Cary Sherburne: Hi, I'm Cary Sherburne, Senior Editor at WhatTheyThink.com, and I’m here with Dr. Joe Webb, Director of our Economics and Research Center. Now we’re going to date ourselves. Johnny Carson, Carnac the Magnificent, it’s like, what does the future look like.
Dr. Joe Webb: I don’t have an envelope to rip, yean.
Cary Sherburne: Or a turban. So, my question to you would be, if you kind of look out at 2020, what are some of the dynamics that you see that are really going to change our industry, out to 2020?
Dr. Joe Webb: Well, there’s obviously a lot of things, but there are some very core things that we really need to keep in mind. I know some people think it strange not to worry about the economic stuff, but there are some things that are technology based and are also demographically based aspect to it. So if you keep three numbers in mind, 30, 60, and 100.
Cary Sherburne: Okay.
Dr. Joe Webb: You’ll have a sense of what’s going ahead. Thirty is how much faster computer speeds will be by 2020.
Cary Sherburne: Than they are today.
Dr. Joe Webb: So – then they are today. So if you follow Moore’s Law, which is where computer speeds double every 18 months and halved their price, you end up with 30 times. That’s absolutely incredible.
Sixty, is the 60 million people born since 1995, and why that’s important is, that’s the year that the internet came to public knowledge, when –
Cary Sherburne: When Netscape when public.
Dr. Joe Webb: When the Netscape IPO was in August, 1995. And that’s when everybody got all excited about the internet. And now Netscape is long gone and the internet is still here.
And then 100, is the target megabits per second that the FCC has established for the average connection rate in the U.S. for the internet.
Cary Sherburne: By 2020?
Dr. Joe Webb: By 2020. Today, I have high speed cable, and we get 30 megabits. The average in the U.S. is closer to seven to 15, somewhere in there. So we’re talking about a massive change.
What will all these things be used for? Well, most of the computer speed is going to go into the interface and the way that video is displayed. So all of those applications that involve video and animation are going to benefit greatly and there will be far more touch screens and other ways of interacting with data than using a mouse, or you know, even a keyboard.
The 60 million people are people who are already engrained in the daily use of digital media.
Cary Sherburne: Digital natives.
Dr. Joe Webb: Right, and when you add the number of people of who already in that – less the number of people who die in that 10 year period, you’ve got about 110 million people who are those digital natives. So that would be about one-third of our population instead of the just barely 20 percent you know, today. Plus you have people like us who were born a little bit before 1995. I was born a lot before, so we already use these kinds of things, and if you’re viewing this video on line, you’re one of those people too and use of these media are going to be going up.
So those three things are going to play out in some very fascinating ways. And it’s easy to say that all of these things will play up and really hurt the nature of print, but we have to remember that the printing industry is comprised of individual companies and individual entrepreneurs who can reposition themselves and adapt to this kind of marketplace. So that’s what a lot of the focus should be on. How do we get printing organizations to transform their businesses in a way that they start taking advantages of all of these opportunities that are going to be coming up?
Cary Sherburne: I think it’s going to be a very exciting time the next decade.
Dr. Joe Webb: It certainly will. It will be very challenging, but I believe our industry is up to it.
Cary Sherburne: I hope so. Thank you.
Dr. Joe Webb: Thank you very much.
Official camera partner of WhatTheyThink and the drupa daily. 
Discussion
By David Pilcher on Dec 13, 2010
I appreciate the facts on what's happening in the digital industry. I am a user of it and enjoy it as well. But let’s not forget – the foundation of the print industry is manufacturing a product and without that printers won’t be printers any more – instead they will move into a different market as media service providers. I believe there will still be printers who are just printers in the future. In 2020 people will still want to read ink on paper as one of the forms of media they digest like many other forms they currently enjoy like radio, television, e-mail and the internet. In fact, as these other media sources merge into all being available via the internet, print will become a different and more distinct format to reach customers with. Advertisers will view it as a unique way to reach a market that continues to filter and select its messages. Print may become the only way to avoid smart filters and get a new message to people who may not have asked to receive it. Products being delivered to peoples mailboxes will not completely go away – even with all the digital offerings.
By Joe Webb on Dec 13, 2010
I think it might be helpful to see and hear the ideas expressed more completely, which I did at the Print CEO Forum.
The slides are at: http://d3a577syzx0or3.cloudfront.net/docs/2010-print-ceo-forum/2-JoeWebb-PathTo2020.pdf
The audio is at: http://d3a577syzx0or3.cloudfront.net/docs/2010-print-ceo-forum/PrintCEOForum-DrJoeWebb-100210.mp3
The opening discussion comparing the periods 1990-2000 and 2000-2010 are important to set up the rest of the discussion.
Also take a look at this article from the Wall Street Journal just last week which discusses the new use of iPads in the medical device market http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703493504576007723119984758.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read
It's pretty clear that the print market has changed dramatically in this last decade; I still believe that there are numerous opportunities for print businesses but we have to focus on the business as a communications deployment and logistics enterprise and not solely a print medium manufacturer. The cultural shift is rather dramatic and difficult but it can be done. This details the issues http://d3a577syzx0or3.cloudfront.net/docs/Disrupting-the-Future-reva.pdf
Discussion
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