What Remains of the "Grey Lady"?: Google Might Buy New York Times

That's the rumor. This could be the shape of things to come.

2010, the year of the Tablet and perhaps the year digital and print media truly begin to merge?

Just a blurb, but still...

The Death of Print Continues -

Bowling Green Initiating Managed Print Services Program: Print Responsibly

Press Release:


"Print Responsibilty' campaign goes into effect

Monday, 02 Nov 2009, 11:11 AM EST

By Sentinel Staff

BOWLING GREEN, Ohio -

Bowling Green State University this week will begin to implement its Print Responsibly campaign that President Carol Cartwright announced during her State of the University address last month.

The program is described as a more cost-effective and environmentally friendly way to handle everyday printing and other tasks like copying, scanning and faxing.

The university will contract with a company with expertise in managed print services.

When fully implemented next year, BGSU will no longer purchase any non-specialized printers, copiers, fax machines or scanners.

The campaign is projected to save about $1.5 million a year and reduce annual consumption of paper by up to 40 percent.

University departments will not be responsible for purchasing toner or other materials, or maintenance costs, but instead will simply pay a per-page price for printed or copied documents. This will also give BGSU access to the latest technology.

Beginning Tuesday, the Print Responsibly team will be visiting offices and departments. The purpose of these initial visits is to confirm the inventory of printers, copiers, and fax machines and scanners.

The inventory is expected to take about four weeks to complete. Other visits will follow to discuss printing needs with the departments.

In November, ITS will begin a pilot program with several departments that have volunteered to be part of the launch. University-wide implementation of the Print Responsibly program will likely begin next semester.

A Web site to provide additional information about the program can be found at here.

Cartwright said there will likely be changes to the university's approaches to printing but expects the payoff for the program will be quite significant. She said savings will stay in the respective departments.

She noted the university prints about 70 million pages per year. With Print Responsibly, Cartwright expects to see a reduction in the amount of paper used of up to 40 percent or 28 million pages.
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DOTC - 70 million pages/year billed at let's say 0.0120 results in a revenue of $840,000; at the "standard" MPS GP of 35%, 294k in GP.

The "Hunters vs. Farmers" Sales Metaphor - It's Dead: Let's Break Out of The Box

2009

Within the MPS Ecosystem, the struggle is moving between back-room infrastructure and field-level acumen.

Just like everything else the "experts" attempt to do, we selling professionals, are being classified; boxed in, and commoditized.

The questions now are, "What type of person do I need to employ as an MPS Sales Executive?"

"How many appointments should my team generate to reach a close?"

"What is a good monthly revenue/sales/profit number an MPS rep should hit?"

It is apparent that the "copier mentality" is only a fraction of what is needed to bring home MPS Engagements. That is of course unless you simply start defining your CPC agreements as MPS Engagements. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!

And by the way, if your manager/owner/principal is plugging MPS Assessments into your "normal" copier funnel, you know, "15 face to face meetings per week, 5 Demos, 3 MPS Assessments, 1.5 closes per week", you are far, far removed from an MPS Practice.

Managed Print Services is not a bolt-on marketing scheme.

So, does MPS need Hunters or does MPS need Farmers?

The answer is Both - The answer is Neither.

We need Professionals who can do both; who can do it all.

"Hunter" - Find it, Kill it, move on.

"Farmer" - Move in after the kill, bury it, water it, reap.

It may be just me but I tend to think of selling "farmers" akin to vegetarians. And as you know, another name for a vegetarian is a "hunter with bad aim..."

Hunter? Farmer? Hello, the 1950's called, they want their sales cliches back...keep this up and the ditto-machine will make a come back.

I don't care what anybody says, real MPS is different - it is a Hybrid process, Hybrid product, Hybrid service, Hybrid business model. How can we expect the same old selling models and formulas to prevail?

How can anyone presume to tell Selling Professionals how to go about selling MPS(Hybrid), if those selling professionals are not Hybrid themselves?

What? Huh? Am I saying that there is MORE to selling than PROCESS?

Am I?

Goodness gracious, great balls of fire! Should I feel a slight agitation around my neck? Like John had when Herod came by, ready to fulfill Solome's wish? (don't get it? Go here)

Yeah - sure, sales is more than process, tell that to HP/Xerox - I often wonder how the enterprise clients feel, knowing they are part of a "process". Perhaps they feel like Velveeta?

There are, without fail, little flecks of hope, sparkling in the distance whenever I hear somebody say they are looking to hire folks from outside the industry. People with Insurance or market/advertising sales experience - not a bad start, I understand the premise. But there are challenges here as well.

Any ex-AFLAC agent is going to absolutely Laugh Out Loud when his MPS compensation plan doesn't have monthly residuals for life. The insurance industry invented that model for crying out loud.

And you are going to tell them that after developing a relationship he gets a one-time hit, a pat on the back, and a kick in the buttocks? Really? And this fresh, new, vibrant talent is going to break down your door, demanding a MPS selling position because why?

HA! But encouraging...

This is my thought; don't let "them" define you. Try, endeavor, toil against the meat grinder. And the best way to do this is to improve yourself, for yourself not your boss.

Does this mean attending company paid, useless, painful, Death-by-Powerpoint, speeds and feeds sales training classes?

Yes.

Does this mean picking up a book, if they still print them, about the latest, rehashed from the 80s, business strategies?

Yes.

Does this mean making every, single plant tour or walk-thru a field trip, learning not only how many output devices exist, but also how they run their business?

Yes.

Does this mean that everything you see and experience is yours, not your bosses, and improves you as a Selling Professional?

Yes.

Does this mean that one, tiny atom in my fingernail could be one little...tiny universe?

Yes.

Disruptive Marketing? Let's try Disruptive Defining.

Here's a message for all of us in the trenches, trying to sell MPS against ALL COMPETITION, including internal competition: The MPS Ecosystem is wide open for excited, daring, bold Selling Professionals - we work for the person in the mirror, not the one scrolling through the Monday morning sales meeting slide deck.

Don't think of yourself as either a "Farmer" or a "Hunter". Be both, Be better, be more.


Copier Sales People Destroy Managed Print Services Opportunities: Daily The New SalesPerson - Death of the "Close"

Thoughts from the CDA Meeting: Adapt or Die!

Copier Deal Up For Re-Bid, IDAHO School District Hires "Consultant" to Help with RFP:LOL!

An update to the article written back in August, "Another "GACKED" Sales Forecast: Idaho School District Reneges on Xerox Deal" - RFP responses to be reviewed by the board in January; consultants guaranteeing lowest possible cost.

Pity the 34,000 students.

In July of 2009 the school board decided to go with Xerox after reviewing 6 or 7 responses - Xerox was some 10k per month more "expensive" than the second place bidder, Fisher’s Document Systems Inc.

The deal was to provide more than 120 copiers to the school district in southwest Idaho for 60 months.

Fisher's got ticked, challenged the RFP process and now almost 6 months later, the deal will be reviewed again and awarded, again. The Xerox bid included "bodies", Fisher's did not.

Who is to say that the district really needs Xerox staff roaming around the district installing toner and xerographic units - but the district is missing the humongous point, don't ya know.

The blaring error is the inability of these "molders of young minds" to recognize anything more then the CPC and equipment cost. The case is hopeless now, there is no way to focus on any cost savings other than lease payment per month.

No real savings.

Don't Hate the Player, Hate the Game -

Classic story really, the RFP process is inherently flawed and for decades we in the business machine niche have taken advantage of the short coming. That is of course if you consider selling equipment at 3 points "taking advantage".

Adding injury to insult, now there is a consultant involved. I wonder if his fees are taken out of the "savings" provided by his oversight.

We look forward to the award announcement sometime after January.

More Details on the HP Canon Deal & The IPG/PSG Merger: HP's Year End - Let The Announcements Commence

More details on the new alliance between Canon and Hewlett Packard:

- HP will begin advertising Canon copiers on its website on 11/1/09

- HP will resell imageRUNNER, imageRUNNER ADVANCE, and imageRUNNER ADVANCE PRO series

- Speed range from 23ppm to 105ppm devices

- According to Larry Trevarthen, HP’s Worldwide Director of Market Development, HP also has access to the imagePRESS production print products

- All the devices will initially carry the Canon name

- The products will be identical to what Canon dealers sell, including supplies

- Service will be provided by a Canon factory direct branch primarily. Only if there is no Canon branch in the area, will the service contract be offered to a Canon dealer.

- Canon currently has 60 factory branch locations, but will expand to 90 locations within 2 years

- HP will support Canon copiers with its Web JetAdmin utility

- HP will also modify its Universal Print Driver to support Canon copiers

- Starting in early 2010, HP will begin to develop its own print controllers for the Canon copiers

Canon announced it has purchased Document House, a $6.7 million Xerox/HP dealer in Scandinavia. It will now offer Canon and HP products only.

Canon stated that since Ricoh bought IKON, it has signed up only 23 new dealers in the U.S.

Canon announced it will spend $220 million to launch its own managed print services effort, with goal of gaining $1.1 billion in annual revenue by 2012.

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A recent report regarding the merger of IPG and PSG briefly stated that Vyomesh Joshi, HP veteran who leads the printing division, would leave the company in the coming months. - Wall Street Journal

"I think there’s some misconceptions that the nature of the relationship is such that we would deliver product to HP under an OEM basis where they would put their HP brand on it, but that’s not the case. All the technology that HP will source under this relationship will be sold under the Canon brand." - Dennis Amorosano, Canon’s senior director, solutions marketing. - Image Solutions Reseller

Before Independence Day, Before Lost in Space, Before Tom Cruise, There was Radio and Orson Wells...

"...We know now that in the early years of the twentieth century this world was being watched closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own.

We know now that as human beings busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinized and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water.

With infinite complacence people went to and fro over the earth about their little affairs, serene in the assurance of their dominion over this small spinning fragment of solar driftwood which by chance or design man has inherited out of the dark mystery of Time and Space.

Yet across an immense ethereal gulf, minds that to our minds as ours are to the beasts in the jungle, intellects vast, cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. In the thirty-ninth year of the twentieth century came the great disillusionment.

It was near the end of October. Business was better. The war scare was over. More men were back at work.

Sales were picking up.

On this particular evening, October 30, the Crosley service estimated that thirty-two million people were listening in on radios..." - Orson Wells, 1938.

In a world without the internet, Twitter, cell phones or email a fictitious account of an invasion from Mars scared children, and angered many.

I submit to you a feast for your ears and the kaleidoscope of your mind. Travel back when this new medium, radio, ruled and was blamed for the Death of the Stage show and rotting young minds...enjoy.

Printable Electronics/NanoTech: Xerox

10/28/2009 

Printable Electronics via this new silver ink from X may allow some interesting and different applications.

The "roll-up" display screen, "digital-paper" and wearable iPods.

I know, "pie in the sky" stuff. But remember, change occurs much quicker than it did 10 years or even 2 years ago.

Keep an eye on this.



Press Release.

MISSISSAUGA, Ont., Canada, Oct. 27, 2009 --

With the development of a new silver ink, Xerox scientists have paved the way for commercialization and low-cost manufacturing of printable electronics. Printable electronics offers manufacturers a very low-cost way to add "intelligence" or computing power to a wide range of surfaces such as plastic or fabric.

This development will aid the commercialization of new applications such as "smart" pill boxes that track how much medication a patient has taken or display screens that roll up to fit into a briefcase.
"For years, there's been a global race to find a low-cost way to manufacture plastic circuits," said Paul Smith, laboratory manager, Xerox Research Centre of Canada. "We've found the silver bullet that could make things like electronic clothing and inexpensive games a reality today. This breakthrough means the industry now has the capability to print electronics on a wider range of materials and at a lower cost."

Until now, bringing low-cost electronics to the masses has been hindered by the logistics and costs associated with silicon chip manufacturing; the breakthrough low-temperature silver ink overcomes the cost hurdle, printing reliably on a wide range of surfaces such as plastic or fabric.

As part of its commercialization initiatives, Xerox plans to aggressively seek interested manufacturers and developers by providing sample materials to allow them to test and evaluate potential applications.

Integrated circuits are made up of three components - a semiconductor, a conductor and a dielectric element - and currently are manufactured in costly silicon chip fabricating factories. By creating a breakthrough silver ink to print the conductor, Xerox has developed all three of the materials necessary for printing plastic circuits.

Using Xerox's new technology, circuits can be printed just like a continuous feed document without the extensive clean room facilities required in current chip manufacturing. In addition, scientists have improved their previously developed semiconductor ink, increasing its reliability by formulating the ink so that the molecules precisely align themselves in the best configuration to conduct electricity.

The printed electronics materials, developed at the Xerox Research Centre of Canada, enable product manufacturers to put electronic circuits on plastics, film, and textiles. Printable circuits could be used in a broad range of products, including low-cost radio frequency identification tags, light and flexible e-readers and signage, sensors, solar cells and novelty applications including wearable electronics.

"We will be able to print circuits in almost any size from smaller custom-sized circuits to larger formats such as wider rolls of plastic sheets -unheard of in today's silicon-wafer industry," said Hadi Mahabadi, vice president and center manager of Xerox Research Centre Canada. "We are taking this technology to product developers to enable them to design tomorrow's uses for printable electronics."

R&D samples of the materials including the new conductive silver ink are available by contacting Xerox.

About Xerox
Headquartered in Norwalk, Conn., Xerox Corporation's 54,000 people represent the world's leading document management, technology and services enterprise, providing the industry's broadest portfolio of color and black-and-white document processing systems and relate