The Printing Industry will celebrate it's 564th birthday in 2008. Over the last 564 years the materials and processes used to place ink on paper have evolved, but one thing has remained constant: print remains a highly effective method of distributing and consuming informaton.
To mark the event, Frank Romano wrote a Printing Industry birthday toast:
Printing survived cinema, radio, and television. Printing survived censorship, poor writing, and bad ideas. Printing survived war and peace, boom and bust. Printing survived mechanization, automation, and interminable technology upheaval.
Printing will survive the Internet and e-books and all those misguided souls who say that “Print is dead.” Print is more alive than at any other time in its history.
Because you cannot achieve with pixels on a screen the look and feel of ink on paper. A beautiful brochure says as much about the product it promotes as the text and images. The medium truly is the message.
As we enter the 564th year of the industry, what do you look forward to? What will the future of print look like?
Update: BigIron05 at the HireSkills Blog shared his thoughts on Frank's toast.
Discussion
By Bill Cox on Jan 14, 2008
In his address at Seton Hall University Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project, stated “there is overwhelming evidence that after new media technologies enter mainstream culture: The role of experts and information gatekeepers such as teachers and doctors is radically altered ….as empowered amateurs and dissidents find new ways to raise their voices and challenge authority. Attempts by those in power to censor activity and choke off new avenues of commerce inevitably bring a wider libertarian backlash – and new censorship workarounds are hacked together through technology and the marketplace. At the same time, there are powerful, new outlets to circulate bad information by bad actors – from quacks, from propagators of urban legends, from spin and disinformation specialists, from people who just don’t know any better. More people have the tools to play elaborate tricks or perpetrate scams on each other as they promote their crackpot ideas and their products to gullible audiences. Eventually, new institutions and new kinds of groups are created that more appropriately take account of the social, economic and political changes wrought by the technology. There is a struggle to revise social and legal norms, and the battles often center on the concept of intellectual property. Cultures of identity multiply as people use the new technologies to find others who share their background or their passions or their lifestyle. New forms of language arise. Boundaries break down between the private and the public spheres of life as more people reveal their innermost thoughts and their day-to-day behaviors to a much wider audience. New professions emerge as people gain expertise in the new technology and how to program it. And, most relevant to you here, new teaching models and methods arise as educational leaders try to adjust to massive societal pressures that they adopt new methods to help children prepare for the new world that is emerging. Perhaps some of you have figured out what I’m doing. I’m citing the work of the wonderful historian Elizabeth Eisenstein in her study of the impact of the printing press in 15th and 16th Century Europe“
By Mike Critelli on Jan 16, 2008
I could not agree with you more about the longevity of print. Our experience has been that coerced efforts to get people to convert from reading things on paper to using the Internet do not work. People want the choice as to the medium on which they receive or read messages. They also find it difficult to digest long documents online. For example, according to an unpublished study from Broadridge, when companies shift from printed proxy statements to electronic proxy statements, shareholder participation in proxy votes falls by 75%, with the biggest drop coming from small investors. Also, we know that when individuals receive e-mails at offices, they print many documents solely for the purpose of reading them, then throwing them out after reading them. A study sponsored by Xerox Corporation indicates that the average knowledge worker prints 1,250 pages a month and then throws them out.
By Gail Nickel-Kailing on Jan 17, 2008
For Mike Critelli - Do you know where I can get a copy of that study? Or at least the executive summary? Unfortunately - or fortunately, depending on how you look at it - I'm sitting right next to a box on the floor marked "recycle." In it are - wait, I'll count them... * 7 magazines * 3 flyers * 4 copies of the New York Times * 1 copy of the Wall Street Journal and 80 printed 8 1/2 x 11 sheets off my desktop printer! And that's just the last couple of days... I'm in a small office and I'll bet I average that 1,250 pages a month! Yikes - I never really counted. I need to go back and see how many are 2-sided... Gail Nickel-Kailing www.business-strategies-etc.com