Sometimes, it's just too Delicious to let go: Define "photocopier" - under oath.

3/2011

One of the thousands of "DOTC Informers" tipped me off to some goings-on in the Mistake by the Lake, The Rock and Roll Capital of the World - Cleveland.

This is no lie.

As we on this side struggle to define Managed Print Services, there are Public workers everywhere who still call the machine which makes copies a xerox.

Think I'm too tough on the public sector? 

Here is a sample from a deposition last year that seemed to get stuck on the definition of "photocopier".

Lawyers and a witness - you can not make this stuff up:

Marburger: Do you have a secretary?

Patterson: No.

Marburger: Does anybody there have a secretary?

Patterson: Yes.

Marburger: Have you ever heard a secretary use the term "photocopy"?

Patterson: No.

Marburger: Have you ever--do you have machines there where I can put in a paper document, push a button or two, and out will come copies of that paper document also on paper? Do you have such a machine?

Patterson: Yes, sir.

Marburger: What do you call that machine?

Patterson: Xerox.

Marburger: Xerox. Is the machine made by the Xerox Company? Is that why it's called Xerox?

Patterson: No.

Marburger: So Xerox, in the parlance that you've described, the language that you've described, is being used generically as opposed to describing a particular brand; is that right?

Patterson: All of my life I've just known people to say Xerox. It's not commonplace to use the terminology that you're using.

Marburger: You mean it's more -- people say Xerox instead of photocopy?

Patterson: If you're referring to a type of machine where you place a piece of paper on the top and press a button and out comes copies of it, they usually refer to it as a Xerox.

Marburger: Have you ever heard it referred to as photocopying?

Patterson: Not with my generation, no.


You must check out the entire conversation.

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SuperMoon - SuperBeast - 2:10 EST

What were you doing, the last time there was a supermoon, 19 years ago?

Where will you be when the next SuperMoon rises?

Photizo Managed Print Services Conference 2011 - Look to Yesterday and See Tomorrow

This year the North American MPS Conference is going to be huge - attendance up, interest in MPS common, the niche now firmly established as an industry.

Why should you go?

Maybe you don't want to be the last person on your block selling copiers. No doubt to the surviving collection of people who don't care about value, costs or spending our money: Public Sector.

Do you think this "Hot New MPS Thing" will finally catch on next year?

Perhaps you're such a output-geek, friends and family are starting to put you in the same class as "Trekies"(for the record, its "Trekor"). Fewer people stick around once you get going on "scan once, print many".

And maybe approaching a three-some like the one above, intimidates you.

Ok, that has little to do with MPS; more to do with DOTC_AfterDark.

If you're into Managed Print Services, see a future beyond Stage 4, and reside out here with me 'to the right of the bell curve', this is our time.  Come.