BALLE - Business Alliance for Local Living Economies
"2009 Conference
Rising to the Challenge:
Entrepreneurs Building Living Economies
Denver Colorado, May 21-23, 2009
BALLE's 7th Annual Conference will be in Denver, Colorado, one of America's leading cities committed to economic sustainability.
We invite you to join fellow business owners, community investors, economic development experts, and sustainability leaders as we share best practices, discover new connections, and set the course for building local living economies."
Monday, May 11, 2009
Selling to SMB? You should check out this conference in Denver
If I ran Ricoh or HP and had to respond to the Color Cube . . .
I would take a Printernet approach.
1. Identify anyone, anywhere on any of your teams with VAR DNA. They could be living in MPS or in PSP or corporate HR or PR.
2. Then get them all in group, either live or on the web, but organized by contiguous local areas.
3. Create a list and later a database of every customer who touches your global in those contiguous local areas.
4. Counter attack by getting all the VARs - wherever they live - to mount a co-ordinated selling of mPs - managing all the PRINT services - to anyone who lives in an enterprise.
Then . . .
The PSP can sell Commercial Print + MFP + mPs.
The MPS can sell MFP + mPs + Commerical Print.
It's all customer focused, not silo organized. The blablabla is all about the customer, not the box.
Meanwhile the VARs can focus on combining boxes and software for new offerings for old customers; customized versioned print instead of textbooks and yearbooks, transinfo customized print that gets information, instead of giving information, printernet publishing for newspapers and governments.
The very hard part is figuring out the incentives and the comp. But that's above my pay grade. I'll leave that the Board of Directors and the CEOs.
The real threat to Kodak
Since I believe that Kodak's real place in the printernet is their ownership of offset workflow, this might sooner or later blow it away. Wokflow ESP running on the MAC OS.
from WhatTheyThink:
Community Newspapers Installs Fusion Workflow - Printing Industry News
"Portland, OR - Community Newspapers, a Pamplin Communications Corporation company , recently installed Workflow ESP automated prepress, from Fusion Systems International, as part of their migration to Computer-to-Plate.
Like many publication printers switching to direct plate imaging, Community Newspapers first needed a cost effective prepress workflow to provide digital integrity between proofing, plating and the printed product.
Following an extensive evaluation of workflow options Community Newspapers selected Fusion Systems’ Workflow ESP, running entirely on Mac OS X."
Correlation does not equal causation!
Until you get to causation, you can't do elegant intervention. Until you get to elegant intervention you can't fix high school education at the bottom of the global pyramid.
@spiked review of books
It’s time to move beyond the nature/nurture divide
"The Nurture Assumption is an important book in guiding students – and non-students, too – through the minefield of correlational research and the various methodological tricks used to come up with publishable results.
. . .
It also challenges the pressure on parents to raise children’s self-esteem. Contrary to the current orthodoxy, Harris argues that self-esteem is based on what we do, not on how we are encouraged to feel. Children are perfectly aware of how they compare to, and are regarded by, their peers – and therefore need to develop mechanisms for coping with difficult situations when they arise. She writes: ‘Kids are not fragile. They are tougher than you think. They have to be, because the world out there does not handle them with kid gloves. At home they might hear “What you did made me feel bad”, but out on the playground it’s “You shithead!”’"
More on Color Cube changing the game
from Death of The Copier:Then Greg said,
a comment in the Color Cube is a game changer thread:
It creates 90% less waste than laser A3.
has a 3 tiered, meter plan with colour at the cost of black and white. . . . Measures page coverage by pixels. . . I just got training last week on it. I have to say that I am impressed. . . . At the end of the day, it saved customers loads of cash. Not one company can claim the same environmental benefits.
I think edgeline was on the right track but fell short printing in tabloid and struggles with heavy weight paper BUT HP and now Xerox are on the right track.. . . Unreal technology. . . . Game changing for sure."
The 3-tier pricing is very interesting and a great thing - how is Xerox going to get the meters read ? Rhetorical question, we all know it will get done.
Another thing, I wonder just how many are really, strongly looking at Xerox in terms of industry leading; both technology and service.
If we leave HP off the table for now - how in the world can Ricoh, Canon, Konica, Sharp or Toshiba going to go after the Cube?
As HP concentrates on the IT world, which is fine, could it be that as once IBM sold more PC's than anyone, HP is following their lead?
Will the day ever come when HP DOESN'T SELL PRINTERS anymore?
ummmmm???
The Donnelley Printernet gets deeper and deeper
from WhatTheyThink:Big retail works in networks. The printernet is the appropriate form to service those networks. The problem is illustrated by considering if instead of Best Buy, the big box in question was Blockbuster or Circuit City. The lesson is that if you're playing this game, choose carefully.
RR Donnelley Named Best Buy's Top Performing Print Facility
"CHICAGO -- R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company announced today that its Lancaster, Pennsylvania operation has been named as Best Buy's top performing printing facility for the retailer's 2009 fiscal year."
Consider the printernet that serves K - 12 textbook publishers.
The Battle of the Titans: Xerox v Ricoh - The Color Cube may turn out to be the shot heard round the world.
Art Post says "Who's afraid of the Xerox Color Cube?"
anon says " I am a top performer at Ricoh, Xerox's biggest competitor... and I'm scared"
Greg Walters says " "The Xerox ColorCube is not a contender, it is a game changer."
The hardware is the MFP. The field of battle is MPS. The prize is control of the enterprise printernet.
In the Asian theater it's Fuji-Xerox v Ricoh. In the Euro language theater it's Xerox v Ricoh v HP?. The Middle East, as usual, is up for grabs.
Here's how it looks to me from 30,000 feet in New York City.
Xerox brings office DNA to the battle. Fuji-Xerox and Ricoh bring engineering DNA to the battle. For years the lines have been forming. Xerox buys Global who buys ComDoc and picks up independents as available. Ricoh buys Ikon and delivers a body blow to Canon. Ricoh has the deep pockets to introduce special incentives for new MPS business. Xerox buys Tectronics solid ink and improves solid ink until they can release The Color Cube.
I don't know enough about Ricoh on the ground, but Xerox comes from a base in large scale organization where they compete with HP for the big MPS deals. That business is under threat from other OEMs. But the real threat is the massive reorganization of formal education, health and government. The old rules are slipping away. The new rules are not quite yet clear but mostly likely will be about transparent competition on price, service, and expectation of continuous improvement.
The wild cards are the Independents.
This is a ground war. In a ground war under the conditions of information transparency the advantage goes to passion driven ground troops. The measure of passion is morale. Given the disastrous decisions by the globals to "buy channels" and ruthlessly reduce headcounts, they may have irreparably destroyed morale.
The independents live on passion. They hunt. They eat what they kill. They are local. They respond in real time. They are totally opportunistic in using the most appropriate hardware to get the best solution for their addressable clients. Like the rag tag American rebels who defeated the well organized British in 1776, they thrive when they are ignored. Living off the land, making up the rules as they go along, they driven by the passion of creating a better future for their families.
You can't win a war with mercenaries. The British couldn't do it in 1776. The Americans couldn't do it in Iraq in 2009.
Greg Walters said
Note that he says issue is not the lowest cost. The issue is a "reasonable cost." The exact dollar amount of "reasonable cost" depends on local conditions and the specific solution that a passion driven VAR presents to specific people. Boxes, on the other hand, need to have the lowest TOC to thrive. Such is the life of the OEM. But MPS are VARs. VARs maintain margins through the addition of creative deals, seamless solutions and an agnostic combinations of boxes.
All wars, like politics, like education, like public health, are won or lost at the local level. One customer, one student, one victim of H1N1 virus at at a time.
The view from my IRA
I have bets on both sides Xerox and Ricoh. As the facts on the ground emerge through the smoke of battle, I'll invest more on one side or the other.
Here's how I think it will play out. Xerox and Ricoh will be forced to divert some resources from the skirmish around the commercial printing industry. That will leave the field to Oce Heidelberg, Komori, Goss and the other players in the various production printernets.
The dark horse is Kodak. If they can focus on their advantage in the offset production workflow, they might turn out to be the UNF - User Network Facilitator - for commercial print. But the competitor for that prize is Donnelly which is trying to go it alone.
At any rate, it's a great day in the never ending fight for Truth, Justice and My IRA.
anon says " I am a top performer at Ricoh, Xerox's biggest competitor... and I'm scared"
Greg Walters says " "The Xerox ColorCube is not a contender, it is a game changer."
The hardware is the MFP. The field of battle is MPS. The prize is control of the enterprise printernet.
In the Asian theater it's Fuji-Xerox v Ricoh. In the Euro language theater it's Xerox v Ricoh v HP?. The Middle East, as usual, is up for grabs.
Here's how it looks to me from 30,000 feet in New York City.
Xerox brings office DNA to the battle. Fuji-Xerox and Ricoh bring engineering DNA to the battle. For years the lines have been forming. Xerox buys Global who buys ComDoc and picks up independents as available. Ricoh buys Ikon and delivers a body blow to Canon. Ricoh has the deep pockets to introduce special incentives for new MPS business. Xerox buys Tectronics solid ink and improves solid ink until they can release The Color Cube.
I don't know enough about Ricoh on the ground, but Xerox comes from a base in large scale organization where they compete with HP for the big MPS deals. That business is under threat from other OEMs. But the real threat is the massive reorganization of formal education, health and government. The old rules are slipping away. The new rules are not quite yet clear but mostly likely will be about transparent competition on price, service, and expectation of continuous improvement.
The wild cards are the Independents.
This is a ground war. In a ground war under the conditions of information transparency the advantage goes to passion driven ground troops. The measure of passion is morale. Given the disastrous decisions by the globals to "buy channels" and ruthlessly reduce headcounts, they may have irreparably destroyed morale.
The independents live on passion. They hunt. They eat what they kill. They are local. They respond in real time. They are totally opportunistic in using the most appropriate hardware to get the best solution for their addressable clients. Like the rag tag American rebels who defeated the well organized British in 1776, they thrive when they are ignored. Living off the land, making up the rules as they go along, they driven by the passion of creating a better future for their families.
You can't win a war with mercenaries. The British couldn't do it in 1776. The Americans couldn't do it in Iraq in 2009.
Greg Walters said
Let us not forget the end user really won't care what the technology is - like always, they will want to print or copy in color or B/W as easily and as simply as possible, at a reasonable cost.Greg lives at the edge of Independent MPS.
Note that he says issue is not the lowest cost. The issue is a "reasonable cost." The exact dollar amount of "reasonable cost" depends on local conditions and the specific solution that a passion driven VAR presents to specific people. Boxes, on the other hand, need to have the lowest TOC to thrive. Such is the life of the OEM. But MPS are VARs. VARs maintain margins through the addition of creative deals, seamless solutions and an agnostic combinations of boxes.
All wars, like politics, like education, like public health, are won or lost at the local level. One customer, one student, one victim of H1N1 virus at at a time.
The view from my IRA
I have bets on both sides Xerox and Ricoh. As the facts on the ground emerge through the smoke of battle, I'll invest more on one side or the other.
Here's how I think it will play out. Xerox and Ricoh will be forced to divert some resources from the skirmish around the commercial printing industry. That will leave the field to Oce Heidelberg, Komori, Goss and the other players in the various production printernets.
The dark horse is Kodak. If they can focus on their advantage in the offset production workflow, they might turn out to be the UNF - User Network Facilitator - for commercial print. But the competitor for that prize is Donnelly which is trying to go it alone.
At any rate, it's a great day in the never ending fight for Truth, Justice and My IRA.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Thinking point: One sustainable model for Newspapers
Complete Community Connection: more reinvention in Cedar Rapids
@Nieman Journalism Lab:
You can’t really call it a blog post when the printout stretches to 33 single-spaced pages, but it’s highly recommended reading: Steve Buttry, the “information content conductor” of Gazette Communications in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, has published “A blueprint for the Complete Community Connection” as a nine-parter on his blog. More conveniently, you can download the whole thing at Scribd (very simple registration required.)
Why I Love America, New York City, Brooklyn, the Internet and Print
The first reason is that is where I grew up and have made both home and my living. The second reason is that they are all messy. see snippet below
Print is not messy. It is clear.
When Print is again added to the environment it's possible to fix blablabla in time. Once it is fixed in time, signals can be amplified to get through the noise. The right signals to the right people at the right time lead to increases in social capital. Social capital is the most secure form of wealth. The purpose of civilization is to create enough wealth so that everyone has the opportunity to have a nice day.
NYTimes.com:The internet is messy. New York City is messy. Brooklyn is messy. Life is messy. Biology is messy. Evolution is random mutation and competitive selection. Messy optimizes evolution. New ideas can take hold in messy. Once the internet came into the picture, new ideas can move at pandemic speeds to everywhere on the planet. The clash and mash up of new ideas lead to new opportunities and explosions in social capital. Social capital is the requisite to manage Black Swans.
The Safety Net - For Victims of Recession, Patchwork State Aid
"WASHINGTON — As millions of people seek government aid, many for the first time, they are finding it dispensed American style: through a jumble of disconnected programs that reach some and reject others, often for reasons of geography or chance rather than differences in need."
Print is not messy. It is clear.
When Print is again added to the environment it's possible to fix blablabla in time. Once it is fixed in time, signals can be amplified to get through the noise. The right signals to the right people at the right time lead to increases in social capital. Social capital is the most secure form of wealth. The purpose of civilization is to create enough wealth so that everyone has the opportunity to have a nice day.
Blabla Point: Why Printernet Publishing wil save the world and my retirement account
The Printernet is the Cloud based network that connects printing enterprises around the world.
It is 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. It means hundreds of millions of print product delivered around the world in a day or two with a minimal carbon foot print.
The Printernet has three moving parts; the OEM, the OPM and the VAR.
The OEM manufactures, distributes and continuously improves the machinery and supplies necessary to print. The OPM - original product manufacturer - uses the machinery and adds the intelligence and supplies to manufacture print. The VAR works with the end user to select the most appropriate products and software to create a new value for the customer. The customer supplies the energy, usually but not always, in the form of money, to power the whole thing.
Managing the network falls to the UNF - the user network facilitator. This function is primarily self evolving, but as the network matures necessary parts will be increasingly taken on by formal organizations and enterprises.
The Battle of the Titans is for the number 1, 2 and 3 OEM/UNF positions.
Like all resilient networks each level is self sufficient
A printernet can have a self sufficient presence in a school building or a school district. The UNF/VAR is the MPS. The OEM are the MFP manufacturers. The MPS chooses the most appropriate hardware and software for that specific local situation. Each is different in the details. Each is the same at the conceptual level. Print from the Cloud is enabled at the desktop, the workgroup or the CRD within the organization.
The new experience occurs when the school based printernet is seamlessly connected to commercial printernets. At that point production equipment is clipped on as a print output node - an OPM. That allows yearbooks, student newspapers and textbooks to be pulled from the ground and delivered in print in very close to real time.
The local commercial OPM is connected to a regional printernet. Newspapers can accumulate content in the Cloud on an ongoing basis consistent with the way that events occur in real time. When interest based communities form, the appropriate content is pulled from the Cloud and print manufacturing occurs to satisfy that particular interest. The VAR are the reporters and editors. Their job is know which slice of information is interesting to what group. They use their experience, website + transinfo analytics and web 2.0 to identify and anticipate the emergence of communities of interest.
The regional printernet is connected to the global printernet. From the Cloud the physical location of the OPM is irrelevant. Space and time disappear as a limiting factor on distribution of print product. Anyone, anywhere, anytime can originate content. Any OPM anywhere can manufacture the print product that captures that information. VARs are distributed all over the planet. Pulling just the right content in just the right format at the just the right time for just the right person.
The save the world part revised May 10, 6:00 EDT
Complexity begets Black Swans. To respond to them, every one and every thing has to get much smarter, much faster. When smart has power at the top of the pyramid, it unleashes the huge reservoirs of smart at the bottom.
If the question is "Stupid" - the inability to think systematically and ignorance - the answer is the "Printernet" - Print for the thinking part and the Internet for the ignorance part.
Now for the retirement account part
Print is the ignored step child of the media industry. Analysts and investors have not yet noticed that a printernet is growing. Nor do they appreciate that print is the best artifact to deliver information for the masses of people on the globe or in a community or in a school. That's fine with me. The longer they don't get the signal through the blabla internet blablabla twitter blablabla youtube, the longer I have to find under priced companies.
On February 17, I started to assemble a print based portfolio in my IRA. It started with Oce, Xerox, Ricoh, Kodak. Sometime in the last two weeks I added McClatchey, Gannett, Consolidated Graphics and Donnelly.
As of this morning
Oce +114.35%
24 Jetstreams in place in commercial establishments around the globe.
Gannett +49.56%
McClatchey +26.82%
Newspapers are not dying. Print is not dead.
Ricoh +22.57%
Xerox +10.4%
Add HP and they are fighting for the 1,2, 3 positions in enterprise printernet.
Consolidated +9.07%
Donnelly - .39%
Both in the commercial printernet space with national and global footprints.
Kodak -22.66%
Still has to unlock the value of their dominance of offset workflow.
No doubt there are other many players. DaiNippon Screen, Canon, KM, etc.
There are resilient printernets growing in Europe and Australia. Probably others in India, China and South East Asia.
On the ground the big box stores (Staples) and the franchises ( Fedex, AlphaGraphics, Sir Speedy, and knowledge based networks like Crouser) are competing for local community printernets.
For the purposes of investing HP is too entangled with computers to get a view of their Print piece. Same story with IBM. Same story different details for FEDEX or UPS. Actually it's also a similar story for Kodak with different details.
Still to become visible are the global composition companies. They may turn out to be the real winners as they supply the link between physical and digital. They are the UNFs who can produce PDF's and print data streams at the appropriate scale at the appropriate speeds. In a network the greatest value is created by OPMs that provide the links.
At any rate, it's a whole new set of reasons to love Print! Also, I have new found appreciation of blablabla.
It is 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. It means hundreds of millions of print product delivered around the world in a day or two with a minimal carbon foot print.
The Printernet has three moving parts; the OEM, the OPM and the VAR.
The OEM manufactures, distributes and continuously improves the machinery and supplies necessary to print. The OPM - original product manufacturer - uses the machinery and adds the intelligence and supplies to manufacture print. The VAR works with the end user to select the most appropriate products and software to create a new value for the customer. The customer supplies the energy, usually but not always, in the form of money, to power the whole thing.
Managing the network falls to the UNF - the user network facilitator. This function is primarily self evolving, but as the network matures necessary parts will be increasingly taken on by formal organizations and enterprises.
The Battle of the Titans is for the number 1, 2 and 3 OEM/UNF positions.
Like all resilient networks each level is self sufficient
A printernet can have a self sufficient presence in a school building or a school district. The UNF/VAR is the MPS. The OEM are the MFP manufacturers. The MPS chooses the most appropriate hardware and software for that specific local situation. Each is different in the details. Each is the same at the conceptual level. Print from the Cloud is enabled at the desktop, the workgroup or the CRD within the organization.
The new experience occurs when the school based printernet is seamlessly connected to commercial printernets. At that point production equipment is clipped on as a print output node - an OPM. That allows yearbooks, student newspapers and textbooks to be pulled from the ground and delivered in print in very close to real time.
The local commercial OPM is connected to a regional printernet. Newspapers can accumulate content in the Cloud on an ongoing basis consistent with the way that events occur in real time. When interest based communities form, the appropriate content is pulled from the Cloud and print manufacturing occurs to satisfy that particular interest. The VAR are the reporters and editors. Their job is know which slice of information is interesting to what group. They use their experience, website + transinfo analytics and web 2.0 to identify and anticipate the emergence of communities of interest.
The regional printernet is connected to the global printernet. From the Cloud the physical location of the OPM is irrelevant. Space and time disappear as a limiting factor on distribution of print product. Anyone, anywhere, anytime can originate content. Any OPM anywhere can manufacture the print product that captures that information. VARs are distributed all over the planet. Pulling just the right content in just the right format at the just the right time for just the right person.
The save the world part revised May 10, 6:00 EDT
Complexity begets Black Swans. To respond to them, every one and every thing has to get much smarter, much faster. When smart has power at the top of the pyramid, it unleashes the huge reservoirs of smart at the bottom.
If the question is "Stupid" - the inability to think systematically and ignorance - the answer is the "Printernet" - Print for the thinking part and the Internet for the ignorance part.
Now for the retirement account part
Print is the ignored step child of the media industry. Analysts and investors have not yet noticed that a printernet is growing. Nor do they appreciate that print is the best artifact to deliver information for the masses of people on the globe or in a community or in a school. That's fine with me. The longer they don't get the signal through the blabla internet blablabla twitter blablabla youtube, the longer I have to find under priced companies.
On February 17, I started to assemble a print based portfolio in my IRA. It started with Oce, Xerox, Ricoh, Kodak. Sometime in the last two weeks I added McClatchey, Gannett, Consolidated Graphics and Donnelly.
As of this morning
Oce +114.35%
24 Jetstreams in place in commercial establishments around the globe.
Gannett +49.56%
McClatchey +26.82%
Newspapers are not dying. Print is not dead.
Ricoh +22.57%
Xerox +10.4%
Add HP and they are fighting for the 1,2, 3 positions in enterprise printernet.
Consolidated +9.07%
Donnelly - .39%
Both in the commercial printernet space with national and global footprints.
Kodak -22.66%
Still has to unlock the value of their dominance of offset workflow.
No doubt there are other many players. DaiNippon Screen, Canon, KM, etc.
There are resilient printernets growing in Europe and Australia. Probably others in India, China and South East Asia.
On the ground the big box stores (Staples) and the franchises ( Fedex, AlphaGraphics, Sir Speedy, and knowledge based networks like Crouser) are competing for local community printernets.
For the purposes of investing HP is too entangled with computers to get a view of their Print piece. Same story with IBM. Same story different details for FEDEX or UPS. Actually it's also a similar story for Kodak with different details.
Still to become visible are the global composition companies. They may turn out to be the real winners as they supply the link between physical and digital. They are the UNFs who can produce PDF's and print data streams at the appropriate scale at the appropriate speeds. In a network the greatest value is created by OPMs that provide the links.
At any rate, it's a whole new set of reasons to love Print! Also, I have new found appreciation of blablabla.
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