Score for Kodak in the UK!

What's old is new. EK does digital thermography. Smart.

From Printweek:

The University of Surrey . . . invests in a Kodak Nexpress 2500 and becoming the UK's first print operation to use Kodak's Dimensional Inks. . . .

It has already fully personalised 21,000 undergraduate prospectuses and 4,000 postgraduate pieces that are specified to what courses and subjects the potential student is interested in studying.

. . . The tactile effect has been used to add variable height to the university crest on degree certificates and open day materials, which are all now printed in-house.

. . . Ive said a job that previously cost the university £40,000 to outsource is now being carried out for an eighth of the cost in-house.

A conversation with @doctorjeff at TwitterSchool about the Space/Time of twitter. And the power of Print.

Every Tuesday teachers from all over the world gather around #edchat.

For anyone passionate about education it is a great way to spend 2 hours on a Tuesday between 7 and 9 pm EDT. Of the many interesting conversation strings, I particularly enjoyed my conversation with @doctorjeff

According to his twitter page, doctorjeff is an"astrophysicist, educator, writer, nat'l pgm director, w cool apprch to earth & space science education. See Blog on the Universe!"

Blog on the Universe is for anyone who gets joy from learning and aspires to know. To visit this space, you just need to be open to the possibility that science, the majesty of the universe, and the nature of our home world—Earth—can be presented in an exciting new light.

The conversation started when he asked,

doctorjeff I thought education was a team effort - teachers, administrators, government working together. What am I missing? Help help. #edtec

I said

@doctorjeff education a team effort What am I missing? . #edtech Admins, teachers, pols, parents all play dif games with dif incentives

He said

doctorjeff @ToughLoveforX Admins, tchrs, pols, parnts all play dif games w dif incentvs. -Agreed. But what am I still missing? It's not a game#edchat

I said

@doctorjeff "It's not a game." | Actually, game theory+systems theory+ behavioural economics is a good lens to clarify the problem. #edchat

@doctorjeff IMO, we need the right rulers, clocks & models to fix this problem. "Time and space are the deep fundamentals" - Alvin Toeffler

@doctorjeff Consider the space/time of info exchange on twitter and how different that is from the sp/tm of a typical teacher's day. #edchat

He said

doctorjeff @ToughLoveforX I actually like space time curvature of the Twitterverse. It's non-linear, but locally Euclidean, unlike classrm. #edchat

I said

@doctorjeff non-linear cause there are multiple conversations at once. Locally flat cause I'm doing it one on one with computer. | Nice.

He said

doctorjeff @ToughLoveforX non-linear cause there are multiple conversations at once. Locally flat cause I'm doing it one on one with computer. #edchat

I said

@doctorjeff .Nice. So ..What's a "non-linear, but locally Euclidean" ed system #edchat If the space/time changes, everything changes.

@doctorjeff without control of your space/time, it's hard to feel power -> hard to learn. Twitterspace allows power & conversation.

He said

doctorjeff @ToughLoveforX In classrm, if managed the way I;d manage, its not locally flat given there r many 'centers' of learning. Thoughts? #edchat

I said

@doctorjeff What's the space/time around each kid? Is it locally flat and communication complete from the kid's lens? #edchat

End of conversation for now.

The point for Print
Marshall McCluhan correctly said " The Medium is the Message." One way of understanding what he meant was that each medium creates it's own space/time. When we enter into the space/time created by the technology of communication it changes our natural behavior.

In an information rich, but attention scarce society, the risk of engaging is wasting time. If the benefit is not clear, engaging does not happen. The forward looking benefit of engaging is not worth the risk of getting engaging in a conversation.

The paradox of "motivating" a student or teacher is that it requires engagement to learn the benefits of engaging. I think it's a version of Einstein's “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”

"Teaching" the going forward benefit of learning most easily reaches exactly the students who already see the benefits of learning. But it is very inefficient in reaching the students whose space/time is me and now.

To see the value of Print and the space/time it creates I want to use some words doctorjeff put on the table. Our most at-risk students live in a deeply "non-linear" world. But learning emerges most quickly in flat "locally Euclidean" space/time.

Print is a medium that creates "locally Euclidean" space/time.

To clarify what I'm trying to say, "compare and contrast" seeing this conversation at #edchat versus seeing it in this post.

Then consider the potential reach if this post were delivered in Print to the hundreds of thousands of non engaged teachers who don't see that the going forward benefits of engaging in technology are worth the time required of them, now.

"The National Association of Scholars, in fact, knows exactly what universities will look like in fifteen years, and in twenty

http://ilnk.me/18f

A close reading should give you the outlines of why Print connected to the web is looking at a game changing opportunity in education.

HP gets it just right in Prague. Let's do the same thing in the States.

This morning I found this in the twitterstream.

RT @djlwq Setting @t HP Education Center Prague - wow, interesting :-P

So I googled HP Education Center Prague got to this:

The Multicultural Center Prague is a non-profit organization interested in issues related to the coexistence of different cultures in the Czech Republic and abroad.

As near as I can tell, for the cost of a printer and a projector, at least one person called it the HP Education Center. Now that's quite a marketing ROI.

The problem of "the coexistence of different cultures" is a big problem everywhere, including these United States of America. Why wouldn't Xerox, Ricoh, HP, Oce, put this at the center of a close to zero expense "marketing" campaign? Do well by doing good.

From the about page at the Multicultural Center Prague.

Since our founding in 1999, we have been busy working on new educational, cultural and information initiatives. We organize workshops, courses, international seminars, debates, film screenings and book readings for children, students, teachers, librarians and just about everybody else. Additionally, we also run websites devoted to issues such as migration or multicultural librarianship. We have a well-stocked public library designed for those with an interest in multicultural issues.

I might be able to help by tweeting and blogging. If anyone is interested, just DM me at Twitter. It's ToughLoveforX.

Sponsors in 2007

plus lots more...

The Enduring Value of Print in Teaching and Learning

One of the emails I look forward to is from Education on the Plate, -A passionate lock at learning, teaching, eating and drinking. The blog is maintained by Deven Black.

In response to today's post, I commented with what I hope is a useful description of the role Print can play in high school education.

I posted:

I want to point to one of lines in our post and argue that it shows how important print can be in changing minds and in education.

“to read the page of the bill that specifically prohibits that.”

The Print forces a closed mind to confront a new idea in words. Unlike talk, it’s hard to ignore, mis interpret or talk over. But, the real enabler is your son, the teacher. By his presence and attitude, he created the expectation of a response. No forcing, no threatening, just the mutual expectation.

To me, it seems a perfect demonstration of creating the “teachable moment” It helps explain the failure of multi-media to change the daily classroom experience for the student.

A trusted teacher can create the expectation of a response to new ideas represented by words in print. Education is about integrating new ideas to modify old ones. But, it means that a student or any person has to admit they are wrong.

Given how ferociously people fight the experience of being wrong, it shouldn’t be a surprise that it happens so infrequently.

The takeaway is that students in a classroom need more than anything an “expectation of creating a response.” Writing assigned and not returned with comments the next day are often worse than no assignment at all.

Of course, it’s a daunting task. But I think that twitter can help make it manageable.

Consider, a one pager handed out to students. It has two or three 140 chrcters assertions about whatever. The assignment is tweet what suprised you, or what you disagree with.

Then after the conversation has evolved, putting it in print to distribute to the students in the class.

When the student is forced to edit down blablabla into 140 characters, it creates a word object that can be responded to with manageable effort. The speed and appropriateness of the response can train the student to know that someone is listening.

My experience is that as soon as students see that someone is listening, their behavior can change amazingly quickly.

PMA in Australia. Good news or Bad news? Depends on who you ask.

Back in April I did a post about PMA Solutions. based on a piece I found in Print 21online called Be your own business:

PMA Solutions was established by the current Managing Director and primary shareholder, Phil Okill, in 1988 as Print Management Australia. Phil believed that there was an opportunity in the print industry to reverse the traditional focus from production and press capabilities to client requirements and service. Key to this strategy was total independence from any manufacturing capabilities - allowing unbiased supplier selection and the best market rates to be sourced and shared with our clients

After having spent 35 years in the game as a printing broker, it sounds like a print broker on steroids. But then Astron that was purchased by Donnelly for almost a billion dollars started as a printing broker on steroids. Back in the day, printing brokers were at the bottom of the print status ladder. Based on the message I got today from anon, it seems that the more things change, the more they stay the same. To be clear, I don't know if anon has this right. No doubt he is saying what he is seeing.

Back in the 80's and 90's, the standard phrase in New York was "sleezy printing broker." True for some, not for the best of us. What is BPO , if not printing brokerage on steroids.

regading this article though it is load of rubish as I allready very well know about PMA and how it operates and it's so called agent division. this new agency sales channel is actually a fraud rather than a bussiness plan dude!. they get the poor peoples there then gather infomations about thier customers and contacts and then get rid of them leaving the people who joined it poorer and worse off than when they have started. please remember O'kill look stupid but he is a real shark and crook !

Why I bought some more XRX today

I have never before seen Xerox answer so quickly, nor open up an shareholder channel like Real Business At Xerox

What's next for Xerox? It's about BPO. But what happens to the PSPs?

Yesterday I followed some links from Document Solutions Daily. Given that when I find interesting(2me), I tweet it. So yesterday I tweeted this:

From a #xerox blog. http://ilnk.me/134 "we are primarily going after the BPO space" So what could that mean for Xerox PSPs? . .

At the click, you will find Real Business At Xerox with a very helpful post by Paul Hartley explaining the thinking behind the ACS purchase. Since I agree with big X on this one, you can take the click to see what Paul wrote. But I do wonder about how this is going to play out for PSP's and the huge installed print capability.

Michael Moeller kindly took the time to answer my question with

To our readers, there will be more details about this acquisition once we satisfy the customary regulatory requirements involved and close the deal. We are focused on providing great value to our customers and meeting our fiduciary responsibilities to shareholders.

We thank you for your attention and input on this blog and look forward to sharing additional information once we can.

All makes sense to me. I'm hoping the response is going to be about connecting the Xerox PSPs to XGS and Independent MPS. It seems to me that would really be 1+1+1 = 10. But I guess we'll have to wait a bit until the lawyers say it's ok to share.

Full disclosure Long Xerox.

A busy morning at twitterschool and Document Solutions Daily is a good value.

#Oce Business Services Ranks No. 1 in 2 of 3 "Most Important Attributes Influencing Client Satisfaction"-The Black Book http://ilnk.me/122

INTERQUEST,announces Digital Printing in Government and Higher Education Forum. http://ilnk.me/121

The State of Printing Associations at PrinCeo http://ilnk.me/11e | 22 comments this am. Adam Dewitz started the thread 9/25. #twitterprint

Hurd Ushers In Change at #HP (HOQ) http://ilnk.me/11d | Printers and PC's with one boss.

Analyst sees little effect on #HP from #Xerox deal http://ilnk.me/11c | Unless IT people & office supply people become the same people.

Some of the tweets got on my radar, by following links I found at Document Solutions Daily.

Association of Retired Xerox Employees Initiate Legal Proceedings Against Xerox Corporation

Don't say that no one saw this coming. Even I did. 1442 posts ago, I questioned the idiot decisions the last administration made around the pension issues.

That was on January 1, 2009. Today this got on my radar.

WEBSTER, N.Y., Sept. 30 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Association of Retired Xerox Employees, Inc. (ARXE) has retained Counsel (Rupp, Baase, Pfalzgraf, Cunningham & Coppola LLC (David R. Pfalzgraf, Jr., Esq., and Danielle Shainbrown, Esq.) and James A. Marino, Esq., (of Counsel)) to institute legal action against Xerox Corporation, in an effort to maintain and restore health care benefits for Xerox employees and retirees.

Beginning in 2010, nearly 25 percent of Xerox retirees will be stripped of supplemental health care coverage, a promised lifetime benefit for all retirees. Xerox employees relied, worked and made retirement decisions based on Xerox's annual guarantees.

ARXE Chairman David Coriale said, "Retirees are in the disturbing and unenviable position of having to initiate litigation against their former employer to preserve the benefits promised to them for their lifetime of work.

After buying ACS, it's going to be interesting hearing what the Xerox lawyers think they are going to say in court. it would have been so much less expensive to fix this a long time ago than what it's going to cost to fix this now.