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  • The Written Word
    By Bob Hall - Monday December 12, 2011
    By Bob Hall An op-ed piece in this Sunday’s paper caught my eye with the headline: “Writing: more important than ever” Since I’ve blathered on about lousy writing over the years, I had to read the article. Pointing out that documents written centuries ago still influence our lives (the Bible, the Quran, the Constitution, etc.), the authors noted that technology is spurring another writing revolution with an estimated 30 billion emails and 50 million tweets a day. “Just because writing has become more important than ever does not mean it has become better,” said the authors, one a former university president and one a vice president of the College Board. According to various surveys, less than a quarter of high school...

  • Mixed Bag
    By Bob Hall - Monday November 28, 2011
    NAPL’s latest trends report for quick and small commercial printers finds many are getting left behind. Sales have slowed, expectations have dimmed, and owners’ compensation is down, according to NAPL’s latest Quick and Small Commercial Trends Report for summer and fall of 2011. I doubt that this comes as a surprise to anybody. What does stand out to me, once again, is the wide variation between top performers and also-rans. Overall sales were down 0.2 percent for the group, down from a 2.7 percent gain in the last report. Companies that grew still outnumbered those that declined, but by a narrower margin. However, the top 20 percent of the group saw sales growing at 9.0 percent while the bottom 20 percent saw sales dropping by...

  • Ebb and Flow
    By Bob Hall - Monday November 14, 2011
    Yesterday was November 14, which is an especially sad day for me and most other West Virginians. It was that day in 1970 that a plane carrying the Marshall University football team, along with coaches and fans, crashed just short of the hillside runway in Huntington, WV. There were no survivors. I landed at that airport the following week and have spent the last 41 years living in one way or another with the aftermath of that tragedy, as have those friends I met at Marshall. The school fielded a team of freshmen and walk-ons the following year and actually won a game. That was followed by years of futility with losing streaks and empty stands until things started to turn around. In the 1990s Marshall had the winningest football team in...

  • Deal With It
    By Bob Hall - Monday November 7, 2011
    Despite some recent signs of slight economic improvements, the overall economic outlook remains gloomy. So it isn’t surprising that quick and small commercial printers expect 2011 sales to wind up flat, according to NAPL/NAQP’s most recent survey of this segment. Back in May, those surveyed anticipated a gain in the five percent range. Maybe springtime puts people in perkier moods than does late fall. However, in looking more closely at the findings, we see that around 40 percent of respondents expect 2011 sales growth, compared to 31 percent who expect sales to decline. So, while the average of the group points to flat sales, a healthy chunk of respondents see sales gains. The point is that averages are just that. Could the economy...

  • Catalog Season
    By Bob Hall - Tuesday November 1, 2011
    I’ve mentioned before that we do our best to keep the printing presses rolling by subscribing to a raft of magazines from Time to Smithsonian to Bark . This time of year we double and triple our contribution to the printing industry when all of the holiday catalogs start showing up in our mailbox. We returned from vacation Sunday and waiting for us after our short four-day jaunt were the following catalogues: Signals, PBS, The Great Courses, Nature’s Jewelry, Catalog Favorites, What on Earth, Smithsonian, Potpourri, Southwest Indian Foundation, Heifer, Wind & Weather, Wine Country Gift Baskets, Wireless, Old Durham Road, Personal Creations , and GaelSong. These all went into the magazine box to join a couple of dozen of...

  • Color Copier Volume Growing Again
    By Bob Hall - Monday October 17, 2011
    The latest color copier survey by Larry Hunt’s Color Copy News shows that color copy volume is on the rebound. We all know that the economy has had very adverse effects on our industry but we are increasingly seeing signs of recovery, however modest. One of the more recent is from Larry Hunt’s latest color copier survey. In the last survey, only 33% of respondents said their color copy growth was good or excellent while 56% said there was no growth or a decline in volume. In this year’s survey, 45% said color copy growth was good or excellent and only 15% reported no growth or a decline. As Dirck Holscher, who has taken over the publication, noted: “While not yet back to boom times, these figures are a lot...

  • Direct to You
    By Bob Hall - Monday October 10, 2011
    The USPS is pushing direct mail to shore up revenues. If you hate it, it’s junk mail. If you print it, mail it, or read it, it is direct mail marketing. In any case, the USPS is encouraging folks to use more of it in order to make up for the shortfall in First Class mailings. Last week, I lamented that I hadn’t written or received an honest to goodness letter in ages. Personal and business communications have gone online. Now, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal, the First Class mail nosedive has prompted the USPS to start: “running promotions, easing rules, and planning television and radio ads to encourage more businesses to send pitches by standard mail, the official term for bulk mailings used by...

  • Just Hit Send
    By Bob Hall - Monday October 3, 2011
    Email has been the death of letter writing and contributed to the problems at the USPS. I went to the post office today and mailed two letters. Actually, they were two belated birthday cards. I don’t recall the last time I mailed, let alone wrote, a real old-fashioned letter. I’m not sure when I last received one, either. I get lots of direct mail touting grocery sales, pizza specials, car bargains, and the like. I also get a ton of printed catalogs featuring everything from cute garden gnomes to world-class educational courses on CD. I get more magazines than I can read. I get printed reminders from our vet about which critter is due for what shot. I get Medicare pamphlets and credit card offers. I get bills (which...

  • One More Time
    By Bob Hall - Monday September 19, 2011
    I’m going back to Las Vegas, but not for anything to do with printing. Frankly, now and then I need a break from the printing industry. I’ve just spent more than a week at the NAQP/NAPL Owners Conference and Graph Expo 2011 and I need a change of scenery. That’s why I’m going back to the city I love to hate—Las Vegas. Why am I doing such a thing? It is because of my dogs. You see, they both are rescue dogs and I am very interested in animal rescue. (We also have a rescue cat, but she’s not talking to me at the moment since we put her in the cat kennel for 10 days.) So, I’m going back to Las Vegas for the sixth time this year to attend the 2011 No More Homeless Pets National Conference...

  • Greetings From GRAPH EXPO
    By Bob Hall - Tuesday September 13, 2011
    For me, and for much of the Cygnus Graphics Media staff, this is the longest week of the year. It is also one of the busiest. Starting last Thursday, Karen, our publisher Kelley Homes, and I were attending the NAQP/NAPL Owners Conference, a two-day affair that this year attracted some 150 attendees and featured the annual vendor showcase tabletop exhibit. I’ve been going to the Owners Conference for a couple of decades and have always enjoyed my time with the attendees. In years past, when the conference closed I was on my way home. However, since we started producing the Show Daily for GRAPH EXPO last year, the Owners Conference is just the beginning. As I write this, we are nearly finished with putting together the guide for the third...

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