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."