There have been several reports released recently that are of interest to media and printing executives.

eMarketer's report on media usage around the world has snapshots of countries and formats that explain how much media and information markets have changed. They're fascinating to see, and underscore how rapidly media-deprived regions have leaped ahead to the digital information.

Most business for printers is with B2B clients, so Gallup's “Guide to Customer Centricity – Analytics and Advice for B2B Leaders,” is especially appropriate for printers. Understanding the objectives of B2B clients is important so they can be served in a proactive way. Print executives need to do the same for their own businesses. Jim Clifton, chairman and CEO of Gallup says that 29% of “B2B customers are fully engaged — that is, emotionally and psychologically attached to the companies they do business with. The other 71% are ready and willing to take their business elsewhere.” The report states that companies are failing to build strong customer relationships. The report is free.

Among the not-so-neat stuff in the media, the American Enterprise Institute blog had a chart showing how US newspaper employment is now below levels of the late 1940s, and is about 185,000. That's down -270,000 since the early 1990s. I always find this amusing, not the fact that so many workers are gone, but the pundits who claimed “content is king” got this so wrong. There is no industry around the world that created as much content as the newspaper business did, on national, regional, and local bases. Distribution is king, access is its prince, and content has a whole different context than was thought.

The pace of innovation in the economy is stagnant, according to a report from MIT, but there are ways to change that. The hurdle seems to be getting from startup to commercialization. It's an interesting report that identifies the characteristics of true high-growth startups (hint: have a new patent and a Delaware incorporation, and is not named after its founder). The report is free and the Harvard Business Review blog had some thoughtful comments about it.