If you don't believe me about QR in 1to30 newspapers to replace textbooks, maybe this video from Brazil will show you want I mean.

Instead of a book, consider a very similar experience in a 24 page black and white newspaper delivered to a classroom. That's why the title says 1 to 30. Then consider the cost of a black only newspaper that had content that was aligned with education standards and supported by ads from public health and ngos.

Oce figured out crowdsourced R&D. Someone should get this on Ms Burn's radar. It could do wonders for STEP.

To read full article at printweek.com

My favorite parts:

"...this closed attitude has been replaced by an approach that explicitly creates room for partners in the development of new products. Open innovation, as the platform for making maximum use of each others' core competencies, forms the basis for a new period of future innovations."

For example, in the Netherlands, the website Dutch Lwww.battleofconcepts.com (google English translate version) allows businesses and government agencies to tap into the country's freshest brains. It works like this: a company poses a question or challenge to an audience of students and young professionals up to the age of 30. This is the ‘battle'. Students then submit their ‘concepts', or solutions, in return. Responses are anonymised and the company chooses the 20 best answers.

The prize money attached to each particular challenge, which can be between €2,500 and €10,000, is then distributed according to a standard scale. Financial services provider Rabobank recently offered a €5,000 carrot for clever ideas to help it engage with entrepreneurs and business start-ups via social media.

Getting margins is about pre press business processes and Finishing

Offset and digital printing machines get better and better. Squeezing more efficiency in the face of over capacity is a tough road.

Business processes, on the other hand, are full of inefficiencies, that's the web 2 print piece. in my not-so-humble opinion, finishing is the low hanging fruit. Closed loop automated production means a finished product at the end of the process. Press sheets are easy. Finished products in the customers hands is hard.

Value and therefore margins comes from making the hard, easy.

Roll fed digital presses without the ability to output a finished newspaper are missing the boat. That's one of the reasons I bought Oce at $3.10.

Finishing features from printweek.com |
"Our features archive boasts a wealth of information on making finishing create value in your business. You'll find our roundup below."

Quark goes into web 2 print. Teams up with AlphaGraphics and Franchise Services. What ever happened to white label Marketsplash?

AlphaGraphics Teams Up with Quark for QuarkPromote.com
Salt Lake City, UT- AlphaGraphics, Inc., announced today its partnership with Quark to provide professional marketing collateral for small and mid-sized businesses seeking to start and grow their companies. The new online service, called QuarkPromote.com, launched yesterday at an event held in Denver, Colorado.

Quark Press release A:

Quark announced today the launch of QuarkPromote.com, a new online service that helps entrepreneurs and small businesses in the United States easily create their own high-quality, professional marketing materials that can be picked up at a nearby neighborhood printer or received by mail in just a few days.

Press release B
According to Terry Welty, vice president of corporate marketing for Quark, "The Web to Print market we are entering is a $17 billion market. Small businesses are increasingly going online to find an easy way to create and print marketing materials. In the next three years this market is going to double and we think QuarkPromote.com in concert with our print partners is going to be a big part of this."

Franchise Services, parent company of Sir Speedy, PIP and Signal Graphics, announces that its brands are part of the QuarkPromote.com Neighborhood Print Partner program. The program will provide Sir Speedy, PIP, and Signal Graphics centers the opportunity to gain new customers by receiving print orders online.

Several Sir Speedy, PIP and Signal Graphics locations across the country have already signed up to join the program and many more are expected before the end of this year.