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  • Special Celebrations
    By Karen Hall - Tuesday July 5, 2011
    Note: This blog entry has nothing whatsoever to do with printing. It's just for fun! Until the papers reported her 13th birthday, I wasn’t aware that the President’s eldest daughter was born on Independence Day. Sharing your birthday with a major holiday can go two ways for a kid – I should know – my birthday is December 25. That can be either a very happy coincidence or a miserable one. Luckily, my family cared enough to treat my birthday as an extra special bonus of the Christmas season. When clerks or TSA agents look at my ID, they often remark on my birthday. Almost inevitably, they say something along the lines of, “You must get cheated out of a lot of birthday presents.†I always explain...

  • Wide-Format on the Web
    By Denise Gustavson - Tuesday June 28, 2011
    Each week we're all bombarded by so much. From television to radio to the internet, we're surrounded by news. I have the added benefit of being on the receiving end of various PR feeds and distribution lists, so my inbox is overflowing nearly each and every day. I also make it a point to look for interesting and unique stories and blog posts that make me think and/or make me stop and say "Wow. That's cool." I don't always have the opportunity to share these unless it's through social media. So, for this blog, I'm going to run through a few that really stood out to me over the past few weeks. 40 Dangerously Creative Billboard Ads via @SignsByTomorrow http://bit.ly/l1evqT Billboards are everywhere—we can all attest to that. But some...

  • Good Mood and New Technologies
    By Bob Hall - Tuesday June 28, 2011
    I’m writing this on the way home from the Franchise Services conference in Las Vegas. As usual, the conference was a first-rate event. Herewith, a couple of observations: Once again, I was reminded of industry consolidation since this single event takes the place of four individual conferences previously held by Sir Speedy, PIP Printing, Signal Graphics, and Multicopy. I recall the tensions at some of the earlier combined conferences in this and other franchise systems, but that is a thing of the past. There were a lot of new companies at the trade show – most in the Web-to-print and social media arenas. Coupled with the educational program in these areas, these newbies stirred a lot of interest among some of the old timers...

  • You Can’t Make This Stuff Up
    - Monday June 20, 2011
    In our last staff meeting, I told my staff, “no more eating at your stations.†This was particularly intended for my production team. I’ve got employees standing at their presses, printing and pounding down a super-sized burrito at the same time. Not only is quality in jeopardy because they are using both hands eating this thing, but there’s also a chance that the end product will have a little salsa on the side. Anyway, the very next day after issuing this edict, one of my operators grabs his lunch and his iPod and heads to the front office. He proceeds to find an account manager’s desk (who happens to be out on his lunch break), plops himself down, pulls up YouTube on the computer, plugs in his headset...

  • Doing Good Works
    By Bob Hall - Sunday June 19, 2011
    A couple months back I wrote about a little incident where a friend accidentally drove his car through our garage wall into our dining room. It was quite a shock – especially to the two dogs and the cat. At the time, I commented on the slap-dash way in which some contractors had worked up repair estimates. I also praised the folks who got the job for their thoroughness and professionalism in repairing the wall and the electrical wiring. I have come to realize such wide variances in competency and efficiency are more common than I once believed. First case in point: We needed a new railing for our front porch stairs to make it easier for a friend with an artificial leg to navigate his way to and from the house when he was critter...

  • More Reconditioned Equipment: Signs of Our Economic Times
    By Mark Vruno - Wednesday June 15, 2011
    A MyPrintResource.com exclusive By Mark Vruno, MPR Portal Editor Akin to automakers, press manufacturers face the sullen fact that not very many commercial printer budgets can withstand brand-spanking-new hardware investments. That explains why still-struggling OEMs are more warmly embracing the idea of selling their own used or “pre-owned” output devices, be they conventional iron or digital presses. Why fight the online auctioneers that are so prevalent these days? If you can’t beat them, join ’em, seems to be the revamped vendor thinking – thoughts seldom uttered just a few short years ago. Like the rest of us, they’ve done the math: zero percent of zero equals zilch. Six years ago, Graphic Partners (GP), a 50-employee...

  • Is My Phone Smarter than Me?
    By Karen Hall - Monday June 13, 2011
    The world may truly be coming to an end, although I won’t go so far as to predict a date. The sign that tipped me off was when Bob and I finally caved in and got smartphones. We put it off for a long time, but even in West Virginia you have to move with the prevailing technology sooner or later. I was reluctant to make the change because I was quite fond of my stupidphone. It did what I needed it to do and never made me use bad language – at least not until a few months ago when it began randomly turning itself off for no apparent reason. I had even managed to upload some of my music, and would sometimes embarrass Bob by talking too loudly in airports because U2 was wailing in my ears. The new smartphones allow us to go...

  • Navigating the Offline and Online Marketing Landscape
    - Thursday June 9, 2011
    By Gale Grimmenga Principal/Creative Impulse (www.creativeimpulseinc.com) We use two charts to help our clients plan a course for their marketing communications. The first is an overview—it starts with a company’s strategic and creative positioning then divides into creative key message and target audience and then branches into the communication vehicles. The communication vehicles are divided into four broad categories of media: traditional (broadcast & print), interpersonal, new, and environmental—from magazine ads to websites to SEO to outdoor to direct mail to banner ads, bringing us to about 60 vehicles. Adding in all the specific spots for placement, as in thousands of magazine titles or links on websites, makes this list...

  • Time Marches On
    By Bob Hall - Monday June 6, 2011
    Our car is in the shop – again. This is the second time in two weeks and probably the sixth time since the beginning of the year. If you knew that it is a 1997 Dodge Avenger, you probably would think that this number of shop visits for such an elderly vehicle is expected. However, it only has 137,000 miles on it since we don’t have to drive to work. (Our office is in the basement of our home.) That’s pretty good for a 14-year-old car. We like the car. It’s sporty, handles well, and gets good gas mileage with its four-cylinders and five-speed gearbox. We also like the fact that it is paid for. The idea of not having monthly car payments is appealing. The problem is that the cost of rental cars is starting to...

  • Industry Trends Video Extravaganza
    By Denise Gustavson - Monday June 6, 2011
    I have to admit, it's been a whirlwind since my last post. Between various trade shows, a really quick vacation, pre Graph Expo Show Daily planning, regular monthly issues, a little side project about the history of the wide-format industry (check out LinkedIn for more on that) and the launch of the MyPrintResource portal website, I can't say that I've had a moment to sit and simply breathe. But, at the recent 2011 ISA Sign Expo, I had the opportunity—and the complete pleasure—to sit down with 12 industry leaders to talk about some of the critical issues facing the wide-format industry in the beginning of 2011. Some of these folks I'd only had the opportunity to talk with via email or over the phone, so it was a pleasure to meet them...