In our high-tech, fast-paced graphic communications world, it can often be difficult to find the time to learn anything that is not essential. Yet with today’s challenging economy and technological advances, graphic communications service providers continually need to reassess what they are doing and how they are doing it. Think about all that has happened in our industry over the past 25 years… sometimes I am reticent to admit that I have witnessed it all. We saw the introduction of Xerox’s DocuTech product, direct imaging and computer-to-plate technologies emerged, offset-quality digital color became a reality, high-speed inkjet emerged, standards like JDF evolved to automate print manufacturing plants, and concepts like “green” and “sustainability” become important driving forces. Now we need to prepare for the integration of print with social, mobile, and online media. According to Gartner research, mobile phones are expected to overtake PCs as the most common Web access devices worldwide in 2013, and the total number of smartphones is expected to exceed 1.82 billion units worldwide this year. In terms of social media, the Huffington Post states that a million Websites have integrated with Facebook, 34% of marketers have generated leads on Twitter, and over 5 million photos are uploaded to Instagram every hour.

With all the dynamics occurring in today’s market, owners, managers, and employees in graphic communications firms need to commit themselves to lifelong learning. In the book entitled Self University: The Price of Tuition is the Desire to Learn, author Charles D. Hayes states, “Most of us conduct our lives as if we were walking on a high wire far above the ground. Once we gain our balance, we are afraid to move. We are continually kept off-balance by a lack of self-knowledge and the inability to reconcile what we think versus how we feel. A self-university is a state of mind based on objectivity and the desire to learn. Free of learned limitations, the ‘self-educated’ person is capable of meeting uncertainty with confidence.”

My challenge for you is to set up a “self university” for yourself, while simultaneously building the right infrastructure for your employees. My top recommendations are as follows: