Hi, this is Frank Romano for WhatTheyThink.com.  One of the things I like do is wander around trade shows, especially one as big as Drupa and look at all the different mottos that companies have.  For instance, Hewlett-Packard.  Their motto is "make it matter."  When I saw that the first time I thought it was sort of like E=MC² that somehow their machine turns energy into matter.   Pitney Bowes – "the art of success."  I'm not quote certain what that's all about.  Manroland is the best one I think – "we are print^©."  By the way has a copyright symbol on it.  Epson – "exceed your vision."  Not quite certain where that's going.  Screen – "take a closer look."  I did.  It was interesting.  Canon has been repeating the same one – "we speak image."  I like that sort of by the way.  It's an interesting contradiction but it says something about the way we print nowadays which is mostly imagery.  Ricoh has words.  "Imagine.  Change."  So, if you imagine something and then you have to change to it.  Whatever.

AGFA – "Stay ahead."  Well, okay if your technology is that good well now you just stay ahead of the competition.  Xerox – "delight your customers."  Well if you gave me a back rub I would buy a machine.  It would be that easy.  Fujifilm – "the power to succeed."   

I understand what they're all aiming for here.  They all want you to understand that what they provide you with allows you to succeed in some way, shape or form.  EFI was very interesting, almost a musical connotation – "don't miss a beat."  I thought it should be "don't miss the beat" but who knows.  Kodak, they're very interesting – "yellow changes everything."  That reminded me of UPS by the way – you know "think What Brown can do for you."  So other companies then use colors as a way of describing themselves.  

What's nice is that they have these mottos.  It's a way of sort of getting everything in the marketing world coalesced under one sort of understandable theme.  But the most important think I think companies have to do is introduce great products.  And that's how you will be known.  I mean Apple doesn't have a motto.  It used to be "think different" and they got rid of that real fast.  Because really what they are all about are great products.  And the same is true in the printing industries.  It's all about great products and those products help me as a user become great as well.  And that's my opinion.  

Everyone asks me what was the hottest thing there?  Well I want to give you two things that probably most people aren't even mentioning.