Crowd Sourced Print Centric Innovation

A couple of days ago an interesting thing happened on social media. It started on Twitter then moved to G+.

On twitter there is a group of us, @GraingerEd in Canada, @Ddrrnt in Oregon, that have been chatting over the last year or so about the problems in education. Sean Grainger (@graingered ) is a leading educator in Alberta. He did a brilliant post on Bullying. 

About a week or so ago, we seemed to have hit an inflection point. @menghe a brilliant designer joined our little band. It's an under appreciated fact that Brilliant - not pedestrian - graphic design is the defensible value.  After a couple of days of back and forth on twitter, and then a real focused conversation at G+ , Menghe presented this poster on Bullying.

If things go as planned, A printed version of this piece will be available at Jason Pinto's booth some time during Graph Expo.

Print Centric Innovation

As we chatted more about the poster Menghe did, it seems that we may have stumbled on a product that could do well while doing some good.

Another member of our little band is @Sandyhubbard . We've been having a long back and forth on Twitter about Print as the Medium of Common Sense. The fact is the Print medium is slow. It sits quietly in the background waiting for the user to engage. Unlike "social media" it does not create the expectation of a response  Now.  All you need to do is compare the image you find on this screen with a printed version available at the show to prove the point to yourself.

But the point is to do well in the service of doing good.

The format of the image should enable non profit organizations to get their message out and still allow magazines to earn money from placing the ad. Each of the twitter persona and QR should be easy to sell to corporations also trying to do well. If the charge for an ad is $2000, each position could be sold for a minimum of $500 or more. 

Do well. Do good. is the best way to integrate social media into Print. 

Stay tuned for more Print Centric Innovations to #HelpPrintThrive.

UPDATE: Sept 15

It turned out that things broke just the right way.  @raffel stepped up to get us through the last mile at the show. The other piece was quick response from @HPIndigo. Short story it was printed at GraphExpo yesterday. For the non printing nerds, GraphExpo is the biggest Print Industry show in the USA... at least for now.

 It says to me that Crowd Sourced Design can be couple with Crowd Sourced Manufacturing. Of course this is a tiny example, depending an the caring of many individuals.

But it seems to me it demonstrates what is now becoming possible.

Moved to Twitter and Print in the Communication Ecology blog

Since I started this blog I've used it to gather data points to help me clarify what I think are the next steps for Print. Around the end of March 2010, I found that twitter is a better tool for that purpose.

If you're interested in my blabla or my 2¢ you can find me at @ToughLoveforX I'm now focused on Print in the Communications Ecology.

{ The following was originally posted March 13, 2010 }
Yesterday I got an email from an on the ground printer in the States.

She said:
I had been wondering about the lack of input from you lately (you used to be EVERYWHERE!) – glad to be getting your tweets!

I said:
Thanks for the email. "EVERYWHERE?" yikes! Can you imagine what is was like back in the day working with me. I never shut up.

A short explanation about the blog . From where I sit, I really do think the "tipping point" has been reached in Print and from here on in, much less panic and much more money. Hooray!
But it's a bit less interesting as the pieces fall back into place. My real passion as you might be able to tell from my tweets is education. Primarily in the creation of at risk kids in really broken high schools. As an example the average grad rate in NYC is 63% and people look upon that as a great victory.

The thing about education is NOT about feel good. It's about making money for printers who get it. Marketing for globals is a loser because the margins are so low and will continue to be so low. At the local level there's more opp, but with the competition from on line and the chains - Alpha, Staples, etc. the margins are going to stay tight.

Right now there is a huge amount of money being poured into education. Also a huge disruption is going on in that market that opens up opportunities for smaller, faster, smarter printers.

Lots of commercial people think I'm all about the feel good. Suffice it to say that one of the reasons I was able to retire was by investing in print related companies. Just as examples, in the last year Consolidated is up 125%, McClatchey newspapers up 800%, Gannett up 300%, Oce up around 100%. When I say print ain't dead, my data points are the stock prices.

Seth Goodin and the Printernet

Seth Godin " There's room in the market for 100,000 profitable micro-magazines" http://ilnk.me/275d >Biz case for printernet.

• Having a very specific audience (call it a tribe)
• Enabling that tribe to connect by sharing the ideas in the magazine among them, as well as supporting it with a forum or blog
• Containing ads that are relevant to that audience
• Being longer than 140 characters or even a blog post, so significant ideas can be exposed in detail

There's room in the market for 100,000 profitable micro-magazines. Why not have one about Aruba, for example? If all the people who vacation in Aruba could read about the island in detail every month, read about restaurants, resorts and politics, for free, in an easy to share format... Multiply this by every destination, every interest group, every type of profession (how about a micro-magazine for ethnobiologists?)

#Printernet is massively parallel manufacture of Print output. 50,000,000+ Print pieces w/a minimal carbon footprint. http://ilnk.me/27d1

“Massive parallel manufacturing with standards-based interfaces, real time production information and easy access for everyone. Each printer — the combination of the machinery and the intelligence that manages the machinery — is a print output node. Each node is both part of the network and self-sufficient. When the nodes are working together mass customization of print product becomes commonplace at previously impossible speeds and quantities.”

So what's up with PrintCafe? Not pretty it seems.

So yesterday I got this tweet from EliotNessCyLab

@ToughLoveforX The 'rest of the story' about Printcafe: www.PrintcafeSecuritiesFraud.com

Then this morning I got an email. A section of it is reproduced below:

1) The victims of the Printcafe securities fraud were:

a) Creo which lost between $75 and $100 million and was attacked by Cenveo's Bob Burton (who gobbled up Banta instead), [Creo chose suicide-by-Kodak rather than suicide- by-Cenveo],

b) the former owners of the acquired software companies -- Hagen, Logic, Printsmith, PSI -- who were shortchanged by $51 million when PCAF shares were split 66:1,

c) the career employees who built the aforementioned companies, HUNDREDS of whom lost their careers as PCAF had to slash and burn as it abandoned the successful software products and pursued "e-commerce" that did not exist,

d) ALL printers nationwide, who lost the benefits of competition as Printcafe/EFI formed a virtual monopoly, (a monopoly even more complete now that EFI has gobbled up ePACE),

e) ALL printers nationwide, who endured higher prices and diminished service from Printcafe/EFI,

f) the public and private investors who had lost a grand total of $250 million (that's one-quarter of a BILLION) by the year 2003 when PCAF imploded (and only got about $50 million back from EFI),

g) the Aileron hedge fund investors who never heard about the Printcafe fraud from the printing industry's 'journalists' and therefore invested with Guttman,

h) Carnegie Mellon which never heard about the Printcafe fraud from the printing industry's 'journalists' and therefore hired Guttman and has retained him lo these many years.

It's money with the wrong dna. (originally posted May 25,2009)

Funny money thinks it has all the answers. It forgets that its replication is based on a rising market and its arrogance on a short memory. If something crashes it's usually because "the economy is blablabla." If money gets burned in the Print space, it's because "the internet balabala and the End of Print." That's why Cenveo closed Anderson, that's why Boundary Capital is closing outlets all over the UK and why Zell took the Tribune into bankruptcy.

Meanwhile David Black is doing very nicely with newspapers in Southwest Canada/Northwest USA and The Color Company just replaced Fedex Kinko's in London and is also growing nicely.

In the States we have this thing about "Go West! Young Man." Maybe the Color Company should "Go North!" They could pick through the debris and find those smart, ever resilient, persistent Printers and click them on to their printernet. Then they could move to Australasia and do the same. Then maybe they could give AlphaGraphics a real run for their money in the States.

Then they could both fight it out with our homegrown good guys to see who will be the Starbucks of the Printernet.

"Earning" money by getting transaction fees from your VARs may work in finance. It's not sustainable in the real economy. Earning money from your VARs through value given, value received transactions is a different business model.

The End of Print? Hah! More likely it's the end of Funny Money poking it's nose into places it doesn't belong.

Prontaprint accused of supplier 'kickbacks'
@ comment posted at printweek.com

"Firms that want to supply Prontaprint had better be careful.

If anybody from Boundary Capital or ODC rings you up and says 'you can supply our franchisees but you'll have to grease our palms first, by the way your not allowed to speak to anyone about it' just remember that the guys that pay the bills namely the franchisees won't touch you with a bargepole if they find out about it. If we find out your doing it already we'll tell each other. Kickbacks mean WE HAVE TO PAY MORE. Be careful what you get yourselves into.

We want to deal with firms that don't give kickbacks.

Time for a change. In the Blog and in Print.

{ Originally posted March 13, 2009 }
If you're interested in my blabla or my 2¢ you can find me at @ToughLoveforX
I'm now focused on Print in the Communications Ecology.

Yesterday I got an email from an on the ground printer in the States.

She said:
I had been wondering about the lack of input from you lately (you used to be EVERYWHERE!) – glad to be getting your tweets!

I said:
Thanks for the email. "EVERYWHERE?" yikes! Can you imagine what is was like back in the day working with me. I never shut up.

A short explanation about the blog . From where I sit, I really do think the "tipping point" has been reached in Print and from here on in, much less panic and much more money. Hooray!
But it's a bit less interesting as the pieces fall back into place. My real passion as you might be able to tell from my tweets is education. Primarily in the creation of at risk kids in really broken high schools. As an example the average grad rate in NYC is 63% and people look upon that as a great victory.

The thing about education is NOT about feel good. It's about making money for printers who get it. Marketing for globals is a loser because the margins are so low and will continue to be so low. At the local level there's more opp, but with the competition from on line and the chains - Alpha, Staples, etc. the margins are going to stay tight.

Right now there is a huge amount of money being poured into education. Also a huge disruption is going on in that market that opens up opportunities for smaller, faster, smarter printers.

Lots of commercial people think I'm all about the feel good. Suffice it to say that one of the reasons I was able to retire was by investing in print related companies. Just as examples, in the last year Consolidated is up 125%, McClatchey newspapers up 800%, Gannett up 300%, Oce up around 100%. When I say print ain't dead, my data points are the stock prices.

The Textbook Medium is The Message Of High School Education in the States

The inconvenient truth is that in High School education in the States approved textbooks supply the standards for education.

There is no longer any doubt in my mind that textbooks are now entering the tipping point into something new. It seems that education is traveling along the same trajectory.

Our usual focus is on the textbook as print. Today let's take a look at the political economy of education in the service of getting a more nuanced view.

In Rhode Island

All teachers fired at R.I. school. Will that happen elsewhere? { CSM http://ilnk.me/1c08 }

All teachers fired at R.I. school. { CSM http://ilnk.me/1c08 } "This will be a canary in the coal mine,”

Rhode Island is now ground zero for reforming America’s worst-performing schools { CSM http://ilnk.me/1c08 }

The game changer is

US Secretary of #Education Arne Duncan applauded the Rhode Island decision this week." { CSM http://ilnk.me/1c08 } about 3 hours ago

in Texas:

Texas "House Bill 2488 – the “open source” #textbook bill – is a watershed piece of legislation" http://ilnk.me/1bf6

Open Source” Textbooks Are Reason for Grave Concern in Texas http://ilnk.me/1bf6 ( The Political Economy of #Education)

The game changer

Open Source” #Textbooks Are Reason for Grave Concern in Texas http://ilnk.me/1bf6 --> " weakening the duties of the Board,"

If you still can't get clarity on one future for textbooks . . .

It's now clear to everyone that textbooks in their present form are over. A bit like a zombie bank waiting to be reorganized. Here's one example of what's next.

Remixable textbooks by expert authors. Free online and affordable offline. http://ilnk.me/1bc2 me: Read for Free. Pay for Print. Go Print !

1,000 students 30 schools in Spring '09; 40,000 students 400 colleges in the fall 2009 used free Flat World textbooks http://ilnk.me/1bc1

I bet if you did the growth chart it would look like a hockey stick.

IBM + Ricoh v Xerox v HP v ?? for MPS

Came across this piece this AM. So now it's IBM + Ricoh and Xerox(ACS) and HP. Wonder how Canon(Oce) is responding.

In any case it's all good for print. And my print-centric IRA.

IBM and Ricoh combine to help reduce print-related costs | TradingMarkets.com:

"IT company
IBM (NYSE: IBM PowerRating) and Ricoh (Nasdaq-OTCBB: RICOY PowerRating), a printer manufacturer, announced yesterday that they have partnered to develop an advanced device and printing management system which offers organisations the opportunity to reduce their costs and improve service availability."

What's up with Appleton Coated, NewPage, Sappi trying to get higher tariffs on Chinese paper.

To be clear all the info below comes from folks who represent Asia Pulp & Paper, the leading exporter of coated paper from China and Indonesia. It's fair to say they have skin in the game. But I consider the source and then see what makes sense to me.

To me it sounds like a couple of companies are trying to protect their market. That's not a problem. If I were a big company I would do the same thing. They do it because it's good for their company. If I were a shareholder that's precisely what I would expect.

But, please. No bullshit about good for America. Getting the United Steel Workers to join their suit, makes tactical sense, but give me a break.

Anyways here's what's on my radar so far.

The U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) is investigating accusations that Chinese and Indonesian paper makers have received unfair subsidies from their governments and dumped certain types of coated paper on the U.S. market. The DOC will issue an important preliminary decision on subsidies on March 1

Over at Dead Tree Editions Blog ,whose insights and info I've grown to respect. He says:

If you think prices for coated paper have declined a lot recently, hang on to your hats. A bigger drop may be just around the corner.

I'm not sure about Appleton and NewPage but am told that

"Sappi is a South African multinational corporation. Sappi is gearing up operations in Asia, while it is closing plants in the U.S.

Of course there is the whining about subsidies for foreign paper. I don't have the details handy, but I'm pretty sure my readers remember the tax credits the paper companies got from the fed for smart business decisions to take advantage of the rules.

To get the full story, Dead Tree does a serious rundown at Both Sides in Asian-Paper Debate Are Lobbying U.S. Printers

U.S. industry received about $9 billion in black liquor credits during 2009. NewPage and SAPPI received more than $400 million last year in black liquor credits, which critics claim is an abuse of a program that was intended to encourage production of new, environmentally friendly fuels.

I have no problem with the companies. They are supposed to play by the rules to maximize shareholder value. I do however, have lots of problems with a Congress that make rules without a full consideration of the unintended consequences.

Bottom line is this kind of using the government to protect margins and markets really has to stop. It's what got us into the trouble we are in.

For the more reasoned and nuanced explanation, I suggest a read through Super Capitalism by Robert Reich. or you can watch a 10 minute vid here or the 60 minute video here.

No more bullshit at Xerox. Ursula M. Burns in the New York Times

In 1969, Neil Postman made a presentation at the National Convention for the Teachers of English [NCTE], November 28, 1969, Washington, D.C.. The title is "Bullshit and the Art of Crap-Detection"

From what I think I see, Ursula M Burns knows all about it.

Xerox’s New Chief Tries to Redefine Its Culture

“Terminal niceness,” is how she describes an aspect of Xerox’s culture, during her all-hands speech. “We are really, really, really nice.”

Maybe the “Xerox family,” she says, should act a bit more like a real family.

“When we’re in the family, you don’t have to be as nice as when you’re outside of the family,” she says. “I want us to stay civil and kind, but we have to be frank — and the reason we can be frank is because we are all in the same family.”

Nods of recognition ripple across the audience.

“We know it. We know what we do,” she continues, describing meetings where some people present and others just listen. “And then the meeting ends, and we leave and go, ‘Man, that wasn’t true.’ I’m like, ‘Why didn’t you say that in the meeting?’ ”

Why I wish HP would spin off the Print piece.

I got to the following by following links from my ChangeForge daily email alert.

From ONN.TV

A look at HP’s quarterly numbers, by division

Hewlett-Packard Co.’s 25-percent jump in net income in its November-January quarter was driven by better numbers in most of the technology company’s major divisions. Here are some highlights on those divisions:

– Services: Revenue slipped 1 percent to $8.7 billion. Operating profit rose 27 percent to $1.4 billion.

– Printers and ink (Imaging and Printing Group): Revenue rose 4 percent to $6.2 billion. Revenue from ink and other supplies was up 1 percent. Ink is one of HP’s biggest moneymakers. The division’s operating profit was flat at $1.1 billion.

– Computer servers and storage (Enterprise Storage and Servers): Revenue rose 11 percent to $4.4 billion. Operating profit rose 36 percent to $552 million.

– Personal computers (Personal Systems Group): Revenue increased 20 percent to $10.6 billion. Operating profit jumped 22 percent to $530 million.

– Software: Revenue was flat at $878 million. Operating profit rose 19 percent to $167 million

– Financial services: Revenue increased 13 percent to $719 million.

Printers and Ink ( Imaging and Printing Group) are the wrong buckets. I don't know much about the ink business, but my bet is that margins are only going lower. On a global scale it might turn out to continue to be the great cash generator as before. If I had to bet on it, I wouldn't.

But the presence of the Indigo and now the digital web presses say to me that HP may have a very defensible position in the under appreciated Print industry. Suffice it to say that my Print-centric IRA is well over 100% up since I started managing it about a year ago.

If HP gave me a way to invest in the Print piece instead of all the other complicated opaque (2me) businesses, it would be grand.

Another step towards a Robust Printernet. Press Sense gets new CEO.

The quote from the Press Release:

“With growing demand for Business Flow Automation throughout the marketplace, our intensified focus upon this critical region is paramount to our worldwide success,” notes Press-sense CEO Shlomo Ben David. “Amir’s extensive sales and executive management experience compliments our growth strategy and is a valuable addition to our management team. We anticipate his impact will accentuate our results in these regions. ”

Amir's dna is from IT not Print.

Amir Rosentuler’s experience is evidence of a results-driven management executive with more than 20 years experience in sales management and business development. With more than 10 years with NASDAQ software companies, he has exhibited strong P&L management, and cross-company strategic project management skills. Prior to Press-sense, Amir was the General Manager and Vice President of International Sales for Magic Software (a leader in enterprise application development and integration software) where he constructed and implemented their new turnaround strategy.

Amir also held several senior positions in IBM, and several senior management positions in Novell, as well as senior sales management and channel distribution management positions at Computer Associates.

IT dna is precisely what's needed to pull together a stable, resilient Printernet.

“Massive parallel manufacturing with standards-based interfaces, real time production information and easy access for everyone. Each printer — the combination of the machinery and the intelligence that manages the machinery — is a print output node. Each node is both part of the network and self-sufficient. When the nodes are working together mass customization of print product becomes commonplace at previously impossible speeds and quantities.”

Com Color v Color Qube. I'm thinking Com Color for Education

No real information about the Color Cube has gotten on my radar. Not sure what that means, but ComColor does keep popping up.

I pay attention when I see a tweet from @artpost

Riso ComColor Review http://bit.ly/1bfBlB

Which got me to Art's print4pay Hotel's "MFP Solutions Blog." I decided not to put in any snippets, as it's a short post and a very good read.

Instead I would like to share my tweets, which I hope will allow you to see what I'm seeing.

"To me the ComColor's mantra should be "Print Shop in Box", ( http://ilnk.me/1ab2 @Artpost ) Congrats to @RisoPrinter

"a 32 page booklet (saddle stitched) in about 30 seconds" ( http://ilnk.me/1ab2 @Artpost ) 30 kids x 30 secs = 15 minutes for textbooklets.

32 full color booklets x $.035 per page = $ 1.12 for a 1 to 1 textbooklet for at risk middle schoolers from @RisoPrinter http://ilnk.me/1ab2

Gosh I wish HP were a pure play on Print

The thing is it's too complicated for my IRA. Print centric has been doing just fine and as they say "focus, focus, focus."

Anyway, just one more datapoint on how HP could be a Printernet all by itself. The money phrase

industry’s largest personal publishing ecosystem

HP Press Kit: HP at PMA 2010
"At the 2010 Photo Marketing Association (PMA) tradeshow, HP is showcasing new digital photography and personal publishing solutions designed to accelerate the analog to digital transformation of the photo industry.

With the industry’s largest personal publishing ecosystem, HP and its solutions help retailers and print service providers to profitably grow their photo offerings and enable consumers to capture and access dynamic content where they want, when they want, how they want – and bring it to life through the power of print."

I bet IPEX is when Print tips. Have you read today's post at OutputLinks?

Frequent visitors to the blog know that I think the tipping point has already passed. But I'm just a blogger, so what do I really know. On the other hand, my print centric IRA has been doing just fine, so at the end of the day, what do I really care.

Anyway, this morning I got to see the Andy and Julie Plata talking about IPEX at OutputLinks.
Here's the link:

My personal fav snippet is:

a seminar area for 30 national and international not-for-profit organizations to exhibit at the event.

To me it says that there is a small, but gathering consensus that the growth path for the industry is not marketing to sell more widgets. Rather it is using the awesome power of Print to do well by doing good.

Just a few of the many other money snippets follow:

All the presenters seemed to be preparing their exhibits with the expected better economic conditions for 2010 in mind.

In fact Ipex 2010 will be the world’s largest English speaking print conference. It takes place every four years and will attract visitors from over 160 countries and exhibitors from almost 40 countries to Birmingham, UK.

A good “ignition indicator” was exhibitors like Océ, Pitney Bowes, Canon, HP, Fujifilm, Ricoh and Konica Minolta who had dramatically increased the size of their booths over the 2006 Conference.

Another “ignition indicator” is the fact that the show is almost 95% sold!

Program like the My Ipex, the Great Print Debates, the Printer’s Profit Zone, and the Knowledge Center are good examples of no-charge programs that will enhance the visitor experience.

Somebody really should get in touch with Amy Halford at Best Buy

The other day I was in town and passed a Best Buy. I noticed a poster with a QR code in the window. This morning I found Best Buy reveals mobile strategy - Mobile Commerce Daily .

Mobile Commerce Daily’s Giselle Tsirulnik interviewed Amy Halford, senior digital brand manager of interactive marketing and emerging media, Richfield, MN. Here is what she had to say.

First the money paragraph.

Multichannel integration and measurement are the two biggest challenges. Mapping out our organization’s entire digital ecosystem and taking advantage of all the touch points in a relevant way is very challenging both in its size and complexity.

Amy doesn't need to be educated. She gets it. Just help her solve her problem.

Other snippets follow:

It’s very easy to be distracted by shiny objects, but if you stay grounded on delivering against the customer’s need, regardless of the technology employed, there’s a greater likelihood for success.

Our chief marketing officer is a self proclaimed “noisy advocate” for the mobile platform. We see mobile as not only a commerce opportunity but an opportunity to learn more about our customers and serve them better across the enterprise. Our approach is to test frequently, learn quickly, and scale appropriately.

We also recognize the 1:1 opportunity of the mobile channel and as we develop that capability, mobile is a key means for allowing customers to get more customized messaging and offers should they choose to do so.

We have built several SMS subscription databases including our Best Buy Deal of the Week, which we promote and send each week in both English and Spanish.

To support our stores at a local level, we’re executing a district-level SMS pilot enabling those stores to send news, alerts, events & offers specific to their store – to the customers that shop in their store.

Anyone else notice that Kodak closed over $6 last week. How come?

Since about October EK has been sitting at around $4 while the other printernet stocks have been moving nicely upward. But starting around the January 25 on unusual volume it got to $6.94. Since then it retreated to $6.08 on Friday. Clearly something's up.

My take is that the KKR dna is starting to manifest. The defensible value going forward for Kodak is photos, not printing. Kodak Gallery has many millions of users who have stored high resolution images on the web. These are the people who created "The Kodak Moment."

On January 14th, Gail Nickel-Kailing continued the convo at Print CEO about a possible Kodak Heidelberg deal.
Although much of the focus was on the NexPress, I said, "

Just last month the Prosper has finally come to market with the first announced deal by Consolidated in Texas. If the TOC and price points that Kodak has announced for the Prosper bear out, it could well become the low cost ink jet web output machine on the street.

Consider what a Kodak/Heidelberg deal might mean on the offset side. Kodak’s Prinergy seems to now be focused on seamless workflow from offset to the Prosper.

Given Kodak’s lead in the offset workflow and Heidelberg’s lead in the offset output device it sounds like a synergy to me.

Today Kodak rolls out ambitious plans for mobile appears at Mobile Marketer.
My favorite snippet is

Since December 2009, consumers have been able to use their mobile devices to interact with the Kodak Times Square billboard in New York City.

This is a one-of-kind experience in Times Square. Consumers can email a photo to Kodak@aerva.com, and once the photo is approved, they’ll receive a second email containing a code.

When they’re ready to see their picture on the big screen, they simply text the code to the number provided and the photo will appear at the next opportunity.

Full disclosure : Long Kodak.

More on textbooks :Nokia, Pearson partner for mobile education program in China.

Telco expansion is a powerful engine of new growth. (FYI the other one is a resugrent Auto Industry. Notice what happened to Sirius the last couple of days? )

My bet is that as soon as a Print global makes the telco connection, my portfolio will be even happier than it's been this last year and the high school dropout problem will be solved much sooner, rather than later.

In any case, here's another data point from today. Keep in mind that Nokia has, I believe, 40% of the global handset market and Pearson is Pearson.

Nokia, Pearson partner for mobile education program - Mobile Marketer - Content:
"The two companies partnered to help the Mobiledu education program appeal to more consumers. Nokia said that it believes the combination of Pearson’s content and its Mobiledu service will offer an even more compelling proposition for customers and partners in the future.

Since its launch, in 2007 Mobiledu has attracted 20 million subscribers in China, with 1.5 million people actively using the service each month."

iPad, shmiPad "students remain big fans of printed books"

In today's Wall Street Journal there's a story about most of the big textbook publishers getting religion . . again. The silly meme is that Print is Dead. This time it plays out with the iPad. Full story:

Major textbook publishers have struck deals with software company ScrollMotion Inc. to adapt their textbooks for the electronic page, as the industry embraces a hope that digital devices such as Apple Inc.'s iPad will transform the classroom.

Not surprisingly, the usual cast of characters are moving together.

"People have been talking about the impact of technology on education for 25 years. It feels like it is really going to happen in 2010," said Rik Kranenburg, group president of higher education for the education unit of McGraw-Hill Cos. and one of the publishers involved in the project.

Other publishers include Houghton Mifflin Harcourt K-12, which is a unit of Education Media & Publishing Group Ltd.; Pearson PLC's Pearson Education, and Washington Post Co.'s Kaplan Inc., known for its test-prep and study guides.

But there is an inconvenient truth.

Maureen McMahon, president of Kaplan Publishing, said a recent Kaplan study showed that students remain big fans of printed books but that they would be more receptive to e-textbooks on portable digital devices.

The problem with textbooks is not that they are printed. The problem is they are too slow and expensive. Like many globals, they ignore the facts and buzz substitutes for reality. Best guess is that Kaplan will figure it out first. They generate most of the profit for the Washington Post anyways.

Consider study guides with QR codes instead of textbooks.
Plus you can get all those great analytics. Plus you can print it out on your MFP and take it to the local coffee shop to discuss with your friends.