Sometimes I think my colleague Jeremy Smith and I should do a Siskel and Roeper act and give conflicting points of view on topics in this industry. Even when we agree--which is often enough--we can devil's advocate each other to distraction and the entertainment value would be pretty high.

Anyway - in his recent piece, Traditional Printing on the Decline: From The Ashes Emerges A New Industry, Jeremy reiterates points I and others have made over the past few years about the irrevocable changes coming to the printing business. While it's not new news, it bears repeating and it reminds me of what a well-known print-industry consultant said to me a couple of years ago, "Print is in deep doo-doo." (or words to that effect).

And it's true. Even though printed pages will be with us for many years to come, yet it's amazing how many print providers continue staking their futures on the limitations of paper being run through their presses. They can see the world changing but think it doesn't affect them. On the other hand, I work with a number of small- and medium-sized service bureaus and direct mailers, toner-heads to the last, who all get the fact that the world is changing.

While they don't think of themselves as printers, they are surely in the business of printing. But they are also in the business of printing that is to come, and are in some ways inventing it. Because they've always been data-centric and comfortable with digital technology, they're moving quickly to offer customers a broader mix of communications solutions. They are adding digital color printing enriched with extensive variable data, and in many cases are blending print and electronic media to deliver the value and services their customers need.

They develop and provide EBP solutions and data-driven, dynamic web sites that support customers' initiatives while increasing their own revenues and helping grow their businesses. And they are seeing jobs once done at traditional printers that customers now want in smaller quantities and customized with variable or 1:1 content. For now, such jobs are still like a trickle below a leaky dam, but there is a distinct sense that the dam is weakening. For traditional printers, learning to compete with data-savvy digital print shops is key to survival.