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  • New Guru?
    By Bob Hall - Thursday October 26, 2006
    Not that long ago, trendy and hip business practices were based on Sun Tzu's The Art of War. Victory should be the objective and harsh discipline the norm. The latest BusinessWeek magazine outlines some basic principles from Sun Tzu: Greed is good. Be tough. Attack only when victory is likely. Beat the enemy. Winning is essential and requires clever tactics and, sometimes, deception. Ah, but that may be changing. According to the BusinessWeek article, the latest business fad is based on the Bhagavad Gita, the Hindu text based on the wisdom of Lord Krishna. Here it is important to focus on your thoughts and actions rather than the outcome. Greed is bad. Be fair. Act rather than react. Seek higher consciousness and be sensitive to...

  • Banned Books
    By Bob Hall - Friday October 6, 2006
    Last week was the 25th Annual Banned Books Week sponsored by the American Library Association and several other book selling and publishing associations. If you are thinking "so what?" then you might want to heed the words of U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas: "Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us." In case you think these challenges arise from one particular segment of the political spectrum, think again. Challenges are just as likely to come from the liberal left as they are from the conservative right. As author Nat Hentoff writes: "the lust to suppress comes from any direction." Granted, there are some tomes I...

  • Serving Suggestion
    By Bob Hall - Tuesday September 19, 2006
    I hesitate to mention fast food again, but I’m going to anyway. This is prompted by one of my rare visits to the golden arches where I was presented with a Big Mac constructed with all the loving care of dirt being flung. Buns askew, cheese lopping down the side and meat patties half exposed. It didn’t look anything like the picture behind the counter. It’s not just Mickey D’s, of course. Ask yourself when you have ever gotten a fast food sandwich that looked like the picture on the wall or the sandwich on television. Now, let’s carry this on a step further and spare the fast food industry for a minute. Let’s look at frozen food. On the boxes of frozen entrees there are always pictures of...

  • Warm Bodies
    By Bob Hall - Wednesday August 16, 2006
    The fast food joints here are offering cash rewards for new employees. The bounty at one place is $200. Judging from the encounters I have had with both new and long-time (usually four weeks or so) employees, respiration seems to be the only absolute requirement for hiring.A lot of us have worked at fast food or other menial jobs early in life. As I recall, my friends and I were able to count change, handle requests for no mustard, and smile while doing it. Nowadays, you seldom even get eye contact because the clerk is busy studying the cash register buttons looking for the proper picture icon. Last week I tried to order a Wendy\'s Frescata sandwich and I thought the poor kid would have a nervous breakdown looking for \"Fresca\" on the key...

  • The Pros and Cons of the Internet
    By Bob Hall - Monday July 31, 2006
    The Internet can be a wonderful tool, but it has its dark sides.It can be a colossal time waster. I wonder how many printers spend precious hours surfing the Internet and sending e-mail messages back and forth rather than going out the door and selling something to somebody. Quite a few, I\'d wager. The Internet encourages bad manners. People can say mean, untrue, hurtful, and ignorant things in e-mails and on list-serves and blogs without the risk of having to deal face to face with those the comment\'s effect. I remember one particular reader who had become so incensed by something I wrote in my editorial that he bombarded me with hate e-mail that culminated in a message alleging that I had a \"comb-over.\" Heck, I don\'t have enough...

  • The Future of Offset Printing
    By Bob Hall - Thursday July 20, 2006
    Bob Hall Executive Editor, Quick Printing magazine I just got back from the Sir Speedy/PIP Printing convention in St. Louis. Other than it being hotter than the hinges of Hades, it was a fun time. Once again I was confronted by a few folks wanting my opinion on the future of offset printing. They quoted such stalwart gurus as Frank Romano in predicting that offset was on the long downhill slide into irrelevance. I replied "Balderdash" or words to that effect. Sure, digital printing is where the growth is and digital printing will wind up with more and more of the "marks on paper" work we do. However, at the same time that digital is capturing a larger percentage of the information communications market, that market is getting is getting...

  • Where FedEx Stands With Kinko\'s
    By Bob Hall - Monday July 10, 2006
    FedEx still hasn’t quite figured out what to do with Kinko’s. They’re obviously not pleased at the financial performance of FedEx Kinko’s as evidenced by the rather unceremonious departure of former Kinko’s CEO Gary Kusin. When FedEx bought Kinko’s they were more interested in increasing retail locations to support their shipping business than they were in building print and copy volumes.The FedEx Kinko’s folks were insistent that I meet with them at On Demand, where they had a major presence. It didn’t take but a minute to figure out that the PR folks there had no clue that our magazine’s readers consider FedEx Kinko’s to be competition – although perhaps not very...

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