The Internet of Things (IoT) is gaining attention, especially now just after CES, the consumer electronics show. Internet connected devices were all over the place. And all kinds of studies show the growth potential. But only few people pay attention to what will make or break IoT: the security aspect….
It’s 2017 and especially today we are fully aware of the fact that the world has changed. Significantly. And it shows in the annual Edelman Trust Barometer. Trust has imploded, that’s the very short summary. But the Trust Barometer also has advice how to change the world for the better….
In preparation of a future article, I should explain you the basic of color management. Don’t run away! The concept of ‘ICC based color management’ is not that difficult. But too many people can not or will not explain it in easy terms. That’s what I would like to do…
Last week I saw an interesting graph by eMarketer.com, showing ‘Trusted Information Sources’. It clearly shows that people trust print ads (in newspapers/magazines) much more than digital ads (on websites): 54% vs 16%… So why are CMO’s still shifting the larger part of their (often limited) budget to digital? To…
The year 2016 has come to an end, you are probably looking into 2017 and making new year’s resolutions. Here is a nice one: protecting your company against ransomware, the latest cybersecurity threat. One with a perfect business model. One that is spreading like the flue. CONTENTS: Why worry? |…
Yesterday I got a direct mail piece from a travel agency. Or to be more correct: I got TWO direct mail pieces… Which doesn’t make a good impression. Why are they wasting my money – eventually I pay for these promotions, with my bookings – on two cards??? As you…
Earlier this week Amazon announced Amazon Go, its store with automatic checkout. I immediately wondered how they are going to do that. In the past, the concept of an automatic checkout always involved RFID labels or something similar. But I never believed such a solution would happen anytime soon. CONTENTS:…
Sometimes it can be easy, you just have to find and use the right incentives. That’s what a printing company in France, named Quo Vadis, did. And now they are saving 357.000 euro per year on paper waste. And all of this with an investment of only 3.900 euro… How did…
It’s probably a big challenge for every company: missed sales. The million dollar question is how you can avoid missed sales. Well, here are two cases where innovation in print provided a solution. Nothing complicated, no high tech, just an easy answer to a real world problem. CONTENTS: Case 1:…
It is a necessity: investing in marketing and sales. Even in times when cost cutting is daily business. But how much do printing companies invest in marketing and sales? What is the benchmark for printers? Well, let’s take a look at Vistaprint (Cimpress). CONTENTS: Vistaprint (Cimpress) | A few anecdotes…
When you are designing a brand logo, you want to create a logo that can easily be remembered. When judging print, you want everything within tight tolerances, to preserve that unique brand color. But our color memory seems to think quite different about unique colors… Color is something very complex…
It was a gamble when major software companies changed from a one time licence fee to a monthly subscription based licensing. But it seems that many people have embraced that choice. Just look at the numbers that were recently published (October 2016). According to this article, Microsoft has 85 million active…
You’ve probably heared about the massive cyberattack on 21th of October 2016. This was the probably biggest cyberattack to date. But what is lesser known, is that there probably was a ‘general rehearsel’ earlier that month. And that it also involved printers… Early October 2016 I read an article on…
When evaluating your business, you need a reference point. And that should be reference points from outside your own company. Otherwise it doesn’t make any sense. A decade ago one printer told me that they really needed 1000 and more sheets during makeready, because the delivered the highest quality print…
All statistics are clear: print goes down. The turnover of the printing industry goes down, the total of paper consumption goes down. But it’s not as bad as these figures show… This is why. CONTENTS: Changing landscape | Paper industry statistics | Waste in printing companies | Why does this…