Independent MPS: Google is in with both feet. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

IMNSHO (in my not so humble opinion), the opportunity for Independent MPS is to resell Google Apps as part of an MPS solution. Everyone understands the cost of email. Lower it to $50 a seat, get a commission, and install the boxes. They will save enough from the enterprise computing to make the invesment cost of the MFPs to disappear.

Google Apps Premier Edition Gets Key Improvements from CIO.com
"These latest moves show Google Enterprise's increasingly pragmatic approach in selling its software to enterprises, even if that means making it work with legacy technology, says Gartner's Cain. In May, Google added a connector that wedded Gmail with enterprise BlackBerry e-mail clients. In June, it announced that enterprises who purchase Gmail can enable their users to access their e-mail via a Microsoft Outlook client on their Windows Desktops.
. . .
Enterprises have appeared to take notice. Google recently landed a new customer in Fairchild Semiconductor, which recently migrated more than 5,000 users to Gmail in just three weeks. According to Google, the company will see a projected savings of $500,000 a year. In June, JohnsonDiversey, a cleaning supplies company, moved 12,000 users over to Gmail.

According to Cain, Google's ability to respond quickly to customers has stemmed from its cloud computing model. Google delivers software by hosting the applications and having customer companies (and their employees) access them via a web-browser. Google updates its software using an agile development model, making changes frequently and rolling them out to most customers. This differs from on-premise computing, a model used by many incumbent software vendors, where changes happen in yearly (or multiple-year) periods.

Independent MPS: Google and Microsoft need you.

As it is for printers, so it is for Google. The best way to get new business is to pick up the phone. The money sentence:

Google have yet to get back to me with information or details… or a reply for that matter.

If you don't have time, let Independent MPS resell it for you. No doubt the good ones will answer the call. Plus they need a way into the education cloud. And then need a way to deal with internal IT geeks.

From ZDnet:

Universities are increasingly moving away from in-house email and communications systems, and moving towards externally hosted systems. While that may have sounded like utter garbage and geek speak, it means universities can’t afford or cope with their own email systems, so they’re letting Microsoft and Google do it for them for free.

For free? Yep. Absolutely free. What to Google and Microsoft get out of it? Very little; if anything it actually causes them to lose money, but it really pisses the other one off by getting an upper hand over the other one.

I’ve been hounding my contacts at Waggener Edstrom for weeks now in an attempt to gain access to the software, to experience first hand how it works and what students are to benefit from it. My contacts prevailed and yielded a test account.

Google have yet to get back to me with information or details… or a reply for that matter.

The high margin deliverable is the spreadsheet (analytics)

It's true for Google, Amazon, RRDC, CGX, XRX, EK and anyone else in the "media" business. It's what you can learn from the network. Not what you can tell the network.

Here's the money sentence:

He's employed contractors, but with the new funding, he expects to hire full-time programmers and improve his computing infrastructure. Also coming is analytics. 'We will be offering that sometime here soon,' Gilbertson said."

And some background for context:

from CNET
URL shortening is hot--but look before you leap

Growing like weeds
URL-shortening services are abundant and becoming more so. They're usually designed with a priority on minimum character length, not easy reading: Is.gd, Bit.ly, Twurl.nl, Tr.im, Sn.im", Cligs, and TinyURL.

If you want to see dozens more, Mashable has a long list.

And the traffic they handle is large. On a typical day right now, Bit.ly is used to create 5 million to 7 million shortened URLs each day, and it handles 25 million requests to expand them--and the growth rate is at a breakneck 5 percent to 15 percent week over week, the company said. Snipurl has delivered 53 billion since its inception. And TinyURL has a database of 293 million URLs.

: "So what's new now? First, Twitter, and second, shortening URLs is becoming an actual business--notably at present through the addition of 'analytics' features that can let those who use the service see data about how many people clicked on links, when, where they're located, and the Web page where they found the shortened link.

TinyURL's funding today primarily comes from advertising on its Web page, but that's changing, said founder Kevin Gilbertson. 'I'm working on something else that should increase that (revenue) quite a bit,' Gilbertson said. He declined to share details at this stage beyond saying, 'It will not change any functionality.'

Amazon v Google v IBM and Clickable Print. Must read from Media Post

It's Google v Amazon v IBM for control of the Cloud.

As of today, it looks like Amazon + Sprint via Whispernet. It's Apple + AT&T via iPhones. Verizon + RIM via Blackberry. 'It's Google + Nokia, Samsung + et al. via Android.

Now we read that Amazon is getting ready to deliver contextually accurate ads in ebooks on the Kindle. We further read that "Tracking the ads would rely on bar codes or another type of numeric code placed on the ads. I would let advertisers know that people saw the ads and want to know more."

So how far away is this from free-to-the-reader of books? The step to free-to-the-school textbooks or versioned clickable newspapers seems a natural.

The most likely driver will be Amazon and/or Google. They could deliver through Oce, Xerox, Canon or KM, using a printernet publishing model. A less likely driver might be IBM. But they seem to trapped in a blind spot in regard to print. Perhaps it will be Google + CGX + Alphagraphics. Or the really long shot would be HP and Indigo. But HP is probably to busy being busy to focus. By the time they turn the ship around, the market will be full of early adopters and first movers.

Kodak? If they could free up the Creo offset part, bring in the newspapers and build on the connection with KM they are the dark horse.

Only time will tell, but I've copied the most of post from Media Post. It is, in my not so humble opinion, a must read.

One co-inventor, Udi Manber, left Amazon for a gig as VP of engineering for search at Google. Filed December 2006 and granted last month, the patent would give consumers who purchase a print book an electronic copy of the physical version, too.

Two additional patents filed by Amazon, published July 2, describe incorporating targeted advertising in on-demand generated content. These patents, filed in Dec. 2007, provide an example for advertising on Kindle.

The patents clearly note that Amazon would insert advertisements throughout the ebooks, from the beginning to the end, between chapters or following every 10 pages, as well as in the margins. A cross-reference feature would add annotations, supplemental reference materials, and illustrations, as well as the ability to print on-demand paper copies in PDF and other format files. Kindle relies on Sprint to download content to the reader.

Slawski says Amazon's patents claim several advantages to serving up ads to consumers. One such benefit considered has been a lower price for the book if the consumer agrees to view advertisements. On page 12 in the novel that describes a restaurant, for example, Kindle would serve up an ad on food or dinning in the margin. If the novel takes place in Europe, the advertisements might relate to European hotels and resorts. For those who have a profile, the ads could also tie into that information.

Tracking the ads would rely on bar codes or another type of numeric code placed on the ads. I would let advertisers know that people saw the ads and want to know more. The code might associate the code and the ad with a specific consumer if the person logs into the profile page. The patents also describe interacting with the ads to get more information.

Advertisers would need to provide additional information to Amazon, other than the ad, so it is shown in places relevant to the person ordering the book.

Worth Watching: Telecoms Face Antitrust Threat

Antitrust means lower margins.

Telecoms Face Antitrust Threat -
WSJ.com:
"The Department of Justice has begun looking into whether large U.S. telecommunications companies such as AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. are abusing the market power they have amassed in recent years, according to people familiar with the matter.

The review, while in its early stages, is an indication of the Obama administration's aggressive stance on antitrust enforcement. The Justice Department's antitrust chief, Christine Varney, has said she wants to reassert the government's role in policing monopolistic and anticompetitive practices by powerful companies."

Somebody needs to tell these folks about clickable print, printernet publishing and QR codes.

Harris Connect Selects Acuity Mobile to Develop Harris Connect Mobile:
"About Acuity Mobile

Acuity Mobile is a leading provider of mobile marketing content delivery solutions. Acuity Mobile's Embedded Mobile Advertising Platform (eMAP) is a patented technology that enables Spot Relevance(TM) - the ability to deliver targeted marketing content to the right person, at the right time, in the right location. eMAP technology is used by carriers, advertisers and content owners to ensure that relevant content (ads, offers, traffic, weather, etc.) is delivered directly to mobile users based on their interests, time of day and geographic location. The technology behind eMAP was first developed in 2000 and patent protected since 2003. Acuity Mobile harnesses the power of mobility to improve content delivery for marketers and their consumers. For more information, please visit www.acuitymobile.com.

About Harris Connect Founded in 1963, Harris Connect is the leading provider of affinity marketing solutions including alumni and member publications that range from directories to coffee-table editions to commemorative books; research services to update email, phone and mailing address information; online communities and applications built on the Facebook platform; and now mobile marketing strategies, as well as programs designed to produce non-dues revenue for their clients. Today, Harris Connect serves more than 4,000 clients worldwide. The company is headquartered in Chesapeake, Virginia with offices in New York and Texas.

For more information about Harris Connect Mobile, go to harrisconnect.com/mobile. For general inquiries, send an email to moreinfo@harrisconnect.com or call 1.800.326.6600

Color cube, color cube, who's buying how many Color Cube?

Today anon said

They are not competing on price either at present the price point is twice that of Canon and Ricoh!

July 7, 2009 7:17 AM

Michael J said...

That's a problem for X. I assume the sell has to be the Lifetime running cost. While that is the sensible way to to think about it, it's going to be very hard to get too busy being busy people on the ground to have anything more than a "how much is this going to cost me now" bubble in their head.

I'm waiting for the next earnings call to see if any of the "analysts" can get hard information about firm orders or installs. If the numbers are good, X might have a winner. If not, then not so much. It could be a Betamax v VHS situation.

Here's the way I see it
The margins are the network, not the boxes. Networks increase their value in proportion to the square of the number of members. MPS is creating and selling networks. The metric for MPS is long term cost savings. The initial investment is handsomely paid back in forward-time. The challenge is that it is very hard to get a customer out of now-time into forward-time.

If Com Doc can sell into forward-time it should work. If independents are incented to incorporate the Color Cube into MPS that should work. But, if not, the Color Cube could turn out to be great technology that doesn't scale fast enough.

If Xerox releases Erasable paper as a sweetener to a Color Cube centric MPS deal, I think that would most definitely work. Erasable paper forces the customer to think in forward-time. Once there, the discussion is much easier to have.

It will be interesting to see how Canon and Ricoh, et al are responding on the ground. The reality is that the window will be open for a bit, but only for a bit. If Canon and Ricoh can duplicate the reduced toner prices, their lower cost of entry could win the day.

If Fuji gets into the game with both feet, all bets are off.

Maybe PGAMA will take the lead in fixing high school with Print?

Time Printers' President Elected Chairman of PGAMA
- from WhatTheyThink:
"Columbia, Maryland- The Printing and Graphics Association MidAtlantic (PGAMA), a non-profit trade association for local printing firms and related businesses, appointed Al Maddox, Jr. as Chairman of the Board effective July 1. Mr. Maddox is the first African-American Chairman for the local trade association, and is also the first African-American to hold the title of Board Chair for any printing industry association in the country.

The President of Time Printers, Inc. in Baltimore, MD, a family-owned company that has been in business for more than 55 years, Maddox has served on the Board of Directors at PGAMA since 1999."

Re fixing high school
Job 1 is to improve attendance. Job 2 is to improve homework compliance. Once Job 1 and 2 are done, High School will be on the road to fixing itself.

Back in the day when I was working in a bottom of the pyramid high school we did an experiment.

1. Students were given personalized note pads. Their assignment was to stop for 15 minutes every day and write or draw what they were feeling or thinking about that minute. Every day they tore off a page and handed it in.

Week one: about 30% handed in the assignment.

2. We printed out an full color 8 1/2 by 11 chart and handed it to each student and posted on the bulletin board. Each student's name in the right hand column. A check mark if they handed it in.

Week two: about 45% handed in the assignment.

3. We repeated step two with the additional words that said, "Anyone who does not hand in three assignments will fail this course and have to repeat it." We also added words that said, "Please enter your parent/guardian's contact information, including mobile phone and email address. Then take this chart and have your parent/guardian sign it and return to class."

Week 3. About 10% returned the sheet signed. Homework compliance was over 90%.

Ah, the power of transparency and the power of Print.

Score for Transcontinental! Tell the SF Chronicle about clickable newspapers. It should be a win-win-win.

Transcontinental starts printing the San Francisco Chronicle - from WhatTheyThink:
"MONTREAL -- Transcontinental today began officially printing the San Francisco Chronicle daily paper at its brand new 338,000-square-foot plant in Fremont, California. The Monday, July 6 edition is the first to come off the presses at the plant."

No doubt the better color and better paper is very cool. But color might turn out to be a necessary but not sufficient condition for a newspaper's success. The business about being more of a magazine ish format will also help. The ability to do marketing collateral for newspaper advertisers is very very cool. Of course the regional commercial printers are going to get very nervous, but that's life in a competitive world. They have their problems. The Chronicle has its problems.

In my not so humble opinion, it would be very cool to get the whole QR code thing on the radar of the business people at the Chronicle. The data harvesting potential is just what the doctor ordered to get that revenue stream back.

It would be ultra cool if the Chronicle combined their long tail of content, editorial skill, and deadline driven culture with Transcontinental's long tail of super efficient manufacturing ability. Then they, instead of or with RDA, could produce Clickable Newspapers or Clickable My Weekly Readers replace textbooks in California.

The newspaper wins.
Transcontinental wins.
The kids win.

Triple wins usually get to "why wouldn't I do that?"

Xerox Offers Premier Partners Free Premium Membership to WhatTheyThink . Nice.

Xerox Offers Premier Partners Free Premium Membership to WhatTheyThink
"“Premium WhatTheyThink membership provides a great opportunity for our members to keep their entire staffs aware of the news, trends and expert opinions that are shaping the industry,” said Gavin Jordan-Smith, vice president, Premier Partners Global Network, Xerox Corporation. “With the slow economy accelerating the pace of change in our industry, a well-informed staff is a strategic asset.”"

The high margins are in the network. The boxes are commodities. Print is a commodity. Everything else, but the network, is a commodity. Commodity is a good business. But it is low margins, large scale. The marginal cost of the network is low. If you can sell access, it's high margin. If you can't sell access then go with read for free, pay for stuff.

Consider
WTT has been around for years. They have aggregated an audience that is all things Print in the United States. The marginal cost of that audience should be close to zero. On the other hand the cost in time, focus and dollars of growing that network is considerable. But now it has reached critical mass. To get easy access to all that print content is now worth $200 per year to a significant number of people.

As a web presence, the cost of the delivery infrastructue should be very low. That's using commodity tools to create something out of nothing. Very cool.

WTT in clickable print, printernet published
If WTT sold the license to Xerox? Oce? Kodak? HP? or all of them, to publish points of interest in Print, then the globals would have a constant supply of marketing materials that could be sent to their customer's customers. Plus it's a lot more likely that everyone at the PSP would become part of the conversation.

If they added dynamic QR codes into the mix, every designer would think they are way cool. "Way cool" is what attracts prospects. It's much cheaper then sorting through suspects.

Reader's Digest Association: A Clickable My Weekly Reader is a killer app.

Reader's Digest Association Sells Assets of Gareth Stevens Publishing - "Gareth Stevens has been a unit of RDA's Weekly Reader Publishing Group, which had announced plans to focus exclusively on its core Weekly Reader brand."

Consider clickable versioned newspapers as the replacement for one time-fits-all textbooks. It's a longish argument, but let's say for now I'm pretty right.

So, a WR teacher goes to a website. Pulls the content she needs for next week. On the following Monday, the school gets 400 copies of a 24 page WR . 30 for class number 1, 30 for class number 2, etc etc etc.

The trick is that it's about Middle School and High School, not elementary school. The other trick is that with QR codes, it's a seemless connection to TV. Everybody loves TV.

Plus it's the fastest way to find out if something is interesting-to-me. Then Print is the best way to compare and contrast to learn more about interesting-to-me.

Then both are the best ways to do it again and again.

Go Reader's Digest! The 50% who don't finish High School are waiting for you.

This sounds nice: Printing Industries of America and manroland elevate partnership

My question is "Do printers have to pay for the knowledge earned?" If it's free to printers it's very cool. No doubt, PIA has to earn some money. So make a deal with a University to get the cover to sell certificates BA, MBA?

Selling certs to kids is an easy business. Selling anything to printers is a hard business.

Printing Industries of America and manroland elevate partnership
"The Future
Printing Industries foresees collaborative research and training that includes manroland’s and Printing Industries’ areas of expertise, such as stochastic printing on webs, benchmarking of materials, the minimization of piling, and optimization techniques for consumables."

InfoPrint could be the engine for Ricoh+IBM

Print is always where the rubber meets the road.

The knowledge, in the form of data, that is generated on the web is trapped on the web until it emerges in print. The fundamental problem is that print and TV are the Rodney Dangerfields of the 21st century communication ecosystem. They "get no respect."

The very fact that TV and Print are mass media makes them uninteresting to intellect workers at the top of the various pyramids. Since the discourse is controlled exactly by those intellect workers it's easy to understand why cell phones + web 2.0 gather all the buzz. It's undeniable that the path from buzz to money is pretty clear. What is often ignored is that buzz is a very, very high risk business. That's why the rewards can be so great.

Infrastructure is a boring, lower risk business.
Print and TV are the endpoints of the communication infrastructure. When they go mobile that means there will be more of both. A good example is when Print invented paperback books. The greater the mobility, the more the endpoints (paperback books) penetrated the mass market. Mobility has always driven mass markets.

Augmented reality (AR) is probably where this is going. It can be usefully framed as personal TV on a flat screen. The Kindle and kindle look alikes can be seen as mobile "print" for readers. Neither are mass markets. They might be some day. But for a long time the amount of buzz will be completely disproportional to their effect on life in the real world. As smart phones become mobile, personal flat screens, web search will stop being the cool thing. As it already has for the younger smart phone generation, it will become merely a fact of life. Facts of life are infrastructure. Infrastructure is good business for globals.

In the real world, TV and Print are the only push media.
The web, for all it's wonder and complexity, are pull media. Pull media is optimized for search and exchange. Push media is optimized for unexpected interesting information. Learning most often happens when a teachable moment opens the mind for unexpected information that can be judged interesting. That means Print. That means TV.

Ricoh, IBM, InfoPrint
Ricoh and IBM are both 8000 pound gorillas. IBM in the cloud, Ricoh on the ground. Ricoh keeps coming and coming. The Ikon purchase and subsequent attack on Canon was masterful and very expensive. IBM is in a fight for the Cloud with the other 8000 pound gorillas, Amazon and Google. Both still have not unlocked the value of InfoPrint.

Ricoh Innovation Labs at iCandy are all about the cell phones and QR codes. But I don't see QR code dna being inserted into the game changer it could be in Print piece. IBM innovation in the Cloud is all about the infrastructure. Traffic, health and energy seem to be top of mind. But no focus on improving public education.

InfoPrint grew from line printers. Their dna is about organizing communication for presentation in Print. In the old days it was about statement printing. Today it's about "transpromo." But as the tech has changed, they've been building on their tradition of industrial strength logistics and "good enough to get the job done." They are executing industrial strength experiments in analyzing and gathering the data. At the end of the day, the deliverable with reasonable margins is the spread sheet. InfoPrint is learning how to deliver better and better spreadsheets every day.

Marketers need spreadsheets to satisfy their supervisors. Everyone in every organization needs spreadsheets to satisfy their supervisors. When the cells of those spreadsheets actually point to the mechanisms that affect the real world marketers can sell more stuff. Selling more stuff in the States is a low margin business.

Educators and health professionals need spreadsheets to help people get smarter and healthier. No matter what happens to the business cycle, the need for people to get smarter and healthier will experience secular growth. Their are problems about the cost of monetizing meeting that need. But that's why a business is a business. They figure out the schemes that monetize real value creation.

The irony is that the globals still think that they create the value in the form of services and boxes. Yes, but there are every lowering margins. That's the infrastructure business. It's a low margin web scale business.

The high margin, human scale business is delivering the content and harvesting the behavior to create the spreadsheets by analyzing what happens when other people's content is delivered. That means Print and TV. Once dynamic QR codes that can carry more information than a pURL are put in Print that means a connection can be made from Print to TV onto a flat screen. The flat screen can be on a smart phone, a tablet, a computer, in the classroom or in the living room. The Print is always in the user's immediate real world environment.

Xerox ColorCube (Qube): How's the execution going?

On May 13, I said that the Color Cube was all about execution. Today I there was the following exchange at the post:

Anonymous said...

Having seen the product I am sure that this device will interest many, however as with most things the proof of the pudding is in the eating! The output from the unit is depressing. The quality of the output is lower than recoh, the ink cand be scratched off the page with very little effort, and you can't write on it! even permanent markers wipe off heavily printed areas. As sain a fantastic looking unit with a great design/technology edge, but really c'mon ink needs to stay on the page!!!

July 6, 2009 6:30 AM

Michael J said...

Thanks for the data point. my question is will the pricing model be enough to overcome any ink problem? It could be beta max versus VHS. If the pricing model is right, good enough might be good enough. On the other hand, if Ricoh, Canon et al can duplicate the pricing model, will the color cube win?

My bet is that sooner or later, probably sooner, the globals will compete on the pricing model. That's why I think it's all about execution.

July 6, 2009 7:05 AM

Anderson+Godin v Gladwell+Yglesias . . my two cents and versioned clickable newspapers instead of textbooks

It seems that Gladwell's review of Anderson's new book has started a discussion in the blabla-o-sphere. Seth Godin picked it up last week. This morning I found that Matthew Yglesias has picked up the ball. So far it seems that it's Anderson+Godin v Gladwell+Yglesias. I'm siding with the Gladwell+Yglesias team as of today.

It would be very cool if the NYT or WaPo or MSNBC or Bill Moyers or Google could get them all in the same room for two hours. Then release the video on cable and .tv (could be youtube or hulu or fora.) Then make the transcripts available. Then educators could pull down the content for their classes.

Then a versioned clickable newspaper could be used to satisfy the inevitable teachable moments that would occur in high school classes all over the States.

But until then, the conversation is trapped on the web. On June 30th, Competition, Profit Rates and Freeness appeared at Yglesias. It is a very interesting-to-me thread.

At comment 48, I added myu two cents:

It’s difficult to make watchable moving picture content in your basement.” Actually it’s difficult to make great moving picture content any where, with any tech. The reality is that making great communication content is very hard because the skill required is very rare.

The skill to make great content is still very rare. It’s been said that everyone has a story to tell but that very few have stories that anyone else wants to listen to.

When a few communications companies can share an oligopoly, the content is not that important as the way to aggregate a following. Once the technology is accessible to masses, the rules change from regularly delivered content to interesting content.

When a Google news search quickly reveals that newspapers mostly re write AP stories all looking at events through the same lens, it’s pretty clear that unique content is nice but never has explained the newspaper’s business success.

There have always been many examples of Free-to-the-user. But free-to-the-user has never meant free to produce. If one doesn’t earn the money to support production, it dies. Just as the energy to produce art disappears if the artist can’t feed themselves.

Ever decreasing margins is a fundamental stress on competitive capitalism. Every economist since Adam Smith has pointed it out. That reality is the stress under which business people choose to live. From society’s point of view, it drives innovation, higher living standards and democracy. But from the business point of view, it makes life much harder.

The easiest way to relieve that stress is to limit competition. When that fails the business has to reorganize to find new ways to earn the money to keep the whole thing going. GM is the most visible recent example. My bet is that being forced to face the reality of succeeding in a competitive market they will do great things, because hidden in a legacy organization there are great people.

As it is with GM so it will be newspapers, cable channels, TV and advertising. The defensible advantage are the pockets of talent. How that talent is monetized will be different in different places at different times.

As Anderson points out bands make predictable money from the concerts and t-shirts. The music is what makes fans. The money comes from selling fans the stuff they want. People buy art - t shirts, baseball caps - with no regard to cost of production. That’s why they are high margin businesses.

Amazon applying for in-book advertisement patent for Kindle

Consider clickable newspapers supported by public health ads and distributed for free to high schools.

Amazon applying for in-book advertisement patent for Kindle:
from the comments:
"I actually think this would be really cool. I like looking at ads—they are actually good sometimes. Aside from that, if it would bring down the price of the books, it would be awesome. I think the books should be $0.99 or $1.99 and have ads. That would make a big difference.

Now, I buy a book on the Kindle for almost full price but I don’t get to take full advantage of it. For example, if a friend want’s to read the book too, I can’t give it to them. So, for the lower price, it would rock. The world needs new ad formats. After all, I never watch live TV and always skip the commercials. Having ads in books could show a lot of potential."

Oops: Samsung, et al. Watch out iPhone is No. 1 in Japan�|

iPhone is No. 1 in Japan
The iPhone User Guide: "Abroad though, the story has been more difficult to decipher. In an April piece, Wired’s Brian Chen stated that the Japanese hated the iPhone, which sparked a big debate over the iPhone’s appeal (and the piece’s accuracy). Now though, a new survey paints a drastically different story: the iPhone is now the #1 and #2 best selling smartphone in Japan."

If Q= Educating for Citizenship, then A= clickable verioned newspapers and Current Events

Bridging Differences: The Emperor Wears No Clothes:
"I think it would be fair to argue that an institution that is funded by public monies must defend itself on the grounds that it serves, first and foremost, a public purpose—one which by its nature is held in common by all citizens, voters, and their offspring.

Here’s my suggestion. They must serve to prepare future voters to be knowledgeable and skilled citizens by the time they reach voting age—smart enough to preserve, protect, and improve the democracy of which they now are full members. We need a national “bar mitzvah” ceremony that seriously stops and takes stock of how well it has used children’s time (12-13 years of involuntary schooling) and the public’s money."

IBM + Ogilivy Get it. If Ricoh/Infoprint gets them to see the print piece . . . .

London Calling
IBM serves up an ace @Wimbledon:
"On Saturday 4th July, I visited the Wimbledon Championships as a guest of IBM, in relation to a book I am writing on the business use of twitter (more on this in an upcoming post).

IBM, in conjunction with their advertising Agency Ogilvy has served up three brilliant applications for the 2009 Wimbledon Championships. You can read more about the “Say Hello to a smarter Wimbledon” campaign, and my summary of each of them is below."

Read the summary at the IBM serves up an ace @Wimbledon:

QR Code-reading phones held by almost 4 of 5 Japanese

from twitter;

qrpowerRT @nadinika QR code-reading phones held by almost 4in5 Japanese. http://bit.ly/HyWlm http://bit.ly/RvzSe10 minutes ago from twitterfeed

If it's Ground > Cloud > Print, Print has to learn about the Cloud and vice versa

Wireless and Sensor Technologies Session @ Google

Google Internet Summit 2009: The State of the Internet
May 5, 2009

Wireless and Sensor Technologies Session. Panelists for this session are Craig Partridge, Larry Alder, Sumit Agarwal, Kevin Fall, and Deborah Estrin.

On May 5 and 6, 2009, in Mountain View, we brought together Googlers and leaders from academia and the corporate world for a 2-day summit to discuss the state of the global Internet. The goal of the summit was to collect a wide range of knowledge to inform Google's future plans--from product development and market reach to users' expectations and our ability to keep the Internet open yet secure.

More than 30 speakers and moderators led discussions around 8 topics: Networks; Wireless and Sensor Technologies; Security; Standards; Applications; Democracy, Law, Policy and Regulation; Search and Cloud Computing; and The Future. Eric Schmidt, who offered some remarks, expressed optimism that the challenges we face with governments' walling off access to the Internet can be overcome technologically by building networks that are transparent, scalable, and open.

Don't cheat. And especially don 't get caught. Canon UK cancels ODC central purchase deal

Canon UK cancels ODC central purchase deal
printweek.com
Canon UK has terminated its central purchase agreement with Kall Kwik and Pronta��print owner On Demand Communication (ODC) with effect from 1 August 2009, it has emerged.

The announcement comes as another blow for the high- street print franchise owner, following a public spat with franchisees over alleged supplier kickbacks and Xerox's termination of its contract with ODC last month due in part to rebates paid to ODC"

Ready for the new normal?

Bill Gross: Dividend Stocks and Bonds Make Most Sense Now --
Seeking Alpha:
"PIMCO’s driving thesis... is succinctly described as a “new normal” where growth is slower, profit margins are narrower, and asset returns are smaller than in decades past based upon the delevering and reregulating of the global economy, which in turn should substantially inhibit the “gorging” of goods and services that we grew used to in decades past..."

Everything you need to know about QR codes in less than 5 minutes

A thank you to AM for the point.

This video is also a demonstration of the power of personal TV in the service of learning. Imagine how effective it might be with clickable print of unchanging textbooks. Instead of having to sit at a computer to watch, you could be waiting on a line.

Click and watch. Learn enough to let you know if you want to learn more. If you do, go on from there. If you don't, it's enough information for now.

Pepsi in the UK uses clickable soda cans.

A thank you to BP for the point.

What is brilliant about the Pepsi campaign is that they have turned a bug into a feature.

In the copy, Pepsi says "We know that this won’t work for everyone and you might have to try a couple of different routes but hey this is new technology."

Market influencers think it's cool to be able to do something before any one else can do it. In the case of the iPhone, those were the evangelists who paid for the privilege of getting it first. Evangelist drive word of mouth and viral campaigns.

That's one way that clickable print becomes part of social media.

Welcome to Pepsi.co.uk:
"That black and white chequered board thing that you have seen on your Pepsi Max and here, is a QR Code and put simply they get you quicker access to cool stuff on your mobile without the fiddly hassle of thumbing away on your mobile. Just scan the code . . . et voila – that’s what I am talking about.

That black and white chequered board thing that you have seen on your Pepsi Max and here, is a QR Code and put simply they get you quicker access to cool stuff on your mobile without the fiddly hassle of thumbing away on your mobile. Just scan the code . . . et voila – that’s what I am talking about.

We know that this won’t work for everyone and you might have to try a couple of different routes but hey this is new technology. Handset compatibility is improving each day and some phones come with it pre-installed – so check first

So grab yourself some software and away you go!

We know that this won’t work for everyone and you might have to try a couple of different routes but hey this is new technology. Handset compatibility is improving each day and some phones come with it pre-installed – so check first

So grab yourself some software and away you go!"

Some money prowls. Some money flows.

News: U.S. Push for Free Online Courses -
Inside Higher Ed:
WASHINGTON -- Community colleges and high schools would receive federal funds to create free, online courses in a program that is in the final stages of being drafted by the Obama administration.

The program is part of a series of efforts to help community colleges reach more students and to link basic skills education to job training. The proposals are outlined in administration discussion drafts obtained by Inside Higher Ed. A formal announcement could come in the next few weeks. In addition to the free online courses, the plan would provide $9 billion over 10 years to help community colleges develop and improve programs related to preparing students for good jobs, and a $10 billion loan fund (at low or no interest) for community college facilities."

Vertis, Quincy: The Clickable Sunday Circular is a killer app

At least that's what I think, in my not so humble opinion.

MediaPost The Return of the Sunday Circular:
"There are few sure things about the future of mobile marketing. The long-term effectiveness of micro-banners, 2D scan codes, branded apps, SMS interactivity, near-field communication technologies and the like are all open and interesting questions. If there is one model I would put my money on, however, it is mobile couponing. Few traditional marketing formats map so well to the phone. Instead of clipping, storing and remembering to carry these paper savings certificates, a mobile device makes it so much easier to locate the right discount and use it on the spot."

Malcolm Gladwell has it right. And the going forward value of Print.

Gladwell's review of Andreson's new book is a must read . A follow up post by Seth Godin is also useful. It's about the Information is FREE economy. Gladwell disagrees with Anderson. Godin disagrees with Gladwell. I agree with mostly Gladwell but also with some of Anderson and some of Godin.

Anderson's point is :

Rather, he seems to think of it as an iron law: “In the digital realm you can try to keep Free at bay with laws and locks, but eventually the force of economic gravity will win.”

Gladwell's counter point is:

The only iron law here is the one too obvious to write a book about, which is that the digital age has so transformed the ways in which things are made and sold that there are no iron laws.

My agreement with Anderson and what it means for Print

To musicians who believe that their music is being pirated, Anderson is blunt. They should stop complaining, and capitalize on the added exposure that piracy provides by making money through touring, merchandise sales, and “yes, the sale of some of [their] music to people who still want CDs or prefer to buy their music online.” To the Dallas Morning News, he would say the same thing. Newspapers need to accept that content is never again going to be worth what they want it to be worth, and reinvent their business"

There are a couple of reasons people paid for Print in the past. The most obvious reason was the oligopoly of information delivery between Print and TV. To communicate with masses of people it was broadcast TV and national periodicals. Before TV went mass market, Print had the field to itself and newspapers and periodicals could earn the predictable profits of a monopoly business. After TV went mass market, there was still enough to go around.

But that was then. This is now. The logistics of information delivery while still significant on the internet are radically cheaper and faster than TV or mass market Print. Going forward competition in the information delivery business means low margins. If a business can thrive with low margins it's just another business problem.

The going forward value of Print
Consider the margins in t shirts and memorabilia. Why are people willing to pay $50 for a concert t-shirt? The easy explanation is that people are nuts. I have to agree that in general people are nuts, but that's beside the point. The point is that people make voluntary decisions to exhange hard earned money to buy t-shirts, collect art, and buy photo books.

The often under appreciated value of physical stuff - that includes Print - is that it signifies membership in a tribe. It meets a deep human need to see oneself and to see others as "people like us." To paraphrase, and change a bit "People who need people," are not, in fact, the luckiest people in the world. Needing people is a cause of great stress. Relieving that stress by owning objects that demonstrate to oneself and to others that one is part of a tribe is one of the drving forces behind collecting X, where x can equal books, Lladro, Van Goghs and action figures.

The value of the New York Times is partly the content. But mostly it is the nice warm feeling knowing that "people like us" read the New York Times.

The other values of Print are as platforms for search in physical space and as the platform for compare and contrast. But that's for another post.

Bookboon.com just keeps coming and coming

I got this in an email this morning. The point is

Download all our books directly from your Facebook profile. Download without formula, save you favorites and share them with your friends. You find our Facebook application here!

Anyway, here's the email:

15+ new books from Bookboon.com

The accounting Cycle and Current assets within Accounting

Java: Classes in Java Applications and C programming in Linux within IT

Project Management and Managing the Human Resource in the 21st century within Management

Computational Fluid Dynamics and Basic Concepts in Turbomachinery within Energy and the environment

Bookboon.com on Facebook
Download all our books directly from your Facebook profile. Download without formula, save you favorites and share them with your friends. You find our Facebook application here!

A Living Book: QR Codes connected to twitter

the living book was created as a part of a strategy of communication of the editoras online bookstore. strategy that envolves twitter, QRcodes, stickers and at the end a living book



More at http://tinyurl.com/2twb69

MPS: Xippa is in the game..PR release below.

I've been following Wade for a bit. My sense is that he has it just right. If I were an Indpendent, I would get a prospect to hire Wade. Let him get paid for doing the analysis. Then you have the evidence to craft just the right proposal to get the business. No muss, no fuss. Just value given, value received. If you are a global, or part of a global's channel, trying to use the Brand instead of the evidence to make the sale it's not a pretty prospect.

Xippa is a fresh-faced new startup from Seattle, Washington, created by Wade Cascini, a long term veteran of the document technology industry, to balance the scale on the customers side. The Managed Print Services industry has formed a speculative reputation at times for painful contracts and few remedies, in addition to the erosion of initial cost savings over the term of the contract. Due to his legal background and leadership experience at Global Imaging - Xerox, IKON, Pitney Bowes and a variety of other large document technology firms, Wade brings knowledge, expertise, and the enthusiasm to get the job done to the customer's corner.

Through his experience in the copy/printer industry, Wade saw a true need that he thought he could solve. Xippa.net sprang up from that need and has blossomed into a vibrant business that has provided consultation to everything from a small boutique law firm, to a multi-million dollar World-wide company. Wade genuinely believes in helping people, so much so that there is absolutely no fee unless he can help you. Xippa's revolutionary business model takes its fees directly from cost-savings.

How do you know if Xippa can help you? Here's a few simple questions: Does your copier lease end within the next 18 months? Are you currently looking for Managed Print Services? Are you looking to change copier vendors or renew your printer contract? If any of these are true, Xippa can help.

If you're happy with your current vendor but want to ensure you are getting “what you bargained for” or are one of the many end users who feel taken advantage of by Copier, Printer or Managed Print Service vendors, don't put up with it another minute. Call Xippa “that’s Zippa … with an X” today! (425) 898-1012.

Science textbooks? Not for much longer. But that's the good news for publishers who get it.

What might happen if the web has a two way connection to print delivered in the classroom?

Last things first:

Conclusion: I’ve presented a pessimistic view of the future of current scientific publishers. Yet I hope it’s also clear that there are enormous opportunities to innovate, for those willing to master new techonologies, and to experiment boldly with new ways of doing things. The result will be a great wave of innovation that changes not just how scientific discoveries are communicated, but also accelerates the way scientific discoveries are made.

Michael Nielsen
Is scientific publishing about to be disrupted?:
What I will do instead is draw your attention to a striking difference between today’s scientific publishing landscape, and the landscape of ten years ago. What’s new today is the flourishing of an ecosystem of startups that are experimenting with new ways of communicating research, some radically different to conventional journals. Consider Chemspider, the excellent online database of more than 20 million molecules, recently acquired by the Royal Society of Chemistry. Consider Mendeley, a platform for managing, filtering and searching scientific papers, with backing from some of the people involved in Last.fm and Skype.

Or consider startups like SciVee (YouTube for scientists), the Public Library of Science, the Journal of Visualized Experiments, vibrant community sites like OpenWetWare and the Alzheimer Research Forum, and dozens more. And then there are companies like Wordpress, Friendfeed, and Wikimedia, that weren’t started with science in mind, but which are increasingly helping scientists communicate their research. This flourishing ecosystem is not too dissimilar from the sudden flourishing of online news services we saw over the period 2000 to 2005.