One thing I have been impressed with has been the approach taken by Jeffrey Hayzlett, the Chief Marketing Officer of Kodak's Graphic Communications Group. He is taking every opportunity to speak at any events for any industry, not just printing. His objective is to sell the power of print to people who are customers or potential customers of printers. At the same time he will endeavor to sell Kodak as the brand of choice to be associated with printing. I am impressed with this as I feel it is about time printing sold itself as a viable industry that has a major and continuing role to play in all forms of business and consumer communication. I appreciate that Hayzlett is not alone in pushing printing. In the USA the Print Council has been set up also to handle this role.

I believe that marketing the role of print is something that should be one of the key roles for industry associations throughout the world. Most national printing industry associations appear to see their role as purely supporting their members, the printing companies and providing services in helping in wage negotiations, labor laws, training and other issues. I see few national printing trade associations adopting the role of selling the power or print to other industries, or even defending print's role in the communication process. Today with the major impact of the Internet and other forms of electronic information delivery, print is often seen as an industry of the past rather than the future. It should be the role of all industry associations to sell the power of print as a future as well as a current information delivery medium, and an industry that is dynamic and changing to be a part of the new communications processes.

It is interesting to see how bad the printing and publishing industry are at defending their role in the area of communications. How often do we here some so called celebrity stating on television that they would not want to use print because it is using dead trees and it is killing the environment? Such people are never told that their perception is totally wrong. Printing and the paper industries are in fact one of the most environmentally friendly industries. The paper industry to my understanding is growing more new trees than it is chopping down trees. As such it is doing more than almost any other industry to counter the effects of CO2 and stop global warming. Print's record in paper and board recycling is also very good and overall print and paper has a very positive environmental role.