Workflow Renaissance

Workflow has been an important topic in the Graphic Communications business since there has been "technology" involved. The modern definition of workflow kicked into high gear as desktop publishing came into commercial use.  Then it really became essential when Print Service Providers (PSPs) adopted Computer to Plate (CTP) in the late 1990s. 

So it's kind of fascinating that today, there is a workflow renaissance going on.  It's really interesting because it's primarily driven by print service provider needs that focus on making vendor equipment more efficient.  These demands have always been present, but because they didn't gate the hardware sale for the press maker, nor did satisfying them differentiate a particular vendor company from its competition, they were not top of mind for anyone. 

That has changed, for a number of reasons.  

First, Web-To-Print is maturing, and many more PSPs need super efficient workflows to handle the high volume of extremely short run work. Second, presses are bigger and faster, as well as more expensive.  So PSPs ramp up sales efforts to increase equipment utilization, to pay the press bills.  To make money, labor expenses (and as a result, craft), must be kept at a minimum and workflow software is the only answer.

The demands from PSPs are frankly greater than what most vendors are delivering. With some great exceptions, many of the workflow solutions in the market today can be considered "legacy software".
Two of the brightest exceptions today are HP SmartStream Production Center, and Enfocus' Switch line of products, which we aren't going to go into in detail here, but may in a future post.

Instead, for the moment, let's think about some of the things vendors need to address to take workflow to the next level, and satisfy the emerging requirements of PSPs for the next few years. I'm probably going to write some discrete posts on some of these topics in the future, too.

- Sell software standalone vs. bundling with hardware. 

- Make workflow software work well with other people's equipment, including competitor equipment.

- Package and describe workflow software in bite size pieces that directly address the MOST IMPORTANT customer/users needs directly. 

- Make the existing software modern with user interface enhancements.  Software that runs on Windows will soon benefit from the "Metro" interface.  Some of the interfaces of industry software just look horrible, and users have become accustomed to new, beautiful web interfaces they use in their life outside of work.

- Make workflow a sexy part of the print production story, with giant screens, visualization and data elements, ala Landa and HP Production Center.  

- One of the coolest things about the Landa launch was the Tablet device from which the operator could control 3 presses

- Appropriate parts of Workflow software should run in browsers, and even smartphones. Handheld devices are incredibly valuable for managing a large and busy production floor.  They are good for a small and busy production floor, too.

- Touchscreens everywhere appropriate. Command line interfaces are still important for the tech nerds, though. 

- Rule based automation should be defined either graphically, or by writing code, depending on how complex the rules, and how sophisticated the user.

- Run the workflow software in the Cloud, delivering it as a set of services at tiered monthly subscription fees. If Adobe can do it with Creative Suite, it can be done with workflow software, too.

- Larger customers today are far less concerned about whether something runs on a particular piece of hardware.  Smaller customers would also likely gravitate toward the subscription model. 

- Create better and more integration with MIS and Web-To-Print systems.

- Create better ways for customers to solve each other's problems and let customers enhance the software, ala Enfocus Crossroads-World community website. 

- Add "cross-media" or marketing services stuff, where it directly benefits the PSP strategy to drive pages and profits.

- Help PSPs show how print complements email--  which for a younger audience with money to spend today is important (i.e., not how email or "cross media" complements print-- that's a message from yesterday.)

- Increasingly, the assets customers use to create printed materials are stored in the cloud.  Workflow systems need to be able to reach into those systems (via APIs), and consume the assets to make print jobs.

In summary, we're talking about a whole new generation of print production workflow.  It takes into account the new environment PSPs are operating in. It makes it so employees (especially those new to the industry) will want to become or stay involved in print production.  It makes the company profitable, efficient and competitive. It remains to be seen whether this will be delivered by the existing vendors, or by the new vendors... but one thing is certain, it will happen!

High Value Features: Increasing Importance

The clear trend in the industry for the last several years has been digital printing technologies overtaking traditional analog technologies.  And over the last few years, the sophistication of documents produced digitally has grown dramatically. You know, it wasn't that long ago that digital meant monochrome letter-sized printing!

Now we've reach a bit of a "tipping point", for lack of a better phrase, in terms of this sophistication. Everywhere you look now, you see digital products being produced with high value features. These features include, but are not limited to:

- Binding (Perfect, Case, Coils, etc.)
- Cutting (many different sizes)
- Folding (many different shapes)
- Coating (UV and others), Laminating
- Die Cutting (should probably be in quotes, because the lasers and other robotic devices are selling like hotcakes now)
- Inks: (additional imaging units have become common; Gold, Pearlescent, Neon Pink, White anyone)
- Dimensionality (i.e., Scodix, and native capabilities in HP Indigo and Nexpress)
- Papers (amazing, beautiful examples for all output technologies)
- Substrates (I spoke to someone who was printing on Hemp the other day, but plastic has become almost commonplace, and if you look at the GPA catalog, you will see a gigantic variety of versatile non-papers.)
- Foil (not done on the digital equipment, but applied to digital output)
- Special Effects (like Color Logic)

I've never seen so many example of amazing business cards since back in the early days of Printcafe... back in those days, a card that cost $3 was a demonstration of how well you could print, and all the things you could do.  PCAF had cards that were folded, scored, die cut, perforated, had at least 7 colors including a metallic and different coatings on both sides.  Those days are back, only it's digital not analog printing that is impressing.  Just take a look at Moo.com.  I bought some business cards from them, and they were insanely expensive-- so I expected the result would be for people to be impressed by them. I was not disappointed, everyone I gave them to (including many commercial printers) appreciated them.

Color Logic System Designer Swatch Book

It has been said for quite some time that anything that can go digital, will go digital.  In fact, I think Benny Landa himself has even said this. However, this is a double edged sword today.  Many things that were previously printed have gone digital in the form of not being printed at all-- rather delivered via the Internet. And many more will.  Some information simply makes more sense to be accessed via the web than via an relatively expensive piece of paper.

Other information, however, benefits greatly from the sophisticated treatments that can only be delivered by high-end commercial printing. When you understand that even the most basic printed piece is going to be more expensive to produce and deliver than something published on the web, you start to realize that the print service providers energy should be focused on producing printed materials for audiences who care about the quality of the piece. There are many examples of these categories of products and I may get into that in a future post.

Clearly, though the smartest operators in the industry have arrived at this conclusion, and are investing in capabilities that will allow them to offer all the advantages of digital printing coupled with beautiful, high-end features. They already have clients who see the value of this work, and they seek out more who fit the profile. This, to me, is the essence of the immediate future of the successful commercial printer.

EFI Connect 2013

I was very happy to get the opportunity to attend EFI Connect again this year.  I am pretty sure it was my 10th time around, out of 13 years, of this very special industry event that began life back in the Printcafe era. Wow, time flies.  The very substantial turnout of customers, partners and EFI employees continues to make it an impressive event. Only The HP Graphic Arts User Group meeting, Dscoop8 will have a larger customer turnout in the industry this year. 

January was unseasonably cold in Las Vegas, but inside the Wynn at Connect, it was hot! For me, as a former employee of EFI, it was like reunion.  I saw so many colleagues and friends, it was great to catch up and find out what's new with products I was involved with during my tenure, as well as learn about the systems and technologies my industry associates are using to run their businesses.  The striking thing this year-- it was almost "mind blowing"-- was see all the new EFI employees-- many of whom I know, but not from EFI-- like Mark McGowan, the CEO of Online Print Solutions (OPS), and Chris Woods, from Technique. Both very well respected technology companies were recently acquired by EFI, and were attending their first Connect event as part of the family.  EFI has been on a major global roll acquiring MIS vendors over the last year and a half-- including Metrics in South America and Alphagraph in Europe, not to mention venerable Prism, which was more or less a "tent stake" if not a tent pole for the new acquisitions and brought back Filip Buyse (prior to Prism, he was VP at Printcafe) as GM of the Web2Print products. At Connect this time around, Filip was so busy with customers, I only got to briefly say "hi" to him!

Guy Gecht is an amazing CEO, and he can also be quite amusing when he wants to be--  always a source of great knowledge and insight. His fireside chats with industry luminaries have become the stuff of legend at Connect.  I've been thrilled to hear them in the past, and this year's talk with Benny Landa was amazing. An industry legend and the founder of Indigo (acquired by HP a little over 10 years ago), and now CEO of several new ventures, including a new printing press and ink company, LandaCorp in Israel, Benny is like the Steve Jobs of the printing industry. He's been personally involved in over 1,000 patent applications in his career, and a large number were granted. He brings a beautiful vision and a contagious excitement to the printing industry like no other individual, or company for that matter... although EFI and HP are both close seconds in this area. I've seen Benny Landa speak 4 times starting with, and including at drupa last year. The coolest part is that I have learned something new about the man, and what he is doing, every single time.  That's pretty rare.

Benny spoke of his childhood, telling an amazing story about his father's tobacco store in which the man and his son, out of necessity to make a living for the family, built a passport photography machine. Among other unique features was that it made an image positive on glossy paper. He drew a direct line from this machine to Indigo, over the course of a few minutes of a spoken history that I'd never heard.  It was very moving.

One funny part of the Landa interview was when Guy asked Benny about the importance of workflow.  Guy was obviously fishing for an EFI endorsement, but Benny said flatly, "You're asking the wrong guy."  Guy pushed a little bit, and Benny retorted, "Why don't you ask Udi?"  At that point, much of the crowd erupted in laughter, because Udi Arielli is so well know, and another terrific feature of Connect was his Automated Workflow Experience (AWE), which is an animated, interactive, but live narrated movie that Udi's "british-academy award" winning daughter helped him produce, explaining the importance of CIM and automation, and how EFI's products enhance and streamline printing operations of any shape and size, from end-to-end. 

Benny Landa is also well known for never hiring people who have hobbies.  He wants people whose love is the work they are doing.  Clearly, he's found success hiring such people!  Guy grilled Benny on his hobbies... Music? No.  Books?  That's my wife's department.  Movies?  Benny says, "I saw a movie once in the seventies... it was called 'Debbie Does Dallas', I think."  This brought the extra-curricular activities line of questioning to a successful conclusion, and also brought the house down! Classic, outrageous, iconoclastic. Guy Gecht is as sharp as it gets, incredibly fast on his feet, and this proved that he and Benny are cut from the same cloth.

Of course, perhaps the biggest attraction of Connect is the training classes.  There were more than 150 classes at this year's event. At trade shows, there are a few interesting seminars delivered by consultants, unfortunately often leaving attendees with more questions than answers. At Connect, you can send your people to get deep-dive training, and actually save money versus having an EFI trainer come in-house. Plus, with features like the keynotes, other outside speakers, meals and receptions, not to mention unparalleled networking, it has all the good features of a trade show, too.  Many printing company owners find it to be an amazing value and use Connect as a perk for top-performing employees. There were even a number of third-party vendors in attendance, like Kodak, Xerox, MGI, Ricoh and Esko, just to name a few-- MGI even had a digital press on the floor of "The Lab", which is the central meeting space of the event. Along with the annual golf outing, and Andy Booth's newer tradition of a bike ride up Red Rock Canyon, people actually got to step outside the ritzy confines of the Wynn, too. 

If you are an EFI customer, and haven't made it to Connect, you owe it to yourself and the future of your company to attend next year.

Production Inkjet 2013 and Beyond

The inkjet market is evolving rapidly and moving into full-blown commercial applications. Paper dimensions, color quality, substrates, workflow and finishing are evolving rapidly.

Looking across all categories of print, and how people use it, the exciting thing now is that people can see this is the right technology for what the future of the industry looks like. Disruption of the traditional analog printing processes and business models as a result of high quality, shorter runs, personalization, and good economics is starting to present itself. Speed and cost are good enough to compete favorably against legacy technologies in many applications; then you layer on the value added capabilities and turn-around times, it's very striking.

Furthermore, Inkjet has the real possibility of disrupting today's existing high-quality digital production presses. For example, you could take the equivalent of an entire day of work on four of the highest productivity color digital presses, and move them onto an inkjet platform, and the result might be that the former entire day is reduced to only two hours. The opportunities are really in the improved efficiency, the cost impact, and the capability of adding new product features.

There is a lot of activity in hardware for "paper moving", in heads, and in ink itself. The software and computer side of things is ahead of the game at this point, which was a problem in the past. From my perspective, everyone but HP is in Version 1.0 of their production press technology. HP had quite an impressive showing at Drupa with their presses, notably showing the T-400 coupled with two different industry standard finishing lines.

A lot of the offset press manufacturers are "bolting on" inkjet technologies to existing platforms, a trend that I think has a short life expectancy-- primarily due to emerging technologies from companies like Landa Corporation. With their impressive show at Drupa, with such a great, comprehensive story and Benny Landa's proven track record, although they are at "version .9", it would be foolish to doubt that what they are doing will succeed. Landa will be an important company in the market. Another interesting showcase at Drupa, on the lower end of the spectrum was Delphax with their sheetfed Elan press, based on Memjet technology. A couple of years ago, it was commonly questioned whether Memjet technology was even real, whereas now it's seen altogether differently, and very real.

Inkjet is a big investment, but it's evolving so rapidly that an acquisition should probably be treated more like the purchase of computer systems, than a printing press has traditionally been financed. If you buy a machine today, the outside life expectancy is probably 5 years and at there will quickly be much better equipment available.

You also have to understand the workflow and finishing parts of the equation. Most printers innately understand the printing part, but it's getting the work onto the press and getting it finished and out the door that can make the difference between success and failure, and Inkjet presents new challenges in these areas.

Finally, the machines that create a competitive advantage today tend to be large and expensive. They have very high throughput. In order to achieve an ROI, a company must have the volume of work necessary to keep the press operating virtually around the clock. You may need two presses— because what do you do when you have 20 hours of capacity planned for a press that goes down?

A lot of people are saying, books and “transpromo” now, then marketing materials, newspapers, packaging, even photo books-- everything people use other printing technologies for, will be rolling out on Inkjet over the next 5-10 years significantly replacing offset technologies. I agree with this thought process.

Although there are many challenges, the opportunities clearly outweigh them. It’s a very exciting picture today, and I’m looking forward to rapid development over the next couple of years.

(this commentary originally appeared in Graphic Communications World "The Green Sheet", November 2012.)

Data: Is it the Printer's Nemesis?

I've long advocated that printing companies need to acquire IT capabilities to remain competitive. MIS systems, WebToPrint, and data handling skills have long been key to running a printing business.

All of a sudden, they are also an important part of a big segment of our product mix. Marketing materials targeted at specific consumers have been around for many years. VDP (Variable Data Printing) software coupled with digital printing took off way back in the early 2000s. Print personalization, which was once the wild frontier of technology for many printers, is now becoming obsolete. There are to big reasons for this: data and measurement.

Data
The biggest problem for print service providers is data. In a world where it's important to know "everything" about people, the only people who know that much are the search engines, and "big data" providers. Print is not part of their offering. Print might be considered competitive to their offerings but, because it doesn’t compete well, it isn’t perceived as a real threat. VDP stands for Variable DATA Printing… if you don’t have access to data, you can’t do it effectively.

It’s well understood how Google’s Adwords technology (just as one example) can deliver an audience to a marketer in an easy, cost effective way. Google approaches the marketing world in a way that is almost entirely different from a print marketer. It’s an algorithmic approach based on collecting and analyzing data. It starts with the data, not with creative. In fact, display advertising is a relatively recent addition to Internet advertising, which is somewhat incredible to imagine since the growth has been so meteoric. Such technologies are becoming ever more sophisticated.

Print media publishers can only offer marketers audiences based on their limited content. Golf clubs sell to people who read Golf magazines. With digital advertising, context matters less than tracking consumers wherever they go. That kind of tracking is the reason, for example, a shoe ad appears on Weather.com and also on a local blog.

Certainly many companies know a lot about the behavior of their customers, but many today are trying to create a strategy and framework to manage the data around it, primarily so they can participate in online marketing more effectively. Again, print isn't competitive in most cases. Print is being deployed via traditional methods, in what might be described as a “shotgun approach” versus the laser-guided smart bomb that is the Internet.

Furthermore, there is no real reason a marketer at any company, small or large, would trust the average Print Service Provider with access to their data. From security and privacy standpoints, “most” printers will not pass muster at corporate IT departments when they are audited. It’s also very often the case that the person the printer is calling on is not the person with access or control over the data, which results in barriers to selling VDP. Ironically, this has always been a barrier, and some have overcome it, but more have failed.

Measurement
With digital advertising, you now know what advertising and marketing initiatives you are running are working, and can change your campaign in real time to match customer behavior and results.

With print, you have to wait until the next “cycle”, whether it is the next issue of the magazine or the next mail drop. The only real way to determine the ROI of a print campaign is cumbersome testing that takes way too much time to implement and execute. The only real measurement of the effectiveness of a campaign is increased sales.

One impact the Internet has had on everyone is that we’re all incredibly impatient. We want information now, not a week or a month from now. When there are large amounts of money at stake, we get even more impatient—and advertising and marketing is the lifeblood of most companies.

Sounds really negative, doesn't it? Make no mistake: the days of "Dear Chuck" on a postcard are over. The good news is, there are still many applications where print personalization can play an important role. The adoption has been so limited, the sky is the limit for creative and technically savvy print service providers to succeed with these products.

But you've got to know how to use the data, and measure the results.

QR Codes- Why, Why, Why?

Although the printing industry (or perhaps slightly more accurately, its consultants and journalists) seems to have latched onto QR codes in a pretty dramatic way, parallels can be drawn to the initial hype of VDP PURLs (Personalized URLs) that took place in the early 2000s. If you pick piece from a printing trade journal written seven or so years ago about VDP and PURLs, you could replace the acronym “PURL” with “QR Code”, and the piece would likely still have the same meaning; tell the same story.

In overview, the goal of QR codes is to enhance the user’s (i.e., reader or consumer) seemingly dull print piece with access to new, rich media experiences that complement the print piece. The flip side is the notion that the print piece is driving customers to the rich media experience waiting for them to view, to help “close the deal”. These are both worthy goals, but have encountered some challenges along the road to adoption.

For printers who have implemented VDP, QR Codes are technically just like implementing a PURL (Personal Response URL) on a printed piece—the benefit is that the recipient doesn’t have to type it in. This should increase the likelihood that the prospect will engage and see the additional content. That additional content to be provided via the QR Code’s link is often a mobile website these days, but can take other forms, like playing a video or showing a map. Like PURLS and other VDP applications, QR Codes can be “one to many”, where the same QR Code could be scanned by thousands of prospects, and they are all taken to the same unique content, or they can be 1:1, where each user gets their own personalized QR code, that takes them to some content that is personalized just for them. Printing QR codes is easy, and can technically be done by any Print Service Provider, using inexpensive and even free software.

One of today’s QR Code applications, readily seen, is on signs and graphics. The consumer at the point of purchase, or in the aisle of a retail store, is enticed by offer text and graphics on a printed piece; or the merchant wants to make a special offer on a particular product or add-on item.

QR Codes have appeared in many different shapes and sizes of printed products in addition to signage and display graphics. These include magazines and newspapers, brochures and datasheets, and even stationery including business cards. The results are mixed because of some obvious limitations of QR Codes.

The biggest obstacle is software that can read the code, which is relatively cumbersome to obtain today. This limits the audience for the code to tech-savvy consumers. While at this writing some 88% of smartphones have cameras, apparently only about 13% have software installed to allow them to read QR Codes. This special reader software must be installed on a smart phone to scan the code, and it is not included with Google’s Android smartphone software nor on the Apple iPhone and iPad devices. Until Apple and Google include native QR Code applications that automatically work with smartphones built-in cameras, QR codes will remain a curiosity that will only be used by technical and “bleeding-edge” users.

Another problem with QR codes is their size and appearance on the printed piece. To make them easier to scan, they are general fairly large on the printed piece. Making them bigger also makes them obvious to the user, because it’s a double edge sword—they are seen, but they are ugly (a bunch of square dots inside a larger square), as well as meaningless and unfamiliar to most consumers. All while taking up print “real estate”.

So although the QR Code is being touted by consultants and pundits in the printing industry, it has not achieved enough traction or “ubiquity” to justify the amount of attention it has received. Does it make print complement mobile? It technically can, but today the consumer has to be quite motivated (presumably by an enormously valuable offer) to act. While it could be said that this may be the problem, not the technology itself—i.e., the creativity and motivation of advertisers to actually use this new mechanism in campaigns— it’s kind of a chicken and egg thing, and if advertisers really saw the value in doing this versus alternatives, perhaps we would all be scanning QR codes multiple times a day.

There are other ways to achieve the same results that QR Codes are promising. A company called DigiMarc, based in Beaverton, Oregon (www.digimarc.com) has been creating what they call Digital Watermarks for many years. Their software accomplishes the same end goal as QR Codes, but without the visible barcode-style manifestation. The August 2012 edition of Seventeen Magazine makes extensive use of the technology. Similar to QR Codes, the company’s solution requires reader software to be installed on the consumer’s smartphone to activate the rich media experience (in this case, software that is proprietary to DigiMarc), leaving that hurdle for the consumer to overcome. Seventeen Magazine’s young readership may be a good test, because it “seems” likely they would engage and want to see rich media associated with the “fun” content in the printed magazine. We will stay tuned and look forward to seeing the results.

Image recognition technology is likely to become much more powerful in smartphones as their processor speeds and memory capacity increases. This will allow the phones to recognize images, and retrieve offers based on the actual image itself, without a code. Google has been working on such technologies for several years, and is likely to make this available as an adjunct to their Ad Words offerings in the future.

Voice Recognition software in phones is only in its infancy now with technologies like Apple’s Siri, but will very likely be used for advertising applications. Instead of having to scan a poster, for example, you could simply speak particular text from the poster (i.e., keywords) to Siri, and she would retrieve an offer for you on your IOS-based smartphone. Apple is making gigantic investments in mobile advertising technology, so we can expect this to happen sooner rather than later.

This is an excerpt from the paper entitled, "Does Print Complement Mobile Computing", by Chuck Gehman and David Uyytendaele, published in the TAGA 2012 Proceedings.

The Inevitable End of the Flash Era

Adobe has some really cool things pointed at the Internet these days, much more than what they are doing in the print space. A friend pointed me to this nifty open source framework they've shipped, called PhoneGap. Mobile Internet, and "multi-screen" are the hottest areas for developers, so it should come as no surprise that this is where Adobe's attention is focused.

As for the Internet goodies, apparently Flash is no longer part of their plans for the future. The writing has been on the wall since Steve Jobs started his anti-Flash crusade roughly three years ago.

Last November, Adobe announced that it would stop the development of Flash for mobile devices. This week, Adobe disabled new installs of Flash on Android devices. If this really means Flash is done for Android, this is really a huge milestone. I mean, Flash is still "ubiquitous", and a lot of work will have to be done to completely erase it from the web. In fact, it's likely that remnants will be around for many years.

Steve Jobs would be completely stoked. As we may recall, he started this whole thing in early 2010 by calling out Flash as "evil." He, almost single-handedly, made HTML 5 as the platform of choice for mobile content. Obviously HTML 5 is growing in adoption on the desktop, too-- limited primarily by the unfortunate staying power of ancient browsers on user desktops.

Anyone who uses Flash now for anything except games and certain video applications is making a bad technical decision. And unless you already have lots of Flash expertise in house, you should move on-- because the best developers will have little interest in working with this platform from now on.