Does Riso Kagaku Corporation trade in the States? They should be in my printernet portfolio.

The thing is that after looking around a bit, it seems they only trade in Japan. Since I'm just an amateur I don't trade in Japan. It's hard enough separating the signal from the noise in the States. So, if anyone has some advice, please let me know. ADR perhaps?

Why am I interested?
First because it seems a "printernet portfolio" is not a terrible idea. Check out the sidebar. Since the first of the year, my picks have delivered over 75%. And second, David Murphy from RISO took the time to point me to their YouTube channel, on a Saturday afternoon, no less.

Plus I love the Teacher Tools that No Teacher Should be Without. All you have to do is add the right content and some smart QR, and poof! A school can buy Professional Development for the price of a MFP.

Meanwhile, the video is much better than anything I've seen at Xerox, HP or anyone else as of today. Should be an interesting Print '09.

My not so humble advice is
that they get in touch with CGX and print a gezillion clickable postcards to take every prospect on the planet to this video. Then get CodeZ QRs to get all the data about who took the time to click on the video. Then give those names to the field force within a day of when they clicked.

Or if someone has the brain space, customize each mailing for each rep. Then save all the postage and print them on RISO boxes in the first place. It's show, not tell kind of thing.

What I think I learned this morning at Twitter about Printernet Publishing and getting to zero cost Professional Development.

I'm trying to figure out how to create a zero cost Professional Development product for High School Ed, first in the States, and then be able to scale world wide.

I hate the high cost of PD that is widely regarded as less than useless. While there are some offerings that make sense, most of them are ways to look like something is happening, without anything really happening.

It's a "busy, being busy" situation that gives the appearance of something useful. Meanwhile, our school systems are under sever strain.

My hypothesis is the #clickableprint( print + Smart #QR) that is #printernet published could solve the Professional Development problem while giving our Print industry a large previously un addressed market. It could add defensible value to MPS offerings and create a steady stream of work for PSPs.

At any rate, I'm starting to use twitter to do my research and think through how this might work.

An edited selection of this morning's tweets from ToughLoveforX, follow:

@kokh Unfortunately, I never learned to read Russian. But , consider #printernet published #clickableprint. Xerox in Russia would love it.
about 1 hour ago from web

RT @VOQS great nwslter system ! http://bit.ly/28Zmrr Me: RSS to Email nwslter to Print nwslter to #Clickableprint newsletter. ya think?
about 1 hour ago from web

Sustainable Communications at The Hannover Consultancy (UK) http://bit.ly/1L67g Me: sustainable ed? zero cost Profl. Dev? education = HR.
about 1 hour ago from web

Newspaper Archives http://bit.ly/4bQ79x in #clickableprint #printernet published=1 part of free Professional Development for HS #education.
16 minutes ago from web

Newspaper Archives has the right tools for teachers. http://bit.ly/3WdBcD But teachers don't want PDF. They want paper to hand out.
12 minutes ago from web

Doctors, health care groups use Twitter to reach public. Twitterstreams in #clickableprint?

The problem with tweets is that they have a half life of minutes. If printer streams are published at the MFP or the CRD or the PSP, Twitter-streams-in-print solves that problem.

Doctors, health care groups use Twitter to reach public:
"Dr. Rahul Parikh, a pediatrician at Kaiser Permanente in Walnut Creek, decided Twitter would enable him to point his patients to reliable information so ``they wouldn't get worried unnecessarily.''

He used Twitter to send links to Web-based articles about swine flu that he found enlightening. He also informed patients of Kaiser flu clinics and let the patients know when he would be out of the office.

His 59 followers did not learn about his personal life. ``I don't think people would find it that interesting that I'm working out,'' he said.

Parikh has told his patients not to tweet him with person medical questions because of privacy concerns. Such questions are best handled through private e-mails, he said.

Parikh, though, does believe Twitter can be an important tool to help empower patients to make better decisions about their health care. He recently posted links to information about sunscreen, bathtub accidents that injure 43,000 children a year, and surprising medical myths."

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation could use printernet published #clickableprint.

Email newsletters are the low hanging fruit.

Imagine the following copy on an A4 with Smart QR. Delivered by the USPS in "If it fits, it ships" boxes to community health centers around the country. Then imagine doing it every week. A couple of million A4's delivered in two days, with a minimal carbon footprint.

RWJF News Digest: Childhood Obesity

This frequently updated news digest on the subject of Childhood Obesity highlights key articles from major journals and news publications. The digest is a free service of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, by The Advisory Board Company.

Report Suggests Unsafe Neighborhood Increases Likelihood of Overweight Among Urban Teens
A study published in the online journal Public Health suggests that adolescents who live in an urban neighborhood that feels unsafe may be more likely to be overweight, Reuters reports.

Report Suggests Most Parents Dissatisfied with Availability of Healthy Food Choices at Child's School
In a recent survey by the University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, only one-third of parents gave their children’s public schools an “A” grade for offering healthy food choices, according to AnnArbor.com.

Wisconsin Coalition Launches Walk-to-School Program for Local Schools
The Coulee Region Childhood Obesity Coalition in Wisconsin has announced plans to launch a week-long effort designed to encourage more children to walk or bike to school, WKBT La Crosse reports.

Nevada School District to Participate in HHS Childhood Obesity Study
Nevada’s Lyon County School District is one of a number of school districts nationwide to elect to participate in a new childhood obesity study being led by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Dayton Courier reports.

Florida State University Receives $75,000 RWJF Grant to Study Obesity in Latino Children
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has awarded a two-year, $75,000 grant to Florida State University (FSU) College of Medicine, which will enable a researcher to study how rural clinics and school health programs inform Latino parents about their children’s weight, the American Chronicle reports.

Pennsylvania Department of Education Awards Funding to Support Childhood Obesity Prevention Efforts
The Pennsylvania Department of Education has awarded $5,000 grants to 40 middle schools statewide to support their efforts to address childhood obesity, the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader reports.

© 2009 The Advisory Board Company. All rights reserved.

Oops! for the hometeam: HP Takes Top Spot from Xerox in Global MPS Market Share -

Might be time for X to consider education printernets and Google-apps for MPS and a bunch of other stuff.

Photizo: HP Takes Top Spot from Xerox in Global MPS Market Share -
HP’s Enterprise Printing Blog -:

>Photizo Group an industry analyst firm focused on the Managed Print Services market, announced,

What’s more, Photizo Group’s 2009 MPS Market Forecast Report revealed that the MPS market is expanding dramatically. No surprise to us at HP.

The Photizo Stats:
The MPS market will be more than $50B by 2013, and more than 50 percent of all devices will be under MPS contract.
HP has overtaken Xerox as leader in the global MPS sector in 2008, with a 34 percent share of global market.

Do customers care about vendor market share? Yes. Market share figures are an important piece of the puzzle as companies busy sketching out their MPS strategy begin to arm themselves with all the data they can find about the space.

Twitter to Blog to . . .Printernet Published #clickablePRINT?

After 35 years in the game, I no longer have to "get to work." Since my day job is managing my IRA and it's hard to stay asleep after about 5:30 am EDT and there is no one is around to talk to, I dip into the twitter stream.

I thought it might be interesting-to-you what I found interesting-to-me. I edited down the list to Education and Printernet related tweets.

Education:

. requirement for “certification” . the prospects accept mentoring by the best teachers in the school." Patrick Welsh http://bit.ly/2KdAOy
about 3 hours ago from web

"The Ed.D. and Other Certification Charades". by Patrick Welsh at NYT blog about #education. http://bit.ly/2KdAOyabout
3 hours ago from web

“Taxonomies are dead. Long live metadata!" http://ow.ly/lEwB Nice example of a vigorous debate. Too bad it's not available in Print.
about 3 hours ago from web

Print in the Communication Ecology

Noel Ward: So Miyakoshi builds the press and Océ does the controller. http://bit.ly/1609al
about 2 hours ago from web

ME: Is there a difference btwn CrystalPoint solid toner and Color Cube? see Noel Ward, pt 3 interview with #Oce http://bit.ly/1609al
about 2 hours ago from web

Watching Bloomberg..7:11 EDT. good talk about media biz.
about 3 hours ago from web

RT@BSURVEILLANCE This morning on #SURV: Moffett, Wolff, Gregory, Boockvar, Biggs, Stephanopoulos, Loeb, Wittmann, and Bloomberg's Al Hunt
about 3 hours ago from web

Craig Moffet said " anywhere TV" seems reasonable" biz model. Me: anywhere/time TV means anywhere/anytime Print. Go printernet!
about 3 hours ago from web

Moffet: twitter is the domain of old folks like me. 50 somethings are not all that different from 18 to 24's
about 2 hours ago from web

Fox "Cable TV is the juggernaut of the next couple of years?" Moffet, "yes."
about 2 hours ago from web

Michael Wolfe: Poltico v WaPo Head count : 75 vs 500 reporters. "Can a news organization be all things to all people as they once were?"
about 2 hours ago from web

Wolfe:TV. Cable is not a media biz. Wolfe: "problem is when you become a utility biz". Me: that's a feature, not a bug.
about 2 hours ago from web

Moffet: "The Death of Long Form" Me: reading was always a niche market, The good news is that it's growing. Print is for long form reading.
about 2 hours ago from web

via @Greg Walters "Now IS The Time for Managed Print Services - Hardware Sales Down as Much as 30% by Year End" http://bit.ly/40ENca #MPS
about 2 hours ago from web

Anyone else notice that Kodak is 5.10 this morning?

Go Printernet! 'Nuff said.

Full Disclosure: Long EK.

The Economist does an article on 2d Codes! It ain't just QR.

The still haven't gotten the story about smart QR that delivers clickstreams, but it's only a matter of time. I still like clickable print better than "snapable print." Easier to say. But whatever you call it, the chances got a lot better that printernet published clickable print is the next big thing for print.

Reading bar codes with mobile phones: Snap it, click it, use it
Aug 20th 2009 | SEATTLE
From The Economist print edition

Bar codes, then, could be on the point of breaking out of their native environment. It has been a long and curious journey from the supermarket checkout.
. . .
The codes made by JAGTAG, of Princeton, New Jersey, for example, can be photographed using a camera phone and then sent to a messaging service that analyses the code and sends back appropriate information. Sports Illustrated used the JAGTAG system when it sent its readers those extra images of swimsuit models, and the system has also been used to advertise Nike, Sony and a restaurant chain called Qdoba.

. . . "In America and Europe, three types of bar code, called QR Code, Data Matrix and Ezcode, are likely to become common. The first two are free, open standards. Ezcode is owned by a New York-based firm called Scanbuy, but it, too, is available free, for general purposes. The firm behind it makes its money by charging advertisers and publishers when people use it.

In July three mobile-phone operators in Spain—Orange, Telefónica and Vodafone—agreed to load software that recognises Ezcode. Scanbuy has also signed a deal with two Danish operators and two in South America. In the United States, a Samsung mobile phone, the Exclaim, has become the first to be sold with Scanbuy’s program already loaded.

Meanwhile a Swiss software firm called Kaywa has been collaborating with Welt Kompakt, a condensed version of Die Welt, one of Germany’s leading newspapers, to run QR Codes next to articles. It has also developed software for SBB, the Swiss Federal Railway, so that passengers can scan 2-D bar codes on trains and at stations to call up timetables.

read the full story at | The Economist:

Clickable A4 for Flat World Knowledge. E- newsletters are a low hanging fruit.

All you have to do is ad the TinyPurls and Smart QR. Then use USPS to send 350 each to 200 Flat World Knowledge users. Reward them with credits for the print stuff. 70,000 leaflets on the street in a day or two, with a minimal carbon footprint with a $960 distribution cost. Plus all that data from the click streams.


Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Students are Saving $3 Million!

Thank you for all of your support over the past year. We've gone from 30 schools and 1,000 students this past spring, to 430 schools and 40,000 students this fall, using Flat World textbooks!

This means students and their families will save nearly $3 million on textbooks this semester. This makes us proud, and BUSY.

Read all about it in Read Write Web, Wired, BNET, VentureBeat, Information Week, and ZD Net.

New Authors and Textbooks!

We're still expanding our textbook offerings. Last newsletter we told you about a new Genetics text, Sociology text, and Geographic Information Systems text. We haven't stopped...by Summer 2010 we project having 50 titles in development. Check out our newest signings below:

Introduction to Psychology by Charles Stangor
College Success by Bruce Biederwell, Thomas J. Lochhaas, Linda Tse, and Nicholas B. deKanter
Career Success by Sheila Curran, Thomas J. Lochhaas, and Nicholas B. deKanter
Business Ethics by James Brusseau

Want to author a textbook? Know someone who should? Learn more about what we look for in a Flat World author on our new author page.

(Shiny) New Website!

We updated the website. Take a look around. It's cool, but what's super cool are all of the ways to stay on top of what we're doing at Flat World.

Check out the Blog (Scott McLean welcomes everyone back this week). Subscribe to our RSS feed. Follow us on Twitter. Become our Fan on Facebook.

Pick your favorite social media outlet, and bring us along.

More on Why I'm long on CGX

Gail Nickel-Kailing at WhatTheyThink started a new series today. Based on the first in the series, it's going to save me a fortune of time. Maybe some of the Wall Street Analysts will start following Print, since Gail is doing all the hard work.

"August 26th, 2009 we’re launching a series of profiles to look at some of the public companies in the graphic arts industry. Based on SEC filings, including quarterly and annual reports and proxy filings, we’ll track on the vicissitudes of commerce, the ups and downs, that challenge these companies."

Some snippets that caught my eye.

CGX prints a lot of election materials.

Gross profit for 2009 was actually 5 percentage points better than in 2008, reaching 80.2% of sales in 2009,

Joe Davis, President and CEO, and the Board of Directors took a voluntary 15% pay cut and the executive management team took a 10% cut.

Selling expenses dropped 5 percentage points.

Consolidated’s companies maintain their own sales, customer service, estimating and planning, prepress, production and accounting departments,

Consolidated’s corporate staff provides support for human resources, purchasing, internal financial controls design and management information systems to it’s network. All risk management, tax, internal audit and consolidated financial reporting activities take place within CGX headquarters.

I think I may be right about putting together a Printernet Portfolio in my IRA see sidebar. On average it's up 36% since the beginning of 2009. I made a couple of lucky picks, so my Printernet Portfolio is up around 75% as of yesterday. If there is a trick, it is ignoring blablabla Print is Dead blablabla.

Anyway, if I am right, CGX is well ahead of the pack as the production backbone of the printernet.

Full disclosure: The title of this post is for real: Long on CGX.

Twitter is very neat. Xerox SG&A? Not so cool.

About an hour ago, I tweeted:

RT @benin wondering what the bing+wolfram alpha alliance has in store for us...MJ: fascinating-to-me http://www.wolframalpha.com/

Then I went to WolframAlpha.com. I entered XRX, SPLS, and GOOG. Then I got the information below:

Selling, general, and administrative
Xerox = $ 4.414 billion
Staples = $ 4.785 billion
Google = $ 3.775 billion

So, Xerox spends more than Google and only a little less than Staples on SG&A (Selling, General and Administrative)? Wonder whatever happened to the Lean Six Sigma stuff. C'mon guys, we can do better than that.

The good news going forward
SG&A is not about the "general economic conditions". It is completely in the control of the management team. Each percentage that is reduced means $40 million to the bottom line. 11% would double the net in the worst economy in a generation.

Meanwhile all the necessary skill is in house. Managed Print Services is the leading wedge of Managed Business Services. As for the excess people, don't fire, repurpose. Closer to the ground there is a saying that might be useful at the top of the pyramid. "Eat your own dog food."

Email newsletters would be great in clickableprint. Here's an example of how this would work for OutputLinks.

On The Road With Andy & Julie

TransPromo Summit ‘09---A Gathering of TransPromo Innovators The 3rd Annual InfoTrends TransPromo Summit was held this month in Boston, gathering the industry’s transpromo pioneers! Here’s a look at what took place. >>>

Color

Océ and the Inkjet Evolution, Part One, by Noel Ward Mal Baboyian, president of Océ's production printing systems division in Florida, talks about the company's move into inkjet printing. >>>

Pellow Talk

10 Reasons to Explore TransPromo, by Barb Pellow, InfoTrends Part two of this series continues to make the case for TransPromo. Find out more reasons why your company should explore TransPromo NOW! >>>

Print 09

Xerox Unveils Plans for Print 09 – A Xerox Video Tracy Yelencsics, VP of Production Marketing Communications & Programs, provides an overview of Xerox's activities planned for Print 09. >>>

Output Management

Is Managed Print Services Right For Your Business? By Jim Joyce, Xerox Get your output under control via Managed Print Services---a strategy to manage your documents. Discover cost and productivity benefits. >>> Financial Viability & Vendors, by Patrick Brand, Pitney Bowes When selecting a technology provider, consider financial viability because you’re also buying into a firm’s sustainability and integrity. >>> PrintSex, by Laurel Brunner, Digital Dots Limited Why is print sexy? It’s personal, intimate, stimulating, arousing. Is there any doubt that print is indeed deeply and profoundly sexy? >>>

Tweet. Then Blog. Then Clickable Print. Here's what I mean.

What would happen to "Higher #Education" and Professional Development if they were subject to rigorous cost/benefit metrics?about 3 hours ago from web

RT@sidneyeve Survey: digital divide . . http://is.gd/2xPFn MJ:The transitional tech to bridge it is versioned digital print +smart phones.about 3 hours ago from web

RT@GoogleAtWork Cntral PA Cmty Clge . .HAWKMail powered by Gmail http://bit.ly/dRxSY.MJ: Google Apps + #MPS = community college printerent.about 3 hours ago from web

Twitterstream from @relivetheCrash in #clickableprint newspapers = a great way to teach economics, sociology and history to HS kids.
about 3 hours ago from web

If "no news is good news",then the defensible value of a #newspaper is not the news. It's the paper. Go #clickableprint=Print+TV+metrics!
about 3 hours ago from web

If "money makes the world go 'round", then the web. But "If all you need is love" then #clickablePrint. World goes 'round all by itself.
37 minutes ago from web

@Irestaurant Is 140 characters the length for the elevator pitch? Maybe 2 or 3 x 140. But definitely less 4 . +How many tweets on an A4?
33 minutes ago from web

RT@Miller-McClure . our brains react . http://tinyurl.com/necayn MJ: Your twitterstream in #clickableprint would be awesome for #education.
29 minutes ago from web

In case you missed TransPromo in Boston.http://bit.ly/O53VK MJ: This plus a twtitterstream in #clickableprint. would be cool for Print '09.
8 minutes ago from web

Noel Ward on Oce+inkjet at OutputLinks http://bit.ly/G6qwD MJ: twitterstream in #clickableprint would also be cool for Print 09.
4 minutes ago from web

If a Global can handle the truth, they could save a gezillion dollars in customer support and PR

Twitter is an open market place for conversation. Take a look at a previous post to see what I mean. But it only works if you trust your customers to handle the truth.

Someone should get this on Ursala's radar. Barack is emailing Michelle about Xerox.

So . . .I tweeted

This is way way cool. From the Guardian UK. "Each week, we present a selection from recent days" of President Obama's emails http://bit.ly/4BP4MG

The link took me to where I found this:

To: Michelle Obama
Subject: Re: Forbes magazine — FORTIETH most powerful woman in the world?

Hey, chill out. You were higher than the Queen, and Oprah Winfrey. Yes, as you point out, lower than the chief executive of Xerox, but what can I say? Those folks built a really successful business making photocopiers. Can't criticise them for that. xxB

To: Michelle Obama
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Forbes magazine — FORTIETH most powerful woman in the world?

No I am not going to make photocopiers illegal.

How Twitter Is Teaching Business The Lost Art Of Conversation from DreamTeamMoney.com

The article is written by Kalena Jordan who writes a daily Search Engine Advice Column, and is Co-Founder of Search Engine College - an online training institution offering online instructor-led and self-study courses in Search Engine Optimization and other Search Engine Marketing subjects. Follow Kalena on Twitter.

I think the curx of the matter is

“Unlike traditional advertising, a Twitter presence requires constant two-way communication to be effective. It also requires a level of transparency and selflessness that most companies aren’t used to employing in their marketing efforts. You can’t pretend to be perfect, and you can’t talk only about yourself.

and

“If you’re on twitter to market your business, the best thing you can do is shut up about your business and help people.”

How Twitter Is Teaching Business The Lost Art Of Conversation:
"Customer Interaction on Twitter
So just how do customers interact with businesses on Twitter? I wanted to find out, so I launched another poll:

POLL QUESTION: Have you ever communicated directly with a company using Twitter? What was your main reason for doing so?

• Yes to resolve an issue 25%
• Yes to give positive feedback 18%
• Yes to give negative feedback 6%
• Yes for another reason 16%
• No 35%

It was encouraging to see that 65% of poll respondents have conversed with a company using Twitter. When you consider that nearly half of those people had an issue to resolve with the company they communicated with, the potential for customer loss and retention is lit up like the proverbial Christmas tree. Then there’s the number of respondents giving companies direct feedback via tweets. That’s enough to get any PR Department salivating!

Meg Geddes, a Search Marketing expert and power Twitter user related her recent positive experience with a business on the micro-blogging site:

“At the end of December, there was a special one-day only promotion through Intuit and Staples (an office supply) for buying Quickbooks Pro where you’d get a full rebate. I ordered it and filled in my rebate paperwork but it was illegible and had to be refaxed. The date on the revised paperwork sent by Intuit didn’t match my order date (and I didn’t notice) so my rebate was denied.

I was bitching about it on Twitter and within half an hour, someone from Intuit sent me a tweet asking if she could help. I laid it all out for her, and she got it approved; I got my rebate very shortly after that. I was very happy, as I had been expecting to have to sit on the phone for hours with Intuit and/or Staples.”

But they’re not all positive experiences. Below is an exchange I witnessed on Twitter between a company representative (V) and an unhappy customer (J) who was Twittering while on hold with a Call Center . . . . More at DreamTeamMoney.com

Dr Doom (Joe Webb) is not all the way to Dr Feel Good. But he's starting to sound like Dr Feel Better. And the power of lazy.

In this morning's WTT email newsletter, Dr Joe Webb is setting a slightly different course for Print 09. It seems that he's moving from "Face the facts about what's going on" to "Consider what you can do about what's already happened."

The title of the post is

In the Current and Emerging Era of Rampant Connectivity and Social Media, Where Do Print's Benefits Stand Now?

. . .
Here is where those some of those benefits now stand and the impact these forces have had on them; this is followed by some discussion about what this all means to our industry:

Permanence . . .
Portability . . .
Print's positive effect on multichannel communications' total ROI . . .
Superior appearance of print . . .
Works with integrated media . . .
Buyers/information seekers look for and expect printed materials . . .
Print fosters reader autonomy . . .
Supports personal interaction . . .
The ubiquity of print . . .

Advertising/ marketing are much less interesting-to-me than education and health
From that point of view, the crux of the matter are Print fosters reader autonomy . . . and The ubiquity of print . . .

Autonomy is one operational definition of power. Every high school boy has autonomy/power some where close to at the top of the list. That's why they fight, debate, compete. The good news is that when harnessed it's a drive to excellence. The bad news is that when left unmanaged it could be a drive to Juvenile Detention.

The ubiquity of print means it is searchable without the need to engage the "word" part of the brain. Print can be scanned, not searched. Scanning a Supermarket FSI takes much less energy than searching for the same information on a computer or smart phone.

There are two deep principles at work.
One is the sustainability of using the least energy to acquire the most information. Search is the killer app because finding where to get information is the hard part. Print is the most efficient search platform because the visual part of the brain can be engaged much more easily than on the internet. Scanning takes less energy than searching. Consider a personalized TV guide for anywhere, anytime TV. It solves the "a gezillion channels and nothing to watch" problem.

The other principle is that people are naturally lazy. "Hard work" is a bug, not a feature. Hard work is often busy being busy. From the outside focused thinking can look like lazy or distracted. My dad was a master pressman for over 25 years. He irritated the heck out of his boss because he never looked like he was doing much. His boss's frustration came from the fact finished press sheets kept stacking in a delivery with the regularity that was engineered into a printing press. Consider how inside people judged the prep department back in the day."What do they do in there anyway and why can't I have the plate/proof NOW?"

Productive "lazy" is quality output with minimum input of energy. Unproductive lazy is a different story.

Will Clickable Print Emerge at Print 09. My bet is yes. The real customer should be Vertis, CGX and RRD.

Riso and CodeZ working with OutputLinks demonstrated clickable print at the recent transpromo conference in Boston. I have to say I had lots of the problem with the design of the piece. But that's only a quibble since it was the first appearance at a printing industry venue.

This morning I followed a tweet. Looked at the link. Then I tweeted the following.

thx @QRpower #CGX, If Ralph Lauren gets #clickableprint Are you going to say "nobody could have predicted smart #QR? http://bit.ly/18Zt0a

I used #CGX because I think they are best positioned on the ground to move on this faster than others i know about it. It could easily be RRD, but I have a feeling they are all focused at the top of the pyramid. Way at the top, it's very risky to be a first mover. Most likely they will wait until enough demand builds then try to own the space with their massive presence.

CGX, with their distributed production capability and vigorous mix of entrepreneurial printer dna on the ground should be the first mover, in my not so humble opinion.

In the MPS world it could well be Riso. Their new boxes sound awesome, their office in Boston is hiring and they did do the first out of the box at the transpromo affair. They will be at Print 09. Or it might be Ricoh/Infoprint. They have presence from the desktop to the production printer. They also have Ricoh Innovation Laboratory who is focused on QR codes.

Or it could be Oce, waving the banner of versioned newspapers with their huge presence in on demand books.

The dark horse is Vertis.Inc.
They won't be exhibiting at Print 09. But I'm betting Quincy Allen will be around to talk to his old colleagues. Consider what might happen if Vertis sees the path that gets the FSI turn into clickable My Weekly Readers.

The shopper is a finely evolved graphic design that is optimized to get important information in front of a busy person in a delightful way. Consider if instead of ads for stringbeans and toothpaste, there were ads for cosmology and space travel. Then consider if those "ads" had QR and TinyPurls that took the student AND teacher to a video from Fora.TV of Google Tech Talks. If the smart QR is integrated into the process will emit the student's AND/OR teacher's clickstream to enter the picture in the service of compliance.

If Vertis got together with Xerox, clickable science teaching material could be delivered in quantities of 1 at the desktop, 30 at the MFP, 300 at the CRD, and 30,000,000 using the excess capacity that Vertis has on the ground.

The going forward growth opportunity in the States for Print is not advertising. It is public funded enterprise. That means education and health. The stars are aligning so that the printers who get it, can invent new ways to do very well, by doing very good.

Go Print!
Go Printernet!
Go My IRA!

Full disclosure : Long on XRX, CGX, RRD, OCE, RICOY. No position on CodeZ.