get me wrong, there are a lot more photo sharing sites than these 3, but for now we’ll just talk about these.

Example one, distribution of a lot of photos to a big audience:  A good couple of years ago, when I had a kid in the Fairmont band program I ended up taking a lot of pictures for the marching Band. Of course everybody either wants to see the picture or wants a copy (or a copy of the electronic file) of their son or daughter in Band camp practice or in a competition (let’s also assume that your not a professional photographer wanting to sell these images). With a good DSLR (Digital Camera) you can shoot hundreds, even thousands of photos, and I was not about to print out all these photos and try to distribute them. In the past, the lady who did a lot of the photos would get prints of all of her photos and spread them all over a table for the taking at the end of year banquet. In the old days that worked, but it was not very efficient by today’s standards.

So we signed up for a free Picasa Web Albums site and start uploading the pictures sorted by date and event. When the band spent a week at band camp, we had day by day catalogs of photos. People (parents & friends) could simply follow, download the files or order prints from the Picasa system. Now this sounds kind of simplistic, but in reality its a great way to distribute photos to a large group of people. In this case, there were 212 kids in the band, so that’s a lot of parents and friends to try to give access to. Even though very simple, it turned out to be an elegant solution and they still use it to this day (Flickr could have served the purpose also). See the Fairmont Marching Band photos here and the bands overall website here (this has a link to the Picasa photo Album) . In another use; I’m building an archive of old family photos that date back almost 100 years, and when I get done I will share it with at least 30 family members through Picasa. Its easy for people to access and it’s free or very in-expensive if you opt for extra options and storage space.

Example two, an on going photo-stream: First, look at the home page of our website, see the flickr photo stream at the bottom? I know it has nothing to do with printing. And even though it’s pretty silly (some would say dumb), we get a lot of positive comments on it. Some people even ask when new photos are going up. I don’t know if we are right or wrong in our communications strategy with our customers and web visitors, but Flickr photo sharing has proved to be a great tool. It allows us to keep a fresh stream of photo’s rotating to show that we have a life outside of printing (like I said, the intent may be questionable, but the tool is great). I’ve really gotten to like Flickr (By Yahoo), the more I look around that site, I see some really great amateur and semi-Pro photos (a lot of bad ones also), but if you are looking for some creative ideas, there are a lot there. Its a lot like Picasa, but a lot different; you just need to play with both to see what you like.

Number 3 is not really an example because I have not had a chance to look closely at it, but what I have seen of Smug Mug is fairly intriguing. I think its more of a professional (or serious amateur) site than the other 2. You can build sites there and actually sell photos and make a profit (They will send you a check), but as always you have to produce something somebody wants to buy. I really need to read more about Smug Mug when I get a chance and maybe I’ll report a little more at that point. And if you know more about it, write a comment.

I don’t know if this helped, but we are trying to find and share practical uses for some of the new technology that’s inundating us today. I got the Idea from Bing Design who has been covering a lot of “Productivity Tools available on the web” on their blog, Bingenuity. Stay tuned for more.