Of course, some may say that I am biased, I’m an outlier. I grew up in the industry; I’m a fourth-generation “printer.” I’m cursed, right? No, I love what I do! And today it’s even better than it ever was. The injection of technology into this industry has made the impossible possible. I would argue that what I see as a normal print job would be a near impossibility to the “seasoned veteran.” Do I learn things every day from the “seasoned” employees whom I work with? Yes, of course! But, they also learn from the younger, more technologically inclined staff as well. The perfect answer is not new or old; it’s having a healthy mix of the two.

There are more people out there like me––people who grew up in the industry––but there are a whole lot more who are looking for work and can be taught. Why not hire the college grads who majored in marketing and teach them the down and dirty of printing?  You may just learn something from them! Set up a training program at your organization to educate your staff. Have the seasoned employees teach print and the newer ones technology. Better yet, look into universities that still offer majors with a print background. I guarantee they don’t have a Print Management major anymore. But they have very intriguing majors like these: Communication and Media Technologies, Media Arts and Technology, and New Media Marketing. Click on those links in the previous sentence to see the curriculum––it almost makes me want to go back to college just to learn!

So what’s the point? The point is that when the industry is changing so rapidly, we can’t staff ourselves out of the market by keeping only seasoned employees. Nor can we hire only young college grads to service our most important clients. With such a diverse market, we will need a diverse staff. Keep the wisdom while encouraging the youth––together they are both our future.

What are your sources for new hires?

Author: T. John Mehl

Are you insane? This goes against everything anyone in sales or customer service has ever been taught! The customer is always right, right? No! Is it right to promise what you can’t deliver? Is it right to tell the customer the job will be delivered in a short amount of time when you know it physically can’t be done? Is it right to tell a customer you have the capability to produce what you know your equipment or software isn’t capable of?

We always want to give customers what they want, even though we know we can’t always do that. But sometimes we need to say no if the client demands services that are prohibited, dishonest, or damaging to their brand, or if the client has extreme expectations. Consider this: Is it wise to say yes, work like a fiend, push your equipment beyond its limit, or spend all night writing a new program? No. This almost always results in an exhausted and frustrated employee, broken equipment, and a program that still doesn’t please the client. Disappointment is felt all around. It’s important to note that saying no doesn’t mean that you are ending your company’s relationship with a client. So, how do you say “no” without disappointing your most valued asset? When a client wants something that you can’t achieve, the best answer is to explain the reasoning behind the “no” and offer an alternative solution. People like being treated fairly. All the leading customer service and sales experts tell us to replace the word “no” with the statement, “Here’s what I can do for you.”

If you constantly give excellent customer service and your client is 99% satisfied with all that you do, it is always the better choice to say no when something cannot be done. Promise your absolute best, promise you will do everything “within reason” that you can, but remember that there is no shame in admitting defeat. And the most important lesson here is to admit defeat before you see “the whites of their eyes,” which will actually be the client seeing red if you constantly promise what you cannot deliver.

Bottom line: If you must say no, say it with empathy and clearness. Present an alternative solution so that the client doesn’t feel a loss of power. I personally dislike hearing “I understand how you feel.” Try to avoid that phrase. Everyone and everything has its limitations, which can often be overcome eventually. But for now, say no when you know deep down it’s the right answer.

Have you ever said no to a client? If so, want to share any stories that would help us all learn how to cope best with the situation?

Project manager Rob Mills offers great insight on when to say no to clients in this article.

Author: Doreen Doyle & Marina Kaljaj

Sony recently introduced a bio-cell battery that uses paper to create power. It is an interesting process. The battery has an enzyme that breaks the paper down into glucose. This currently produces enough power to operate a small fan, but if Sony can perfect this, I predict junk mail will become popular.

It seems that Apple’s bane is the battery, from ones that explode  to others that just don’t last as promised. Apple is hoping to develop a battery that is powered by hydrogen. The hope is that by using this light, common element, Apple will have an eco-friendly battery that will last weeks without a recharge.

Stanford University has created a battery that is see-through and flexible. The battery is made of a grid-like mesh that is coated with silicon. The trenches of the mesh are filled with a gel electrolyte. The resulting battery is not only transparent but also extremely thin. Researchers are currently struggling with the same issue that most battery manufacturers have: the life of the battery is not long enough.

With all these battery options on our horizon, hopefully our future will be shiny and bright.

Author: Susan Hallinan

Stepping outside, we see department store after department store brimming with ads promoting whatever Hallmark holiday is in season. I can’t even imagine what Macy’s must spend on its Christmas decor, the Thanksgiving Day Parade, the 4^th of July fireworks, and other holiday festivities.

On TV, our commercials play familiar jingles often remade to sync with the product—sort of like this:

The 4^th of July reminds us that we should celebrate not only our freedom from British tyranny, but also the fact that our forefathers knew how to party:

In other ads, Santa argues with Best Buy employees, converses with M&M’s, and even dresses in disguise as a car salesman.

We’ve grown so accustomed to these ads that we almost feel as though “Black Friday” and the “Summer Back-to-School Sale” are legitimate calendar holidays.

The word saturation comes to mind.

But what would we do without these ads? What would life really be like if corporations didn’t tie in their products and services with the holidays? How would we prepare? How would we know they were coming? Would the big holidays become more like Arbor Day? Would they be blips on the calendar, forgotten until the week before?

Just think of all the hype that’d be missed! If anticipation is the spice of life, holidays might just be stale bread. Croutons. That’s what I’m saying. I’m saying that if our complaints and frustrations with the seemingly endless supply of capitalistic holiday ads—indeed a complaint box of size—resulted in their absence, our holidays would be croutons.

All right, so maybe I’m not defending the vomit-inducing spots like the T-Mobile commercial above. I’d rather shoot myself in the face than hear that spot again. But it’s just so engrained in us—it’s become the “holiday spirit” we rely on every year. To imagine a life without TJ Maxx dancers, pitter-pattering through our malls and our hearts, is no life at all.

I consider myself incredibly out of touch with new products, widgets, and services. I’m as anti-consumerist/anti-commercialism-y as they come. And yet, I don’t know a world without holidays expressed in this particularly American manner. And quite frankly, I don’t want to.

One hundred days until Arbor Day. Let the countdown begin.

Author: Eric Swenson

After several rounds of revisions, we were finally able to get something that was print-ready. Paul was kind enough to include a special thank-you to both Antonio and me for helping to get this book printed. We ran 200 copies digitally. The final product looked beautiful and exceeded all expectations. Antonio and I were invited to their special “publishing party.” We travelled up to the Harlem to the Adam Clayton Powell State Office Building on 163 West 125th Street. When we got there, Paul excitedly greeted us and requested that I speak, much to my surprise. We entered the small auditorium, helped ourselves to the refreshments, and watched the activities in the room from a back corner. The community leaders, teachers, family members, and students were excitedly buzzing around the room. I noticed in front of us a beautiful young woman in red glasses, happily chatting to an elderly woman. A call to order, and the young woman joined her fellow students in the front two rows. Community leaders, teachers, Paul, and then I spoke. I talked about the process but focused on congratulating the students on their achievements and saying what an honor it was to help them and be invited to their event. The students all took turns reading their poems. Some of the poems were rapped, some rhythmically spoken, and some just simply read. Even a parent and a teacher were represented in the book. It was amazing to hear them spoken after just reading them for so long. I was so impressed with the beauty and excitement they all displayed with their readings.

Finally, Miss Red Glasses got up and started to rhythmically read her poem about a cancer survivor. The woman in front of me started to sob. I reached out, with tears in my eyes, to say her daughter was doing a great job. She turned to me and said, “ That’s my granddaughter, and I raised her. I didn’t even know she wrote a poem about me.” I was really teary by then. It was so touching. Her son and grandson joined her, and she turned and introduced them to me. The event concluded on such a high note––everyone was just thrilled with the book, and the students were even autographing their poems!

We learned that creating and printing a project––something we do every day and take for granted––can have such an impact on the end users. For me, this project was deeply personal after attending the reading. It had a voice and meant something more than ink on paper to a small group of people. I happily watched it come to full bloom. It was a celebration for everyone, and we are excitedly anticipating the start of the new Ringing Ear 2012. We certainly have a tough act to follow!

Author: Diane Waldman

As a marketing service provider, I have a unique perspective that comes from both marketing our business while providing those same services to our clients. It’s clear to me that most organizations do not put the proper resources and dollars into marketing themselves. In fact, many view marketing as a cost-center area rather than a valuable tool to grow the business.

Companies that are doing well––and there are many––have continued to hoard cash and refrain from reinvestment in capital projects as well as marketing efforts. It’s curious to me that every time business slows in our economy, the first budget cuts made are in the marketing departments. Doesn’t it make sense to increase your marketing efforts when business declines? Don’t we need to focus MORE on developing new business?

The cost of marketing in today’s digital world allows us to build an integrated marketing plan that fits into a broad range of budgets. Marketing through the use of digital tools such as email and social media carries a very low price point, and in some cases, it’s free. In fact, there’s a big shift away from traditional marketing toward interactive methods (see chart). The time resources to develop the messaging and creative are often the majority of the costs involved.

So if it’s this easy, why isn’t everyone doing it? Most organizations that are paralyzed by fear lack a clear strategy of who to market to, how they should be reached, and what message they need to hear. They just don’t see the benefits. Additionally, they lack a clear understanding of how to use the new media now available. After all, the myriad of icons we see from the different social sites is enough to make us crazy. It’s easier to pull in the reigns than to spend valuable time and resources on all of this change.

Here at Vanguard, we struggle with spending valuable dollars on marketing but recognize that it’s a vital link to future business relationships. As a business leader, it’s important for me to look at the “Marketing” line on the financial statements as an opportunity for new business rather than a cost center. Personally, I’m grateful we now have new and cost-effective avenues of communication. So my question to the audience is, what are you doing differently to market your organization?

Author: Robert O’Connell

Sonar

Foursquare + Facebook + Twitter = invisible connections around you. Next time you check in on Foursquare to one of the busier spots in your area, an app like Sonar would display a screen indicating how you are linked to people in your immediate location. Sonar can tell you that you share three Twitter interests or two Facebook friends and enable you to see those specific connections and those users’ photos. You can then introduce yourself in person, if you want. Don’t fret about security, either––you opt in, so all Sonar users have chosen to associate their Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts in order to see their relationships.

Path

As Path advertises, Path is “the smart journal that helps you share life with ones you love.” It’s Facebook boiled down your real friends and not the extended network of acquaintances and familiar faces that Facebook has become just to see the friend-count edge higher. The app has a fresh way of displaying important content with a beautiful user interface. Path has the same sharing and “journal” status-type features that are found on the other social networks, but the platform enables smaller circles to interact with pertinent content more easily.

Localmind

As its tagline reads, “Know. Now.” Localmind is seeking to build “a real-time, location-based Q&A platform that sits on top of existing check-in services.” Localmind uses location-based check-in services likes Foursquare to allow users to send a question about a physical location and receive answers from users who are currently checked in to that location. It lets users contact someone outside their network or circles to determine what is happening at a particular check-in spot.

All three apps provide very different services, but all are based on mobile technology and how it can augment our interaction with our traditional, terrestrial social networks and our location on terra firma.

Bottom line: Use these apps, learn what they do, and be aware that these features will be the next thing to come baked in to our mobile devices. Jumping on the edge of the wave can increase the position of your company or application earlier.

Author: John Carew

In the last couple of weeks, the trending rumors have been mostly about tablets and, lately, TVs. Here are some of the more interesting items that will be coming out:

Asus 7-inch Eee Pad
Asus introduced us to the much-acclaimed Eee Pad Transformer last year; this year, the 7-inch Eee Pad Transformer Prime Mini 7 will make its debut. It will have similar features to the original Prime, but a smaller, 7-inch screen and will run Android’s Honeycomb operating system.

Pantech Element Tablet
AT&T hopes to make a splash with the Pantech Element tablet. It also runs Android Honeycomb OS, and has a screen size of 8 inches. Its unique feature is that it is splash-proof as long as the external ports are sealed properly. (A quick Internet search reveals that the tablet can be submerged in water up to 3 feet, but until that is proven I would not read underwater.)

Google TV 2.0
The emerging Internet TV market will be represented at CES 2012. Samsung and LG will introduce televisions that allow people to access websites and game apps (such as video games).

World’s Largest OLED
LG will be showing off the world’s largest organic light-emitting diode display. The new TV has a 55-inch screen, is 0.16 inches deep, and weighs 16.5 pounds. The TV has LG’s  “4-Color Pixels” and “Color Refiner” features, which help to produce a brighter picture and natural, more accurate colors.

LG 4K TV
If 55 inches is too small, LG is also introducing an 84-inch “Ultra Definition” television. It will have four times the resolution of 1080p HDTVs and will also come with Magic Remote, a device that features voice recognition, smart gestures, and voice search.

Author: Susan Hallinan

It’s sad to see an icon from our time dwindle away in the transition from analog to digital. It is, however, a reminder that we as corporations have to stay flexible in our offerings. If we wait to react to market changes, we may be too late. Proactive measures and predicting future trends in business will set apart the leaders from the bleeders.

I ask Kodak this, “Is this your Kodak Moment?”

Author: John Mehl

Executive and blogger Torben Rick shares 12 typical reasons for resistance to change:

1. Misunderstanding about the need for change/when the reason for the change is unclear — If staff do not understand the need for change, you can expect resistance. Especially from those who strongly believe the current way of doing things works well … and has done for twenty years!

2. Fear of the unknown — One of the most common reasons for resistance is fear of the unknown. People will only take active steps toward the unknown if they genuinely believe––and perhaps more importantly, feel––that the risks of standing still are greater than those of moving forward in a new direction.

3. Lack of competence — This is a fear people will seldom admit. But sometimes, change in organizations necessitates changes in skills, and some people will feel that they won’t be able to make the transition very well.

4. Connected to the old way — If you ask people in an organization to do things in a new way, as rational as that new way may seem to you, you will be setting yourself up against all that hard wiring, all those emotional connections to those who taught your audience the old way––and that’s not trivial.

5. Low trust — When people don’t believe that they, or the company, can competently manage the change, there is likely to be resistance.

6. Temporary fad — When people belief that the change initiative is a temporary fad.

7. Not being consulted — If people are allowed to be part of the change, there is less resistance. People like to know what’s going on, especially if their jobs may be affected. Informed employees tend to have higher levels of job satisfaction than uninformed employees.

8. Poor communication — It’s self-evident, isn’t it? When it comes to change management, there’s no such thing as too much communication.

9. Changes to routines — When we talk about comfort zones, we’re really referring to routines. We love them. They make us secure. So there’s bound to be resistance whenever change requires us to do things differently.

10. Exhaustion/Saturation — Don’t mistake compliance for acceptance. People who are overwhelmed by continuous change resign themselves to it and go along with the flow. You have them in body, but you do not have their hearts. Motivation is low.

11. Change in the status quo — Resistance can also stem from perceptions of the change that people hold. For example, people who feel they’ll be worse off at the end of the change are unlikely to give it their full support. Similarly, if people believe the change favors another group/department/person, there may be (unspoken) anger and resentment.

12. Benefits and rewards — When the benefits and rewards for making the change are not seen as adequate for the trouble involved.

As you see, people resist change for many reasons––it’s human nature. The resistance is usually emotional at first, then logical. In order to make a new idea happen, people should let go of the fear and let the new idea roll from pure imagination all the way to implementation.

What are your thoughts on resistance to change?

Author: Marina Kaljaj

In today’s mobile world, the way we determine what solution is best is very different from only a few years ago. Here are a few points to consider as you decide what technology will fill a need in your personal or professional life:

Modern and flexible – Apps that heavily rely on one particular software language may not pose a large risk, but heavy reliance on something like Flash would make iOS consumption difficult.

Mobile-friendly – If the solution is online-based, how does it look on a mobile browser? If the user experience is different, what functions do you lose on the smaller screen?

Appified – Is the solution available in app flavor? Is the functionality limited? Does the original developer maintain the app, or is the function available through a third-party developer? Face it––if the potential solution doesn’t offer a mobile option (and if it seems like this would be useful), smoke is in the air and you should yell fire and run the other way. An app version for most solutions is a given at this point, so if it isn’t available, think again about the ”future-proof” aspect of the solution.

Cross-platform – Not only does the solution have to play nicely with both the Mac and Windows operating systems, the application may also have to play nicely with mobile and tablet versions of Android and iOS, among others.

Backup – Does the solution offer backup? Can you point the application to a cloud storage solution––something easy like Dropbox, for instance––and will the app update its pertinent information (settings, application data, etc.) to the cloud on a routine or on-demand basis? In the day and age of lost and stolen mobile technology, the ability to recover quickly from backed-up data is mission critical.

Exportable – Plan for the future by making sure you can extract all of your data into a format that could be easily imported into a new application.

Offline capabilities – If you lose data connection, does the solution still function? Does it lose any key features or grind to a halt? From natural disaster to being trapped on the A line, we don’t always have the luxury of a data connection, and when it goes down, your level of stress will be determined by how the solution performs when you are off the grid.

Efficient data usage – Is the solution a Hummer or a Prius? In the age of the data meter running virtually everywhere, we have to be cognizant of how much data our solutions guzzle down. Is the solution built with a frugal mentality, or does it require lots of data to be transferred frequently?

Security – Does the solution offer security measures, such as encryption options and password-reset controls? While these measures may not to be required in some instances, in other areas where the transfer of information needs to remain confidential, security needs to be a big consideration. If the solution is for professional use, does it comply with your company’s IT guidelines and requirements?

Plays well with others – Some of the web’s best applications offer application programming interfaces (APIs), which enable other developers to make amazing solutions that tie in nicely to other solutions.

Others want to join in – If the solution offers an API, how many applications are available for the solution? How many unique developers are writing applications for the solution in question? These questions, which may seem like icing on the feature cake, may shine a light on the back operations and health of a solution.

Social – When applicable, the solution should tie in to the social web easily and share content using those channels in a well-formatted manner.

Author: John Carew

1. Jack Daniel’s – “Holiday Barrel Tree” – Arnold Worldwide

2. Best Buy – “When Mom Orders Online” – Crispin Porter + Bogusky

3. Unicef – “Santa” – Forsman & Bodenfors

4. Staples – “Holiday Rehearsal” – MacLaren McCann

5. Koko Productions – “Artisan” – DDB Canada (View with caution. Not the classiest thing out there right now.)

Author: Eric Swenson

Marketing consultant Susan Payton offers 5 business New Year’s resolutions:

1. Increase sales in 2012 by X percent.
Sample action items:

• Increase marketing budget in social media by X.
• Book X more speaking engagements in 2012.
• Increase prices by Y.

2. Market business better through social media and content.
Sample action items:

• Write three blog posts a week on the company blog.
• Increase Twitter activity to daily.
• Add 50 new social media contacts per week.

3. Become known as the expert in the field.
Sample action items:

• Book one speaking engagement per month.
• Guest post on two other blogs each month.
• Ramp up social media interaction to X times daily.

4. Be more productive.
Sample action items:

• Get staff to use Google Docs 100 percent.
• Use Dropbox to share files with clients.
• Track time spent on client projects with Basecamp.

5. Delegate X percent of the work.
Sample action items:

• Create guidelines to train staff on one project a month.
• Hold training sessions each quarter on one skill set.
• Hire an assistant to take on tasks like email and phone.

For a more detailed explanation, please click here:

Have you thought of your New Year’s resolutions yet?

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Author: Marina Kaljaj

A few things to remember for both publishers and consumers:

 1. Solo OS Stinks
Apps that play well on one and only one operating system are poor sports on the playground of techno content consumption. You will want to gobble up all the bits you can across multiple devices, whether right now or at some point in the future. Manufacturers that provide multiple devices across different areas of the spectrum and provide the same experience using similar operating systems hedge the bet for app developers who focus on one and only one operating system to support. The downside is that as many more people adopt single-use devices, like the Nooks and Kindles of the world, these devices currently cannot complete other core functions (easily and cost effectively), like email or phone calls. The user is then left with different operating systems on different devices:  smartphones, tablets, notebooks, desktops, and/or smart TVs. You will consume content on multiple devices in the future, and being tied to only one operating system for the apps you love will hurt when you change. Be prepared.

2.   Device-Specific Experience Is a Gamble
Think about this: Before we wanted to consume traditional print publications on our tablets and smartphones, publishers produced titles with region-specific variations for both newsstand and subscription delivery. The traditional printing process changed for the most part at the end, with different variations of a specific set of forms printed within the larger print run. The process was heavily automated, and the variables, while seemingly significant, were relatively controllable since the press, roll width, and bindery restrictions were fixed. Once online distribution and multiple electronic variations were dumped into the mix, the traditional publishing model went awry. If we can assume that the vast majority of advertising and editorial content in today’s modern publications are actually worthy of multimedia additions, then the burden to produce a consistent experience across multiple devices over multiple operating systems—given very different hardware functionality—is a tall order. That said, device-specific subscribers to e-versions of traditional print titles may or may not have the same experience on another device mostly because of the hardware and software limitations of any specific device. Ultimately, this complicates the field of content to be consumed on your spanking-new techno device. While it may not matter right now in 2011, it may be a different story as  displays and the user experience continue to evolve while the hardware that we use to consume content continues to grow.

At some point you will muster up enough courage to pull off the screen protector and dive into the techno goodness that is behind the new device in your hand or lap. Just remember, consume wisely, not only for your wallet, but because someday in the not-so-distant future, the single-function device will be replaced and the electronic library that you have created may not play well with the devices and operating systems of the future.

Author: John Carew

In 2011:

1. The number-one story in tech news was the death of Steve Jobs.
2.  Social media came into its own. After the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, Facebook and Twitter became lifelines for those reaching out to friends and family. Facebook also played a crucial role in the Arab Spring uprisings, being used to spread messages and topple governments.
3. This one has made ripples in the tech world for months and will probably be the year’s last big headline: After months of trying to merge, AT&T has decided to abandon its attempt to take over T-Mobile.

There were so many other stories of 2011: BlackBerry missteps, the PlayStation Network hack, and the last of the IPv4 addresses (with time counting down for IPv6 addresses).

I expect 2012 to be just as exciting a time.

Computers:
HTML will continue to rise, allowing web developers to create richer, more dynamic websites. The Cloud movement will continue and in the years to come may bring about Software as a Service (SaaS), an arrangement in which consumers don’t buy software but instead pay monthly fees to “rent” it.

Tablets:
Tablets have been a game changer, and they will continue to become faster, more powerful, and finally, cheaper. One rumor swirling around the web concerns an iPad Nano, smaller and cheaper than its counterpart and said to be arriving late next year.

Mobile:
Mobile payment will become the norm, and every phone will come NFC (Near-Field Communication)-enabled. Voice control, such as the iPhone’s Siri, will really take off, allowing a person to use a phone without touching its screen or any other buttons. If you decide not to speak to your phone, however, in 2012, zooming and scrolling will be done by bending the screen––I am looking forward to seeing where the bendable interfaces go.

In the coming months, I can’t wait to see what other surprises come from the tech world and how they change the way we communicate with the world around us.

Author: Susan Hallinan

Typography, in one sense or another, has existed since the dawn of writing. Even the Flintstones have their own font. But why does typography matter? Yeah, it’s everywhere. We take it for granted and hardly think of the consequences. I mean, can someone really tell the difference between Arial and Gill Sans?

In typographer Thomas Phinney’s article “How to Explain Why Typography Matters,” he describes typography’s many uses, forms, and effects—both subtle and obvious—to justify its importance.

As representatives from a creative agency, we’re often asked to justify our reasons for the use of a particular shape, color, or font. More often than not, the most compelling reason for using a particular font is the client’s brand. Numerous Utterly Orange posts have discussed the importance of branding, but it might be worth reiterating the value a font has for a brand.

If you get a chance, check out the movie Helvetica. This documentary walks you through not only the history of this seemingly universal font, but its impact on modern-day brands. Love it or hate it, Helvetica took us from the hodgepodge mash-up of fonts of the ’40s and ’50s and gave us a style that’s both legible (pragmatic) and malleable (artistic).

Fonts define a brand, and brands define a font. Typography and a brand become one and the same when we incorporate them effectively. Typography is so ingrained in us that we’d have no trouble identifying a well-known Fortune 500 company simply based on the typeface used.

With so many fonts available, it seems practically trivial to continue to develop new fonts. And yet, a sliver of an industry exists where people are coming up with better and new ways to write the words we read. Phinney’s article justifies this the same way fashion designers or furniture makers justify their work. With no shortage of clothes or furniture styles, we continue to create new fashions and new furniture. Why? Simply put, because of trends. The only consistent thing is change. Fonts evolve just as trends do.

After clients are convinced that fonts matter, they often want to take these newfound tools and exploit them. Caps, bold, and “fun” styles like Comic Sans become their paint brushes, screwdrivers, and hammers. Unfortunately, painting a picture red, using a screw that doesn’t fit, and hitting customers over the head isn’t always the best way to produce the right message.

Today, experimental studies are being done by psychologists and typographers on the effects of good typography. These studies help determine what constitutes good typography and typeface design as it relates to legibility. Some research involves hooking sensors to the orbicularis oculi (the muscle around the eye) and measuring things like squinting and frequency of blinking. These sorts of tests help us determine how effective a font may be, whether we see it or not. Forgive the pun.

Author: Eric Swenson

Regardless, Fuji Xerox has launched a cloud-based document collaboration tool that interfaces directly with its copiers. While I think this is great selling tool, couldn’t Fuji Xerox just integrate this into one of the existing could storage solutions? The apparent answer is no, it needed its own cloud, and presumably that is what everyone else has concluded. Don’t get me wrong––I think the cloud is an amazing tool. It has made my life easier in so many ways. But it could still be simpler. The market is being diluted with too many free services that are trying to catch everything in one basket. I’d rather pay for something that handled all of my cloud-based needs.

Fuji Xerox could be onto something here. It is the first in the mainstream market to integrate cloud-based storage and collaboration with its production workflow in the copiers. The power that this will bestow onto users is great. Being able to modify documents seconds before they hit the press is a great selling point. But does this make sense in the real world? The implementation of computers, print-ready PDFs, and email has already made the standard RUSH job a nightmare to pull off. In the current workflow, the ease of submitting new files mid-production has led to jobs being “approved” 4–5 times. I can only assume that this will make that worse. However, with the correct procedures in place, there could be success with this product. We will have to wait until Fuji Xerox releases this into the US market to give it its fair trial. Sales started in Japan last Monday, so reviews of this are still very preliminary.

As Jay Alabaster in PCWorld points out, “A myriad of similar online storage services exist, and many such as Dropbox and Evernote can sync with faxes and scanners. But hardware makers are rushing to launch cloud offerings that work seamlessly with their products, as a way to lock in clients and a buffer against commoditization amid falling profit margins.” All I can say is that I couldn’t agree more! Fuji’s service will cost around $45 a month and allow 10 users access to 10 GB of shared storage. The company aims to sell 10,000 contracts for this service per year.

So what is your cloud-sharing service preference? I find myself using Dropbox the most.

Author: John Mehl

What’s your favorite and why?

Author: Marina Kaljaj

No, this is not a post on human resources, talent management, or anything related to job-placement skills. My goal is to pose a question to anyone who interacts with new technology, whether at home or in the workplace. My simple question: Are we ready for mobile? Mobile today means far more than “mobile” ten years ago––heck, even five years ago. Mobile today means access to documents––anywhere, anytime––access to applications that drive business processes and integration, with a wide array of devices. We have seen mobile technology expand our personal lives, but a functional understanding of what powers this technology tips businesses toward success or failure.

In any job, there is an existing process, defined as a set of procedures or steps that take something from one form to another. Each process has a set of inputs and outputs that feed into a sequential order, creating an increasingly larger system. Often, knowledge of the previous and next steps in the process is critical for someone to complete his or her given assignment efficiently.

All the business processes interact with other systems constantly. The buzzword du jour is “cloud,” which implies reliance on a robust and stable network as well as some “special sauce.” This sauce is knowledge of what powers the cloud, an understanding of what occurs behind the browser or touchscreen. Compared to the mechanical systems of the last century, where pulling a lever or turning a knob had an effect on a mechanical device, the black-box concept of digital systems today hinders a user’s ability to understand. These days, simple, practical knowledge of the back end separates the mice from the men tablets.

Why, damn it, why doesn’t it just work?

Hmm, let’s see. Storage of electronic assets is not intuitive to start. Day to day, we can let documents pile up in a drawer or inbox. If the need to retrieve a document or piece of information from a physical document arises, you use the efficient (sometimes inefficient) query  engine known as the human brain and its accompanying visual system to locate the physical document. This applies to the digital world, but the physical (eye-based) portion of the retrieval process is made far more difficult in an electronic environment given the limited viewing options. If the electronic document was poorly stored, lacking the proper references for searching, or was stored in a repository not possessing the right functions, the document is lost in the digital file cabinet. Tagged electronic resources may be common on many websites and familiar to everyday Internet users, but the implications of what that information means in the context of a larger system is often lost.

What needs to be known?

It is important to understand the business process and the rules associated with it as well as how the data points from this process are used within the larger global scale of the organization. Ultimately our modern technology makes us curators of information, whether pertinent to our personal or professional duties. The better we are at data stewardship, the better we can support the existing processes in all aspects of our lives. Being stewards means knowing about modern networking, the basics of what powers the Internet, document management skills, and what can be done with the data that are added to any given process.

Are you ready for this change? Are your team and company on the same page when it comes to your systems and data? Tell us what you think.

Author: John Carew

By the early ’70s, RFID systems had become much smaller and were used to identify livestock and in our everyday life as the annoying tags on clothes that make store alarms go off. Today they are used for many things, including keycards to get into the office, E-ZPasses, microchips in pets, and lately, mobile wallets. (Mobile wallets use near-field communication, which is a subset of RFID.)

In the near future, in some cases the very near future, this technology will make your life much safer and easier. Hospitals are testing bracelets that have RFID tags embedded in them. Each tag is connected to a patient’s medical records, which allows the doctor to call up the complete medical record to a computer or tablet.

In Europe, the intelligent shopping cart is being tested in some stores. All items in these stores have RFID chips, and as they get placed in the shopping cart, the total is calculated. When the customer is finished shopping, he or she wheels the cart through the checkout line (like E-ZPass for shopping carts), and the amount is automatically deducted from the shopper’s bank account electronically.

Mobile marketing can use RFID for incentives. Dairy Queen, for example, is expanding its very successful RFID customer loyalty program. Customers who opt in to the program affix an RFID sticker to their mobile devices; this sticker takes the place of loyalty cards that customers might otherwise attach to their key chains, and one sticker can be used for multiple retailers. Each time the customer buys something, he or she uses the tag to take advantage of specials and sale prices for the items purchased. Dairy Queen is able to track the person’s spending habits and offer specials and coupons that cater to each individual.

The possibilities of RFID and its subsets will make our lives much easier and, hopefully, save us money.

Author: Susan Hallinan

Word of mouth (WOM) is common and very important in almost every industry. Consumers like to converse about the quality of their newly bought products as much as complain about them. They regularly give opinion on products or services online, ask for advice, and occasionally give advice to others. Customers greatly appreciate and will trust recommendations from friends. Certain products are talked about more than others, though. Why is that?

Entrepreneur Christopher M. Knight shares his top 7 ways to drive word of mouth sales:

1. Make sure your clients are happy first. Happy clients tell 3 friends, and we all know unhappy campers usually tell 15–20+.

2. ASK, ASK, ASK for referrals.

3. Make it easy for friends to refer friends. Put up a web page sign up where they can refer leads to you.

4. Every customer base has 1% that will “champion” you and your business. Identify who these folks are, and reward them appropriately.

5. Create a “word of mouth” program so that your entire staff knows the importance of this very low-cost vehicle to bring you new sales.

6. When sending out invoices or bills to your clients, include a small 1/3 piece of paper that asks them for the names of 1–3 friends who they know who might benefit from your service/product.

7. Rotate your promotions or specials––or reasons why to buy––more frequently, possibly on the day of each week your client is most likely buy.

Basically, an important aspect of viral marketing success is creating such outstanding products that people can’t help but talk about them. Do you have a WOM strategy?

Author: Marina Kaljaj

• Microsoft’s focus on making it easier to find apps and its focus on better economic returns for developers sets it apart from both the Apple App Store and Android Market.

• The app page and catalog will be exposed to search engines and have deeper linking, improving users’ ability to search for apps.

• An integrated “get the app” function allows a consumer using a Windows 8 machine to get an app from a website using a button displayed on the toolbar.

• The Windows Store will offer market-specific app catalogs covering 231 markets worldwide with developer opt-in for any or all.

• Enterprise app support will allow companies to manage enterprise apps or offer their solutions to the larger app market. Enterprises can also control end-user app access on Windows 8 devices.

• The Windows Store will allow trials and subscription services for in-app purchases.

• Microsoft promises a more transparent app approval process, with access to reasons for failing and app acceptance guidance in plain English.

• New apps will receive 70% of profits, and after $25,000 in revenue, the share of profits will increase to 80%, the best return for developers across any platform.

This leads to an interesting question: If app stores killed the brick-and-mortar, boxed-software business model and the availability of high-speed Internet and the app-ization of everything (turning small functions into bite-sized apps to complete one thing pretty well on a mobile or semi-mobile device), what change will come in the future––the death of the web browser and/or significantly increased use of cloud services? Either way, companies that “appify” their services or who make new app-centric services or offerings for the marketplace have a future … but for how long? As adoption continues and smart mobile devices penetrate deeper into every consumer lifestyle, “old” tech like the websites and native desktop apps we have come to know and expect will be the minority and the app-centric functions tied to cloud processing and storage will represent the future. Regardless, the Windows Store will take Microsoft, the leader in worldwide OS installs, into a stronger position in the marketplace by learning from some of the missteps and downfalls of the other app store ventures.

Look for the Microsoft Windows Store in late February 2012, when Windows 8 Beta hits the scene.

Author: John Carew

I have been saying for a while that printers using plastic-based toner have reached their highest possible quality. In order to increase the image quality, the toner particles would have to become smaller. Making these particles smaller would result in more airborne particles and lead to a greater health risk. Little did I know that the current toner particle size was already affecting our health during normal use! My colleague John Carew and I have always warned our fellow coworkers that changing a toner cartridge can be potentially dangerous to one’s health, but at least this is an isolated event that can be controlled. I was surprised that HP was one of the culprits in this report, because it is the only company to use a liquid-supported toner (in its HP Indigo machines).

The irony of these findings is that the more you print and the closer you are to the printer, the more potential harm you are in. So let’s think back to the times when we were printing something big that would pose a threat to our health. I remember printing a 100-page proposal just last week on one of our laser printers. Luckily the printer is about 20 feet from my desk. But, by the time I reached the printer, it was only 20 pages into the print run. This means that I hovered over the carcinogen-spewing printer for the remaining 80 pages, unknowingly inhaling tiny black toner particles, with no buzz to boot!

I propose that the industry take one of three steps to resolve this threat. One, it could increase the size of the toner particles so that they cannot become airborne. Two, it could switch over to liquid-supported toner, like that used in the HP Indigo. Three, the industry could infuse nicotine into the toner, so at least we would be getting some bang for our buck. (Actually, this way we wouldn’t have to go outside to catch a smoke! Thinking more about this, this could increase worker productivity. People would work harder to get that 100-page report in print in order to catch their fix.)

In all seriousness, this report brings to light an issue that has long been known by the manufacturers. We can only hope that this gains enough traction to prompt regulation of the amount of harmful toner particles that are released from the unit during normal operation. This could mark a shift to more inkjet-driven or liquid-supported machines, which for the most part are of higher quality anyway!

So, how far away can you get from your office laser printer? Did you already go out and buy a really long USB or Ethernet cable to extend your life?

Author: John Mehl

Our always-connected, technology-required attitude leaves a rather large hole in many of the modern venues in the US. Between poor cellular reception and lack of engaging, venue-created and supported content, the experience beyond what is occurring on the field or stage leaves a lot to be desired. In our homes, we can order (and pay for) food online from the comfort of our couch, look down the hall to determine the bathroom availability and wait time, guzzle all the data-heavy video and online content we want from our Wi-Fi, and rewind or pause a live (or recorded) broadcast with our DVRs. If we must venture outside for food, we can use contactless payment to buy snacks or drinks from the local convenience store. Why aren’t those same services available when I venture out of the home to major sports and concert venues around the country? Enter geosocial networking, or proximity-based social networks and the “smart stadium.”

In October, the Staples Center in Los Angeles, home to the LA Clippers, Lakers, Kings, and Sparks, announced a new high-definition video solution (supported by a joint partnership with Verizon and Cisco) aimed at giving the spectator the ability to customize his or her multimedia experience. The system is basically a video and content distribution system to terminals in luxury boxes and kiosks around the stadium to enhance the “e-game” experience. As Ben Bergman from NPR reported last week, the video functionality extends the user’s experience, and the joint venture plans to include content streaming to “your phone, on your laptop, everything, like, everywhere” as well as functions allowing you order food from the comfort of your seat, never missing a minute of the game or performance.

The problem with most sports venues is the lack of strong mobile phone coverage, which (based on real-world experience in New York City at the new Yankee Stadium, Citi Field, or Madison Square Garden) can paralyze your smart phone. The planning for the new Meadowlands Stadium, now called MetLife Stadium, focused on the design and deployment of a wired stadium with cellular service. ADC designed a wireless solution that allowed both Verizon and AT&T Mobility to use stadium-supported cellular services. The move to include a wireless plan in the stadium lays the framework for use of mobile phone–based applications that can enhance the spectators’ experience.

Geosocial apps like Foursquare, Gowalla, Lokust, Scvngr, Loopt, Sonar, and Color (to name a few) leverage some combination of GPS location, data connection, social network (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc), and your phone’s camera to provide a rich integration of users based on proximity to a defined location or opt-in status to one event or space. These apps, when deployed in conjunction with a sports team, venue, or musical group, can be used to share limited-edition content, provide instant replay or alternate views of a play, or simply allow people to connect and discuss what zany thing just occurred onstage.

Another angle is the lengthy list of apps associated with real-time sharing of information about guest services and attractions at major theme parks like the Disney resorts. From real-time attraction wait times to recent comments on food or hotel service as well as historical data used for forecasting and planning, the data-driven and social age changes users’ interactions with theme parks as well.

The fun doesn’t stop there. The proximity-based social experience can be extended to venues like malls (think Black Friday pain and plunder) trade shows, or even casinos––heck, even weather events like the Snowpocalypse (version 1-3) which NYC received last winter. A shared experience gives people the incentive to connect with those around them. Our phones––portals to others––coupled with intelligent apps leveraging the fullest potential of our phones, make this interaction possible, ultimately enhancing our engagement with the event or experience.

Proximity-based social networks tied with modern, wired stadiums will change the sports and concert experiences. Dated stadiums of today with their poor lines of sight, uncomfortable seats, and inadequate entrance and egress design will pale in comparison with the stadiums of the future.

One word of warning: Be aware, sports announcers, that your typically muted commentary really isn’t necessary and will be replaced by smart stadiums and dynamic content consumption.

What do you think? Will smart stadiums and geosocial and proximity-based social apps enhance our experience and change expectations for the average event?

Author: John Carew

• Smart shelves: This light-sensing technology detects how long a shopper is standing next to an item, if he or she picks it up, and if the shopper puts it back down.

• Traffic Monitors: Cameras detect humans and movement to track how many people enter and where they go in the store.

• Smart Carts: Customers create and upload their shopping lists while at home. The customer can view the list from a screen attached to the shopping cart. The store can then track shoppers’ walking and purchasing patterns.

• Footpath Technology: Customers are tracked by their mobile phones pinging transponders throughout the mall. The real-time reports can show how many visitors there are, how many are “walk-through” as opposed to true shoppers, and what stores they have gone to and how long they have stayed in each store (“dwell-time”). The only way a customer can opt out is by turning his or her phone off. If this sounds a little Big Brother to you, you are not alone: Congress is raising concerns about privacy issues and how safe footpath technology is.

Author: Susan Hallinan

Magdalena Georgieva offers 10 best practices to optimize the language of CTA’s:

• Convey Value
• Create Urgency
• Make it Personal
• Include Testimonials
• Include Numbers
• Turn it Into a Bonus
• Make it Newsworthy
• Be Confident in Your Language
• Ask Questions
• Be Subtle

To read  more, click here!

How successful have your CTA’s been?

Author: Marina Kaljaj

AT&T has activated its LTE (4G) service in New York City. When AT&T made an announcement earlier this month, it said that the rollout would begin very soon, but some users have noticed the LTE icon on their phones. AT&T has not announced the release, so the LTE connection may be temporary. This will not be changing the lives of people with 3G-only compatible phones, which includes all iPhones, but the new batch of Android phones will be able to take advantage of the blazing-fast speeds.

Google announced that its “Ice Cream Sandwich” operating system will be included in the much-anticipated Galaxy launch on December 8. This will be the last mobile operating system to have a mobile Flash feature. I think this is an interesting turn of events, considering Adobe very recently announced that Flash is being discontinued––I did not think its end would come so soon.

Microsoft is moving away from its disastrous XP operating system, announcing that as of 2014 it will no longer issue security or software updates. At the same time, it offered previews of its Windows 8 operating system. Microsoft, like other software companies, is thinking past the PC, and the new operating system will be usable on tablets and mobile devices.

Author: Susan Hallinan

For starters, security is the main priority. Gone are the days when a fly-by-night counterfeiter can scan and print out a bill on his desktop printer. Although these delinquents are most often caught, I am sure that some of them get away with it given the right techniques of printing and aging. The polymer notes are virtually impossible to counterfeit using consumer-available products. Take a moment and watch this video, which highlights the security measures in place.

Besides the enhanced security features, this polymer note will extend the life expectancy of the currency, which will in turn reduce the need to constantly replenish the inventory. The presumable hope is that the increased costs will be offset by the longer life of the product. Needless to say, the costs associated with polymer notes as opposed to paper notes will be greatly offset by putting an end to counterfeit currency.

While the implementation cycle––from now until late 2013––may seem drawn out, this marks a turn of events in the currency markets, and more countries are guaranteed to follow Canada’s lead. The question is: When will the USA upgrade its currency to these standards?

Author: John Mehl

An advertising campaign showing political and religious leaders kissing on the mouth has recently gotten the attention of many important groups. From the White House to the Vatican, many are outraged at photos of these leaders being used as advertising creative.

Benetton, an Italian clothing company, said on its website that the campaign is meant to support the Unhate Foundation, which opposes hate and is “aimed at exorcising the ‘fear of the other.’”

The ‘Unhate’ campaign strikes a chord with the public on many levels. In this way, I deem this campaign incredibly successful already (even bad press is good press, right?). A successful company decides to support an organization whose corporate objectives are to eliminate an abuse that’s incredibly popular in mainstream media today. You can’t turn on a news station or talk show without hearing about bullying.

To oppose the campaign puts you almost in a camp of hate support. To even the most liberal opposer, it suggests that, while you may be against evil in the world, the fact that you’re against a controversial ad talking about it makes your stance moot.

We have satirical political cartoons that go much further than this campaign. Moreover, some of these cartoons challenge authority, condemn inappropriate behavior, even suggest, dare I say it, hate. And yet, we Westerners get by every day without the threat of attack. We get by knowing that these pieces are meant to simply challenge us intellectually. To make us think about some—sometimes—very important issues.

There are real problems in this world. Was showing our President kissing Chinese President Hu Jintao a tasteful way of bringing them to our attention? Right now, I can’t think of a better way.

Author: Eric Swenson

Let’s review. Apple has a mountain of apps, Amazon has its thunderous cloud, and Barnes and Noble has stacks of books, but who will win the battle of the single-purpose e-readers? The Kindle Fire has Amazon’s huge cloud presence plus some of the cloud-processing and storage services missing from the competition. The Fire lacks cellular data, which means you are tied to Wi-Fi with a petite data stomach; the Fire may leave heavy data-storage users hungry. The tablet and, more importantly, mini-tablet markets are changing, but does it really matter? No. Here’s why.

Mini-tablets comprise the growing market of devices that aren’t iPads or smartphones or laptops or netbooks. These devices tend to be large, pocket-friendly units that are multimedia consumption devices with single-use potential. Encouraging users to consume media and providing a pipe to the mothership’s storefront (an app store) is the operating strategy of these low-priced devices. Much like cigarette makers, the tablet manufacturers and marketplace shopkeepers hope to get users addicted to content for the shiny, colorful screen and then make them pay for all the new, delicious media pieces that the never-ending publishing, music, and movie industries can churn out.

Just how preposterous is this idea of mini-tablets? Let’s examine a few analogies.

Take, for instance, the car industry; assume that every car manufacturer also manufactures all the gas. In order to use your car, you must buy gas from your car manufacturer’s station in order to drive. I don’t think so!

What about a newspaper publisher? What if every publisher owned the store that sells the paper and you could only buy certain brands at one store or face paying a higher premium at a competitor for the same title? Doubtful!

But wait, there’s more.

Take my personal favorite, the desktop printer. First, when a consumer buys a printer, he or she is buying a single-purpose device to be used for one primary function: PRINTING! Yet in order to print, you must spend gobs of money on ink every time one of the colors runs out. (Check out this dated piece by PCWorld on inkjet costs.)

The tablet market is essentially the same. User buys tablet, user becomes addicted to multimedia content from the comfort of his or her lap, user shells out mountains of cash to consume the most current content. This is all fine and dandy until the user wants something that is exclusively tied to another marketplace or device. Then the user waits for the content to be available or consumes it via a different medium, say from a, gasp, bookstore or, double gasp, physical video distribution method like Redbox, Netflix (by mail), or a theatre. Add in the complexity of the app, not just the media content, and the tablet market is even messier.

Why are single-use devices to attractive to the byte-obsessed, always-connected, touchscreen-loving, SMS crowd?
Simple. They do one thing well (or so the advertising tells us). The lower the price at which a user can buy a device that does one thing well, the more attractive these media-consumption portals appear to be. Little do the users know (well, they probably do, but go with it) that once they get addicted to the sweet taste of femur-supported, organized pixel displays of pleasure, delivering virtually all their media requests, that either a big credit card bill or heaping pile of disappointment and frustration lies ahead. They have to choose: Cough up the greenbacks for more digital editions of Wired or The Daily or Mad Men or be left out in the Wi-Fi-required cold with too small a tank to hold their media fuel and no fuel in sight.

Warning, the following content is not suitable for all viewers. Viewer discretion is advised for those who can’t handle the truth.

Segmenting content into different marketplaces may be a great way to make a buck, but it kills the adoption of new technology.

Tablets lack innovation.
Other than the Motorola Xoom, no one has brought anything really cool to the table. Apple gave us the iPad and added gimmicky software, such as gestures and a magnet in the body of the tablet to turn the screen off. Don’t get me wrong––these are great, innovative features––but other than the iPad being the first device to feature them, what is their wow factor? Nothing yet. Make media consumption on my single-purpose device better, damn it. Maybe the 3D obsession was supposed to be a new source of amazement. Yawn… Palm was onto something with the TouchPad and its ability to transfer applications from one device (the Pixi or Pre) to another (like the TouchPad), but bad timing and poor management killed that tech. All we can hope for is that HP may revive it.

Non-smart, non-connected, non-location devices are pointless.
If the phone is the rowboat to all that is digital, then the tablet should be the luxury cruise liner, right? Well, why doesn’t what is on the market match the expectation that bigger should mean more functions? Ford Taurus drivers who upgrade to a Porsche expect more features, so when I upgrade my clunky desktop, laptop, VCR, or library card to a tablet, I should get more features (and not content fences). Likewise, users who have an iOS or Android phone expect more when upgrading to a tablet, but these expectations fall short with the Fire and Nook Tablet. Then again, it may not be an upgrade but rather a segmentation of function, essentially taking reading and watching from a phone and moving it to a tablet. The lack of GPS and cellular data kills the mobile function. Part of the enhanced reading experience is the ability to interact with rich multimedia and content from the web or to pop out to a web browser to follow a call to action in a piece of media. One question: Why don’t advertisers focus more on selling ads for rich, location-enabled devices and the platforms that they use?

There is planned tech obsolescence.
OK, planned obsolescence may be a bit extreme, but users who buy a mini-tablet and want feature upgrades like GPS and cellular data are left hanging. Their addiction to content makes them reliant on one marketplace, with few options for upgrading.

As of yet, we haven’t seen a tablet that changes the model with which we interact with content on a mobile platform. Many would argue that the mini-tablets and tablets have taken media consumption out of the house and moved it anywhere the user wants to go. This is true as long as the user has planned all the content he or she wants to consume before leaving the warm comfort of Wi-Fi. Single-purpose media consumption devices serve just one purpose––media consumption––but without data connection and a rich feature set, these simple devices are changing the behavior of users. What the future impact of these changes will be, we shall find out, but competition in the market is a good thing so far, as long as the jump from mini-tablet to smart tablet becomes shorter and filled with more options.

What say you––are single-purpose mini-tablets useful in widening the adoption of mobile technology and media consumption?

Check out some comparisons of the iPad2, Nook Tablet, and Kindle Fire here, here, here, and here.

Author: John Carew

Cloud computing allows you to keep data, software, and applications in a single pool of computer resources and not in a single computer. The advantage to the user is accessibility: Start a document at your work computer using Google docs and finish the document at home. The payoff for businesses is even bigger: It changes their focus from hardware to, well, business.

There are 3 categories of cloud computing:

Infrastructure as a service: Instead of buying servers or network equipment, a business can “rent” a block of space from an office service company. The service provider is responsible for maintaining and updating the equipment.

Platform as a service: The business is able to use software and product development tools that are owned and licensed by the provider. The business pays for the time spent using the software or tools.

Software as a service: Also known as “on-demand software,” this software is on the cloud and can be accessed by the Internet. Examples of software as a service are GoogleDocs and web-based email.

Advantages:

• Information is always available
• Large storage centers (servers) are off-site
• Easily scalable
• Takes burden off in-house IT department

Disadvantages:

• Dependence on a third party for maintenance and security
• Loss of control of personal information and data

Author: Susan Hallinan

On November 17, after 23 years with Vanguard Direct, Richie Ravalia will be retiring. Richie is in sales, and although his charm, wit, and knowledge will be missed, what will be missed most of all is his personal dedication to his clients. When I first started here at Vanguard Direct, I sat next to Richie and was impressed that he kept index cards for each of his clients with personal information culled over years of talking to them. He would know children’s names, birthdays, anniversaries, etc., and would use these as reasons to call, which eventually would lead to an order. He was a salesman’s salesman.

Unbeknownst to many, I spent the morning of 9/11 with Richie and his wife, Mary, after evacuating Vanguard’s offices at 90 West Street. As the story goes, after the first tower collapsed, I found shelter in the cement halls of the old South Ferry building with about a dozen or so other frightened strangers. We were told to stay put because the second tower was coming down, which we did. After the second tower came down and the dust cleared, I emerged. I will never forget the dust-covered streets, the smells, and the sounds. One of the first sounds I heard was someone shouting my name: “Hey, Caska!” It was Richie.

With Mary clutching his arm, we eventually evacuated Lower Manhattan via the Staten Island Ferry, which was followed by a NYC bus ride to the foot of the Bayonne Bridge. We walked up the ramp with the intent of crossing the bridge by foot. We were headed the same way––Richie and Mary to their home in Cliffside Park , and me to the NJ Transit trains in Hoboken. As luck would have it, a Polish plumber in a van pulled over in response to my extended thumb (Richie says it was Mary’s leg) and gave us a ride to the light rail in Bayonne. Since the light rail was not complete, we could only go as far Port Imperial and then had to walk the balance of the way to Hoboken. Toward the end of our journey, I received a phone call, which I answered “Tony’s Pizza.” It was Ralph Fucci checking on me, not knowing I had company. He was relieved to hear our voices and learn that we were none the worse for the wear and tear.

That would be the end of the tale, but in the days leading up to Richie’s retirement, I was handed a copy of the Printers’ Ink publication from February 20, 1907. This was loaned to me by a friend from his small collection of letterpress-printed books that were left to him by an old-timer who had retired. They were printed by the man’s grandfather on letterpress equipment that had been scrapped for the metal as offset presses were replacing the old method of hand-set type.

As I skimmed the pages, an advertisement caught my eye on page 31. Here was one of the first ads for rental space at the newly completed 90 West Street, future home of Vanguard Direct for 16 years between 1985 and 2001. The ad reads “Location unsurpassed. Centre of the machinery, coal and iron trades … Architecturally the most beautiful office structure in the world.” Set to open on April 1st, 1907, the building had a grand restaurant on the 24th floor that connected to the roof garden in the summer. 90 West Street was one of the happier stories of 9/11: The building was directly in line with the falling towers but did not collapse. More than three-fourths of the floors were gutted by the flames, and two people lost their lives in the building that day. The woodcut in Printers’ Ink does not do the building justice, so I attached some of the newly restored photos to see the beauty the ad spoke about in 1907. When you look at the ad, you will see that the rental agents were some of our very own Traffic Coordinator Renee Cruikshank’s distant relatives: the Cruikshank Company.

Although Richie was not there for the opening (as some might suggest), as I think about it all today, he did have a connection to 90 West Street.

All the best in the world, Richie, from me––just some guy you met coming out of the ashes on a day we will never forget.

To learn why 90 West didn’t collapse on 9/11, click here.

Author: Tom Caska

Well to start, anyone in the industry knows the “wow” effect that spot UV has on the end user. But at the same time, everyone can attest to the “shock factor” when it comes to the cost! Needless to say, the traditional methods of applying spot UV have been reserved for plentiful marketing budgets and long offset runs. With a digital device like Scodix on the market, the Israelis are again changing the standards, much like digital print did to offset in the ’90s.

Scodix does a few cool things that traditional offset spot UV cannot:

1. Economical short runs
2. Variable content
3. Variable depth, finish, surface area

The whole idea is that this technology can open up another dimension on print. As the VP of marketing, Ziki Kuly says best, “print has always been a two dimensional medium.” With the addition of this digital spot UV, Scodix is bringing print into the third dimension!

The real question is: Where can we implement this new technology to increase our return on investment?

Author: John Mehl

The creation of a website might be categorized as art or design, but it is always an objective act. Websites can be described as good or bad, a verdict based not on opinion but on fact. No matter how cool your website looks, it needs to deliver a good customer experience or it will not be cool anymore. Online investment is quite important, and a website needs to be well thought out. There’s a very simple answer as to why a good website is important: Customers should get what they want. Web design can be crucial for a business––regardless of the industry––therefore customer expectations should be met. A strong online presence is a must; make sure your website has the elements of a good website.

Here are Key Elements of an Effective Website (per Spritz Web Solutions):

1. Appearance
2. Content
3. Functionality
4. Website Usability
5. Search Engine Optimization

To read more, click here: http://www.spritzweb.com/good-website-characteristics.html

Does your website possess the elements listed above?

Author: Marina Kaljaj

Round one brings Boy Genius Report coverage of Google’s efforts to recruit college students at a university in Israel to sign up on the spot for a Google+ account. College students are an obvious group of techno-savvy early adopters, but let’s wait for news of other college-aimed punches coming from the Google corner before declaring the winner of this round.

Mr. Zuckerberg said recently that Google was “building its own little Facebook,” which stirred a countering blow by Google’s VP of Product, Bradley Horowitz, who stated that Google was “delighted to be underestimated.” According to Horowitz, Google is continuing to incorporate the Google+ product into the other Google services that users have come to depend on.

Monday’s launch of Google+ Pages opens the social network up to brands, companies, and non-human entities. Google+ Pages now allows brands to connect their “+1” ratings across Google and to interact with individuals though their business pages. Google+ Direct Connection is a huge leap forward and will let users add the “+” sign in front of a Google search and automatically add the matching Google+ Page to their followers. Direction Connection should be likened to the old AOL Keywords, but as adoption of Google+ increases, it is the easiest way for a user to follow a company––far simpler than finding a brand on Facebook or Twitter.

Who will win the battle of the social titans? Front-runner Facebook seems to be dominating purely by the numbers, but until the Launch of Google+ and its concept of circles, the ability to limit sharing of content to a select group was clunky at best in Facebook. Either way, the competitive power of Google+ will force innovation and change on both platforms.

Check out Utterly Orange’s new Google+ Page. Add Vanguard Direct to your circles.

Map from USNaviguide.

Author: John Carew

1. iPad domination: The late Steve Jobs said that 2011 would be the year of the iPad. The numbers confirm this: iPads are outselling Andriod tablets 24 to 1, and Condé Nast says its Newsstand subscriptions have increased by 268%.

2. Social media continues to grow: It is predicted that by 2012 Facebook will reach 1 billion users, and with that the demand for privacy will also increase. Social media by nature will become more mobile.

3. Smartphones have outsold PCs worldwide: Over 100 million smartphones were shipped in 2011, while only 92 million PCs were sold. The processing power of mobile phones now rivals PCs, with most phones coming with a standard 1GHz processor.

4. Supercomputer: Earlier this year, a supercomputer named “Kei,” or K, was introduced in Japan. K is capable of making a quadrillion calculations per second and is equivalent to one million computers. Supercomputers will not be showing up on your desks in the near future; they are used for climate modeling, rapid stock trading, and earthquake simulations, as well as for other large calculations.

5. HTML5, CSS3, JQuery and JSON: All these developer tools help a developer to make a fluid site without relying on Flash and other animation tools. They open the cyberworld not only to developers, but to designers; fonts are not limited to the web-friendly few, and these items can be viewed on all devices.

Click here for an example of  HTML5 and JQuery.

Author: Susan Hallinan

Do you think Steve Jobs was right back in April 2010, when he declared Flash an obsolete, doomed system? Is Flash dead?

Author: Susan Hallinan

This week he discusses a stronger way to use Photoshop’s Hue/Saturation command in conjunction with a mask. Here’s an excerpt from Lynda.com:

Whether you’re aiming for realism or an exaggerated effect that grabs attention, it’s often handy to be able to change the color of one object in a photo without affecting the rest of the image. Most people will tell you to use Adobe Photoshop’s Hue/Saturation command to do this, but if the object you’re changing has hue variations—not just one flat shade of red, for example—this relative adjustment won’t work.

Instead, you need to make an absolute adjustment. And to limit the change to a single object, you also need a mask. “A mask”? you gripe. “They take forever!”

Au contraire. You simply create a new Adjustment layer, select a color range inside the image with a click and a drag, and Photoshop will auto-generate your mask. Then you choose the Hue/Saturation command and make your color adjustments.

Watch the entire video here:

Author: Eric Swenson

Headquartered in Rochester, NY, Eastman Kodak is partly responsible for the rise and unfortunately the demise of the local economy. In its heyday, Kodak employed over 60,000 people in Rochester alone; today that number is down to only 7,400! Teetering on the verge of bankruptcy, Kodak has fallen back on its long inventory of patents and commercial printing ventures.

In January of 2010, Kodak began enforcing its patents. It kicked off what will be a decade’s worth of court battles by suing Apple and Research In Motion (RIM). The case was based on patent infringement in regards to digital photography. Unfortunately Kodak lost this battle, but it continues to pursue other infringements with other organizations. Now that Kodak has reached a point where it fears losing everything, the company is toying with the idea of holding a fire sale of its patents in a desperate attempt to drum up needed revenue.

Kodak’s other angle of revitalization has been in the digital print arena. Kodak’s NextPress has been a strong player in the toner-based digital print markets. The most intriguing venture into digital print, however, has come in the form of inkjet technology. Kodak is developing high-volume solutions for digital color inkjet printing and imprinting. It will have a tough time competing with HP in all digital print arenas, but for now Kodak seems to be on the right page.

It’s hard to watch the demise of a well-known American brand. Kodak has always been innovative and creative, and I hope it can continue that in the future. This could be labeled a sign of the hard economic times, but I say it’s a sign of short-sighted business planning. This should remind us that we need to keep looking forward to try to anticipate market changes, or at least be flexible enough to adapt quickly to new models.

So, will this be the company’s Kodak Moment?

Author: John Mehl

The introduction of the Internet as significant competition for traditional advertising sources opened the door for wider adoption of hooks, or cross-media connections. Now advertising is containing more and more integrated forms of communication geared to take people from one medium to another. The medium in which advertising is consumed is a factor in the success of the campaign, which accounts for the massive advertising industry with its unique niches carved out by agencies vying for some of the more than $100 billion spent on advertising (last year’s figure) in the US. Whether in out-of-home mediums like rail and subway advertising or the sometimes-more-focused print magazine advertising, cross-media hooks like QR codes, social media badges, and hashtags are used today across various market segments. Based on a recent casual survey of the latest issues of seven magazines, however, cross-media hooks are not used as frequently as one might guess.

Cross-media hooks in these magazines included references to Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn either by use of the traditional square badge, tag line (“Follow” or “Friend”), or URL. Among the seven titles reviewed, no one cross-media hook was used by more than 20% of the advertisements in each title. So here we have a market of 4.8 billion mobile phones worldwide, with 428 million units sold in 2011 alone, many of which may correlate to a significant portion of the 175 million Twitter and 800 million Facebook users worldwide. Why don’t more magazine advertisers focus on implementing cross-media hooks? In the age of the downward spiral of circulation and poor conversion to electronic media, why aren’t more magazines pushing the use of cross-media hooks in their advertising sales and internal advertising efforts?

The higher use of QR codes points to the prevalent misuse of the technology, as many of the codes in the sample group lead to non-mobile-optimized webpages. With the right social media metrics platform in place, traffic from cross-media hooks leading to social networks like Facebook and Twitter can lead to a better understanding of how particular market segments respond to advertising.

This all begs the question: With the massive expansion of social media and the use of cross-media hooks, are we isolating any one group of our target audience? Fifteen years ago, with use of the Internet rising, many advertisements contained references to mailing addresses and 800 numbers for consumers who wanted more information. Websites were in the minority, but now a company logo, tag line, and website (and legal disclosure) are standard for virtually all advertisements. In other mediums, like out-of-home advertising on mass transit, the use of cross-media hooks like hashtags and social media references are significant. They tell the viewer, “Look, we are trendy and current––find us on social media.”

Are we isolating the portion of the target audience who doesn’t get the contextual clues of a square of color with a letter or bird and an octothorpe (#) used in front of a word? Yes, we are, but the numbers don’t lie. The exponential adoption of Internet-capable devices with cameras and an operating system capable of supporting third-party apps shows that the collision of mobile, social, and local is the future of visual communication. Use cross-media hooks and integrate social media into marketing and advertising efforts to be one step ahead of the curve.

P.S. Infinite Utterly Orange points for anyone willing to submit a book report on the ISO 18004:2006 IT specification for automatic identification and data capture techniques––just the type of winter reading this author loves!

Author: John Carew

The mobile-device war is about to get interesting. At Nokia World 2011, held in London last week, the company introduced the Kinetic, a phone that is controlled by bending it. Folding the top of the screen makes the device scroll upwards, and folding the bottom makes it scroll down; bending the phone inward and outward will zoom in and out of photos, or play or pause music. Trying to steal some of Nokia’s thunder, Samsung has announced it will be selling its own flex-phone in early 2012 and will be rolling bendy technology to its tablets soon afterwards.

Both companies are using a version of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) in this technology. OLEDs are carbon-based and emit light when a small amount of electricity is applied. Samsung’s version, named AMOLED (Active-Matrix OLED) is slimmer, faster, and––according to Samsung––virtually indestructible, having been folded over 100,000 times and hit by a hammer and losing only a tiny percentage of pixels.

I have to tell you, seeing the pictures and watching the video of people bending and twisting the phone had me very excited. With a less rigid phone, there is likely less damage when it hits the ground (and the screen won’t shatter when stuffed in a back pocket), but the drawback is that the phone may not be operated with one hand.

What say you? Would you like a flexible phone that could be twisted and bent to your heart’s desire?

Author: Susan Hallinan

Fall is our reminder that the best part of the year is now over. So suck it up. Life is about to get a lot more difficult. If I were a drug user, I’d have to imagine fall to be the drug user’s final hit before rehab. Enjoy it while it lasts; you’re about to get locked up for six months with nothing but chamomile and reruns of Hawaii Five-O.

This is the time of year when many people in our society celebrate the changing of the seasons. I really don’t see what all the fuss is about. People find fall beautiful and often comment on the changing color of leaves. “Look at the beautiful leaves––they’re changing colors,” one might say. “Isn’t fall beautiful, what, with the color changing on leaves and all?” another might say.

“The leaves are dying!” I might say. When you see a majestic bird recently struck by an 18-wheeler, you don’t comment on its beauty, do you? Would you say “Look at that doe-eyed, little deer lying peacefully on the side of the road. I think it’s taking its last breaths. What a wonderful sight!”?

Sound depressing? It shouldn’t be. At this time of year I’m reminded of an Associated Press article I read that has that Halloween sort of vibe. The article encouraged those with an affinity for the morbid to check out a website called MyDeathSpace.com. At first, I was confused about what MyDeathSpace.com was. My first thought was probably similar to yours: “Here is a website for people who are frustrated with their current social environments and want an online vehicle to acknowledge their discomfort.” I mean, think about it. How many “death spaces” do we all have?

Death Space #1 – You’re waiting in line at Target as the 95-year-old woman uses a debit card for the first time in her existence. You can literally count the minutes until the cashier will inevitably take the card away from the old hag and do it herself. Yet you sit there, impatiently, waiting for the show to unfold.

Death Space #2 – I think we’ve all been here before.

(For more relatable situations like this, check out: www.pleaseshutup.com)

Death Space #3 – You’re waiting in line to pick up a new license. It’s not that it expired, it’s that you lost it. Well, you didn’t really lose it. You put it on the table that night when you had your friends over and everyone did that thing where you show each other what’s in your wallets. But then you get drunk and don’t want to drive, and Liz is being her typical self—crazy—and you just want to get her out of there. So you offer to drive, but then Jim—also crazy—is trying to be the responsible one but always ends up getting way too drunk to make any sense. So you just kind of look at him, as he leans, and try to remember why you’re friends. You decide to put both Jim and Liz in a taxi. The next day you find out that Jim accidentally grabbed your ID instead of his, but it doesn’t matter because he left it in the cab.

Maybe I’m alone here. And maybe I spend too much time in lines. The point is I assumed that the site discussed our personal death spaces as a way to create a sense of camaraderie. A way to say, “Hey man, I’ve been there. I think about putting my boss in a Porta-Potty and tipping it over too.” Well, I was wrong. MyDeathSpace is actually a social networking website for the recently deceased members of myspace.com. If someone dies, you submit his or her death and people can chat about the––sometimes grotesque––details. Oh, and there’s a forum section where you can complain about things like the new features of Facebook that really T you off.

What!? Are people really into this? Are we really so voyeuristic? Burning ants with a magnifying glass: okay. Discussing profiles of dead friends: not so okay! Maybe I just have no clue of what it’s like to be this creepy. I think the darkest thing I’ve ever done was get up in the middle of the night and pee without turning on the light.

I suppose we’re all entitled to our own niche likes and dislikes. You’re able to like the changing of leaf colors for example. And I’m entitled to loathe you.

In the meantime, this begs the question: Can a forum like this really be considered a social medium? Hell, these people are dead.

Happy Halloween!

Author: Eric Swenson

Many wonder if charisma is something you are born with or if you can actually learn how to be charismatic. Some naturally possess an abundance of social and emotional skills, but charismatic authority can definitely be taught. Charisma is “extraordinary power and appeal of personality; natural ability to inspire a large following”; many doubt this can be learned, but under the right influence, it is possible.

John Leonard on the blog The Five O’Clock Club offers 10 tips on how to become more charismatic:

1. Build up your self-esteem and self-confidence. Take an inventory. What do you want to improve or change about the way you interact with others? Try to make only one change at a time.
2. Set goals for yourself before every interaction. Know what you want. Think about how the people you will be meeting can help you reach those goals. Then decide how to approach each person accordingly.
3. Be proactive. Take the initiative. Be decisive. Let the other person know exactly how he or she can help you.
4. Treat each person you meet as if he or she is truly important. You’ll be amazed how this works.
5. Give a firm handshake; look the other person straight in the eye. Practice both of these. Train yourself to notice something you like or find attractive in the person.
6. Listen! Listen! Listen! Teach yourself to develop good listening skills. Learn a way to remember the other person’s name.
7. Visibly respond to the other person. Smile, nod agreement, and address him or her by name.
8. Pay more attention to the other person than to yourself. Are you responding to what may be going on in his or her life? Don’t filter out bad news. Put yourself in the other person’s shoes. Be caring.
9. Use sincere flattery. People do respond to flattery. But if you don’t feel it, don’t say it.
10. Sum up or restate often to make sure you understand what has just been said. This allows the other person to correct wrong assumptions right away, and lets him or her know that you are processing new information and are on top of the situation.

What do you think––can charisma be taught?

Author: Marina Kaljaj

Communication Arts

Project categories like trademarks, letterheads, posters, packaging, and annual reports were included in the competition.

With today’s economic woes, it’s becoming harder and harder for design firms to keep up with the Joneses technology-wise. It was clear that this year’s designers were able to bring back old-school techniques and produce quality work.

Take a look at the gallery to get a glimpse of some of the winners. If you want to see all the concepts, though, you’re going to have to sign up for Communication Arts’ subscription plan (lame!).

Author: Eric Swenson

So what is Cards? Cards is an application on your iOS device that allows you to send out a tangible card to anyone in the world. But, it’s not just any card. These cards are beautiful, letterpress-printed shells made of 100% cotton. You can pick a photo from your photo library and place it on the front, personalize the message on the inside, place the address on the envelope, and Apple will pop it in the mail for you. You can go from taking the photo to submitting the order in less than a few minutes. I tried it out myself––sent a picture of my daughter to my mother––and the reaction was priceless. Needless to say, my mother will keep this card for the rest of her life, and will most likely start sending out her own!

The coolest part about this app is the thought that went into the process. One, Apple uses the best materials and printing processes known to man to create the product. Two, Apple allows you to personalize the card to your liking in a quick and easy way. Three, Apple integrates the IMB barcode on each piece so you get a notification of when the card will deliver. And best of all, a card costs less than the average Hallmark card! Apple cards will cost $2.99 domestic and $4.99 international. I don’t know if I will ever send another Hallmark card through the mail. You can practically send a card anywhere in the world for less than you can pick up a generic card from the Hallmark store.

So, only one question remains: When will you send out your first Card?

Author: John Mehl

Physics is said to rule the world, and whatever flavor you fancy––classical, relative, or quantum––the modern method of capturing photons in an oriented manner, aka photography, hasn’t changed much over the years. There is a relatively short list of technologies that haven’t changed since their “mainstream” adoption, and photography has remained on that list for some time. Digital photography was an update to the capture method associated with the capture of light, but for the most part, film was replaced with a sensor and the light converted into data. The mechanics of the single-lens reflex (SLR) camera have remained fundamentally the same: lens, aperture, shutter, film, and focusing mechanism. The system was based on the sun sending photons toward earth, objects on earth reflecting or absorbing those photons (depending on the composition of the objects), and an observer capturing those photons in an oriented manner with film or a digital sensor. The photons bounce off all the contours of an object, and a subset of the photons that bounce back to the observer arrive at the eye of a human (or the aperture of a camera) at different angles (vector directions). This is why different types of lenses are used to enable various quantities and angles of photons to reach an image sensor or film. The vast majority of the modern lenses on SLRs require some function of focus, or the selection of the point in the image at which all photons meet uniformly, thus making one area of the image in focus and other areas blurry or less sharp. The concept of focus has been fundamental to photography, but there has been little innovation on this front.

Meet Ren Ng and his company, Lytro. The Lytro camera captures all light in the light field (think all possible reflections of photons from a given object and the angle of each photon) and enables the user to select focus after the image is captured. As explained on Lytro’s website, the camera’s “light field sensor captures the color, intensity and vector direction of rays of lights.” Capturing the direction of the light is the big innovation in the imaging technology used by Lytro.

The after-the-fact focus aspect of Lytro images has seen its share of scrutiny among both techies and photogs, but this development means a change in the mindsets of both worlds. The company approached a traditional system of photography, took the concept of the light field (the amount of light traveling in every direction at any given point), and developed an image-capture method that could exploit the main benefit: control over focus after image capture.

Lytro demonstrates the power of the image sensor and algorithms associated with the processing of those images and their application in traditional photography and 3D imaging. The design of the Lytro camera is inspiring, with only two buttons and a touch screen––the square aspect ratio adds a level of intrigue.

Consider Lytro’s camera to be a major innovation in photography. As a competitive product, it could change the trajectory of the photographic industry, which is closely linked to modern technology. Also, add “living image”––an image captured with directional vector data––to your vocabulary.

Author: John Carew

“Steve’s brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives. The world is immeasurably better because of Steve,” Apple’s board of directors said in a statement.

In honor of Steve Jobs, I’d like to share Apple’s 10 most memorable commercials.

We are speechlessly thankful for all he has done and wounded by his early death. How did Steve Jobs change your life?

Author: Marina Kaljaj

Newspapers and magazines have struggled for over a decade to determine which strategy will bring them some, if any, long-term success. Between pay wall construction and destruction and various implementations of paid content, which future strategy will win: the gated newsstand (e.g., Apple or Amazon) or the app model (The Daily) or, better yet, some other combination with social integration?

The first big-league tablet experiment was News Corp.’s The Daily, with daily news delivery to mobile technology, i.e., the iPad. The Daily is an experiment in applying a news model to mobile technology with a subscription-based service. Rupert Murdoch claims that The Daily, first launched on the iPad in early 2011, needs 500,000 subscribers paying $0.99 per week to be profitable. As of October 3, The Daily publisher Greg Clayman reported only 80,000 subscribers. Murdoch’s experiment was on one hand a massive win for tablet proponents, who see this path as the future, but on the other a strategic failure. Applying broad-reaching, mass media to what is essentially a hyper-local online ecosystem where the social level drives the most relevant content is a fundamentally flawed approach. Staci Kramer of paidContent.org covered the basic accounting associated with The Daily and figured that, based on the first year’s figures with the current circulation, it cost a whopping $375 per subscriber to produce. It is not uncommon for a magazine title to take several years to mature to profitability, yet this venture sets an intriguing (and cost-prohibitive) precedent. More recently Courtney Boyd Myers of TheNextWeb.com reported that the app has been downloaded 800,000 times but has brought a loss to News Corp. to the tune of $10,000,000. On a side note to be filed in the “DUH” record books, UK online trade pub MarketingWeek reports that a recent qualitative analysis by Ipsos Mori of UK’s biggest women’s weeklies suggests that titles that reply to readers via social media gain more long-term interaction. While studying the business model and its successes and failures is interesting on an academic level for understanding how the news is evolving, the indicators for the advertising world and its link to new technology should be of more interest.

John Mehl covered the strengths and weaknesses of digital editions earlier on Utterly Orange. The bottom line is this: As long as competitive forces––like print magazines and social networks––exist in the marketplace, the print-gone-digital model for news and magazines is going to be a hard sell. The market was splintered with the entry of the i-era: the iPad and iPhone, the mobile and smart devices.

In August 2011, Utterly Orange discussed the technical challenges that Condé Nast experienced in its ventures into digital publishing formats. Applying a traditional, editorial business model to an electronic workflow is fundamentally flawed. NYU Professor Scott Galloway sees magazines “on the verge of a massive double dip.” Galloway points out that brands like Burberry, Gucci, and Chanel have positioned themselves as “innovative” front-runners in the world of social media. Facebook competes for eyeballs and more importantly lets anyone introduce content that can trump the magazines any day. Which model will win? Not sure, but you can bet on this: Social media is critical to the future, and Facebook probably won’t be the long-term winner.

Author: John Carew

Louise:
Let’s just say the Macintosh computer changed my career, practically overnight. Suddenly, all the tasks I did manually at a drafting table were done at a desk with this odd little machine. My first Mac was a lowly Mac LC, which looked like a pizza box with a monitor on top of it. It was the first computer I ever touched, and to this day, Macintosh computers are the only computers I’ve ever used. I wouldn’t ever consider buying anything else.

Kara:
Steve Jobs had a major influence on my career. My first job was pasteup and mechanicals for a printer––hand-drawn rules, Rubylith silhouettes, typeset galleys … all that has changed due to the genius of the Apple computer. Everything I do these days is wrapped up in my iMac, iPad, and iPhone. Would love to see what he would have created, given another 20 years.

Kevin:
A visionary trendsetter who has been responsible for changing my life several times. Through his inventions, he has helped make the world a better place for all of us.

Antonio:
I have been an Apple fanboy since I was 16 years old. I have bought and used almost every product since that time. Jobs’s ideas and ability to simplify life will be greatly missed, and I hope that his legacy lives on through his company. His personality has shown through his products and has made many people feel close to him to the point that I will miss him as if we were close friends. R.I.P., Steve.

John:
From the earliest days, Apple cultivated a relationship with schools and educators. Coming from a family of teachers, I inevitably encountered Apple computers at holidays and other family get-togethers. Christmas of 1993 was the year my sister and her husband had just bought––at an excellent discount––the smokin’ hot new Macintosh Color Classic. My tiny nieces found their uncle’s computing ineptness hilarious, but I spent every available moment that Christmas playing Sierra’s King’s Quest game on big 5-inch floppies, and was hooked for life.

As a non-teacher, I couldn’t afford a Mac, so I got as close as I could with a Packard Bell 486 machine, running DOS, along with a (sort of) color monitor. Snorts of derision aside, it played games, ran a crude version of WordPerfect, and eventually I even souped it up with a $400, 20MB hard drive! That led to building/upgrading my own computers––which I do to this day––but the guiding hand of Steve Jobs was right there from the start.

Susan:
It was 1982 and our school was getting new computers––half the class was getting PCs, and the other half was getting Apple IIs. While the other side struggled to put their computers together, assembling the Apple II was as simple as taking items out of the box and plugging them together (computer, keyboard, and mouse) and just as easy to use. I was smitten with Apple.

Over the years, Apple has been my computer of choice, and with each new version, I have been amazed with the vision Steve had and have fallen in love with his design sense. With each project he worked on, his genius came out more and more––from Pixar to his latest item, the iPad, his sense of style comes across. The iPhone is my right hand: my connection to the world, my news source, and my entertainment. I hope that his vision will continue for a long time to come.

Marina:
Steve Jobs gave us products we didn’t know we wanted and made those products parts of our lives. Steve, the American hero. R.I.P.

Will (“SUPERHERO”):
What’s to say? A large part of my career has been based on this guy’s products.

Renee:
Steve Jobs changed my two-hour commute each way—from stressful to peaceful—by inventing the iPod shuffle.

Mark:
My second life as a graphic designer started the day Apple’s co-founders, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, created the Apple I in Steve Jobs’s parents’ garage in 1976.

My first life consisted of rubber cement fumes, X-ACTO blades, and a T-square for mathematically copy fitting galleys upon galleys of type to be generated by outside typography companies.

Thank you, Steve, for my second life!

Author: Eric Swenson

State of the art 1969

The production order form was a six-part snap-out form. The hard part was to be sure that the number you put on the order was entered, by hand, correctly in the order logbook and on the job jacket. The order number was written on the upper right of the job jacket at least 3″ high with a black marker. The real heart-and-soul item was the rubber cement. The trick was to remove part one of the six-part form and glue it to a 10″ x 15″ envelope (job jacket) without getting glue all over yourself and, more importantly, place it dead center, lying flat without any bubbles. We were so efficient. It only took 20 minutes to enter an order.

Vanguard Direct heard our prayers … enter Easy Order 2. How do Vanguard and our clients do it now? Easy Order 2 will be the subject of my next post.

Author: Joe Corbo

Some of us are shy, while others are blunt and outspoken. Criticism is often as difficult to give as it is to receive (we use the verb “criticize” mainly in a negative sense). Since criticism is unavoidable and most likely a key to client happiness, it’s best to be constructive in your criticism.

When criticizing, make sure to include a thorough evaluation and judgment. It’s not about whether you like or don’t like something. Instead, try the following:

• Before you speak, know your objective.
• Separate personal preferences from abstract analysis.
• Involve thinking through solutions.
• Try giving positive-negative-positive feedback.
• Make it a team effort.
• Always end your conversations with a positive note.

What if you find yourself on the opposite end; what’s the best way to receive criticism?

Kareen Liez on Naldzgraphics.net offers the following tips:

1. Have self-confidence.
2. Be a good listener.
3. Distinguish the type of criticism.
4. Control your anger.
5. Be humble.
6. Use your intellect.
7. Do not panic.
8. Do not take it personally.
9. Clarify the intention.
10. Remember that you still have your freedom.

To read more on how to best receive criticism, just click HERE.

How well do you give/cope with design criticism?

Author: Marina Kaljaj

Apple just introduced the iPhone 4S, not the 5 or 4GS as speculated. Packed in an iPhone body but with some adjustments, the new device was so underwhelming that it temporarily brought down the value of Apple’s stock. It packs a faster A5 processor (same as the iPad2), an 8-megapixel camera with HDR support and full 1080p HD video capture. The device will be a world phone, supporting CDMA and GSM protocols with two radios, which Apple claims will increase download speeds to 14.4 megabytes per second via HSPA+. The 4S will launch iOS 5 with such golden nuggets as Siri, Apple’s much-coveted voice-recognition software (and DARPA military veteran), which will power what appear to be many of the features of the OS. The other software change comes in the form of notifications matching what has been present on Android for some time now. For more coverage of iOS features, check out our coverage of the Apple WWDC Recap. But if you didn’t believe us before, Twitter is now fully backed into the iOS goodness and will let the Apple biters out there share content via Twitter with even less effort.

As the New York Times’s Bits blog points out, Apple has to compete with Google and its wide array of phone offerings, ranging from free to $400. The question must be asked, though: Which came first, the strategy or the surplus? Verizon didn’t move as many of the iPhone 4 as expected, and neither did AT&T when it came to moving the 3GS (as judged by the $0 cost for the 3GS with a new contract). All three big boys are in the game now. AT&T started strong but lost its edge after partying too hard with its stockpiles of Jacksons, Grants, and Franklins. Verizon came as the second string to push the opposition to the boards and burn down more of the clock, but––wait––third-string Sprint rushed the floor? Coach Apple, what is going on? Sprint is hedging an awful lot on its moving 30 million handsets.

We learned from the laptop and desktop PC model wars that speed is not everything. Users want function and compare relatively similar devices by what bells and whistles they offer. Analysts have slammed Apple for not releasing a device that can compete with Samsung and HTC models, but why would Apple want to compete spec for spec with those devices? The reality is that the pipes can’t support “4G” speeds (whatever the actual speeds may be). Instead Apple has released a phone that competes in some areas, like camera and video capture, and excels in others, like the software with Siri and the 500,000 apps for iOS devices. Let’s remember that voice recognition hasn’t been easy or successful in the history of computing, but as ThisIsMyNext points out, Apple and Siri have a few things going for them, including context, logic, and clarification.

The future will include mobile technology, mobile technology that will be smart and help us accomplish daily tasks. The technology that will succeed will be designed first and foremost with user experience as the main objective. Apple’s success in the marketplace cannot be overlooked, as it consistently introduces devices with design first. It just so happens that its designs are bigger than the boxes that house the devices, and the company sometimes has to wait for the world to catch up to its concepts.

Last thought: Early fans of Apple may remember back to 1987 (others may still have been teething) and the Knowledge Navigator. Check out the video below to see how it stacks up––pretty cool all these years later.

Author: John Carew

I had an ’86 Buick Century. It was urine yellow and had twelve inches of brownish-orange trim along the bottom. The trim, albeit beautiful, was, in fact, rust and every time I’d close a door or hit a bump, pieces of car would fall to the ground. This actually came in handy. Before GPS navigation, I could simply follow the metal crumbs all the way home.

The roof lining on the car was sensitive to humidity. It served as an excellent barometer. The higher the dew point, the more it would sag down. In most cases the ceiling would not only block me from seeing out the rear view mirror, but would massage my head. I left my car with pieces of ceiling upholstery in my hair frequently.

All of the typical things you’d expect from a junk car, this car had. Heat and A/C didn’t work—which is just perfect for Wisconsin winters. I would go outside 45 minutes before I’d have to leave and turn on the car. I’d bank on the engine heating up enough to defrost the lower one-inch of my window. Then, like an old lady in Florida, I’d peek my eyes through the steering wheel and drive. If that didn’t work, I’d roll down my window (if it wasn’t frozen shut) and stick my head out the side…all the way to school.

The radio would reprogram itself every time I turned the ignition on or hit a small to medium-sized pothole. Quite frankly, I was just glad it worked at all. The car would frequently stall out at the most inconvenient times—typically after I applied the gas. The most common occurrence was after a red light had turned green. The people behind me were always very supportive.

I named her Ol’ Faithful because, despite her outward appearance, she DID start up every winter. I had a lot of memories in that car (many of which I won’t mention here) and over the years we only grew closer. By the time she ran out of gas, I had such an emotional attachment to her that I felt like I was losing a part of me. Not only had she taken me from point A to point B, but she also helped shape who I was as a person.

I traded the car in for fifty bucks and bought a Geo Prizm that had a pink stripe going down the side. I later named it Barbie. I left the dealership feeling depressed and ashamed. As I drove home, I was reminded of Ol’ Faithful everywhere. Pieces of the door and bumper littered the streets all the way back. To this day, rusty soda cans and hubcaps bring tears to my eyes. I even have the old license plate and keep it in a place I know she’d appreciate. Next to the toilet.

With such a tangent, lest I not forget to show a sample of this campaign, which, honestly, could have done wonders to help the sales of my car back when it was released in 1986.

View the entire campaign here.

Author: Eric Swenson

So you may ask, how does this relate to print? Well, sit back and think what technology was invented recently that is commonly graced with the term, “print killer.” If you thought about the computer, you would be right. So the same question stands, has the computer and its vast array of applications trumped the printing industry? For this I say no again.  For computers have not smashed print down to the thin flat sheets they are printed on, it has actually given printed materials the ability to come alive. Many applications that have transitioned from print to digital, more often than not, have the same characteristics on screen as their printed version. The only difference being that they are easier to search on a computer. A beautiful marriage of print and computer is Google Books, and more specifically Ngram Viewer.

Google Books was created back in 2004.  This was a project obviously run by Google to convert printed books into searchable text.  Many of the older books that have expired their copyright protections are available online in full text for reading. But, this is not the cool part. All the books scanned in and indexed by Google are searched and mined for data.  So what does this data present us with?  Well when you put the numbers together you get the picture. They have scanned over 15 million books, containing over 500 billion words from publications dating from the 1500s to today. A shard if you will of our humanity documented in books (Print), which are able to be searched online (Computers).  Enter in the application Ngram Viewer, and you have a really cool way to see when certain things or events happen throughout history. So to prove a point, let’s do a search for print and computers from 1940 through 2008.

What we find is that computers were just begging to be written about in 1945, surpassed print in 1985 through 1987 and then quickly fell under print thereafter. The data is there, it can’t be disputed, and computers didn’t kill print. Print is not just words on paper; print is any spoken language displayed on a medium we can read. It’s up to the user how he or she wants to interact with the words. Computers print and we can now print computers. There is no end to either of these technologies, for both will hold a place in our hearts because they are so different.

Have some fun with Ngram Viewer — what marvelous conclusions will you come to with this new found data set?

Inspiration from – What we learned from 5 million books – TED

Author: John Mehl
Photo credit – Momoko-Kawase

Why fix something that isn’t broken? You could look at it that way, or you could think of rebranding from a positive perspective.

Reasons for rebranding are various:

• Business expansion
• Location change
• Customer base change
• Outdated look
• Competition
• Negative perception
• New mission

We all know that brand is a powerful association between a company and their customer. When done right, rebranding can build up the relationship between a company and their customers — at the same time helping the company develop.

Things to consider when rebranding:

• Listen to what your customers have to say
• Understand your weak point
• Clarify your new marketing strategy

You should have a valid reason for rebranding. Not all rebrands are successful. Do you remember, Tropicana for example? The newly designed packaging was on the market for about two months. Not only have they gained customer disappointment, but lost lots of money. What went wrong? Customers didn’t like the new design, thinking it was orange juice’s generic brand. How about the Gap logo change fiasco? Gap tried to introduce a new logo design and people hated it. Lesson learned here: product positioning should be changed before you go ahead and apply changes to the logo and other visual aspects of the brand. AOL wanted to represent themselves as a new media company by getting rid of the classic triangle logo for a random image of a fish. How do you explain that change to the audience — who saw this as a pathetic attempt to get hip?

The bottom line is, have a valid reason if considering rebranding, and do it well.

Do you have a rebranding failure story to share? Maybe we can all learn from other people mistakes.

Author: Marina Kaljaj

The Internet is built on information, and often the information that is time-sensitive gathers the most traffic, i.e. news. Back in the day, AOL and their keyword ivory tower tried to keep users in their “portal” for as long as possible to keep the targeted advertising in their face while raking in the results. One little glitch though, the Internet grew beyond the walls which AOL had built and they would fall into history remembered for “you’ve got mail,” that annoying AOL Instant Messenger icon with sound and, last but not least, they would be known for littering the planet and landfills with millions of mostly useless CDs.

Fast forward to today and we see Facebook following some of the very same footprints which AOL laid, made some cash and then fell extinct. In March 2011, Allfacebook.com, the unofficial facebook resource, covered a story depicting how the New York Times handles inbound links to their content from social sources versus search engine traffic. The key difference was the inbound traffic from social sources would receive unlimited reading on the NYT site, while search engine driven inbound traffic would receive a cap of five free visits per day. Any Facebook user has probably experienced someone in their network sharing content from a major news outlet, but wouldn’t it improve the user experience if the news source pushed their content directly into a social platform like Facebook?

Why yes, it would, and the Wall Street Journal announced last week the availability of WSJ Social, which lets users share content directly through Facebook. The service is free for now, but with financial partners like Dell and Intel, one can only wait so long for the paywall to be erected around that content.  Yes, paywall in a social network, you are not suffering from double vision. As news media history can reinforce, news organizations have no idea how to properly price their product in a digital market. News companies are used to the model where they controlled the distribution of their content with little outside intervention, except for a few strategic partners. Now, they have to negotiate getting a vehicle in the right market which carries an optimized form of the news content to the receiving device or online platform. Not only has it complicated the distribution channels, but it has also introduced significant technology learning curves which even the largest organizations in both news media and magazines have yet to truly understand. Communication-minded professionals learn technology mostly by experience and not by discipline, where technology-minded professionals are taught from the ground up how to build a platform and market that platform. Both parties need one another as a complement to either side of the brain if nothing else, but failure in the digital market backed by the speed at which content is shared on the social web, can make or break any marketing communication effort.

Facebook and a paywall model for organizations requiring that level of division is a natural step for the mega-social site, but will it improve the social web? A better solution would be to build a split advertising model where both the social platform and the news service get paid for clicks and views to their ad content. Any online effort that puts a barrier of any kind between a user and their desired content will eventually be made extinct by a more creative method to attain that same desired content. The wild west entrepreneurial spirit of the net, made innovations like Netflix, Groupon, and Craigslist. Competition to the social web behemoths like Facebook from the likes of say Google+, will push the platforms to innovate and maybe bring better features to the users. Either way, as communication professional in any field, remember that every barrier erected between you and your desired reader/audience/customer/client make the communication less effective. Share content in the social world to gain visibility and expand your brand presence, but don’t muddy the waters with convoluted revenue mechanisms which separate the haves from the have-nots.

Author: John Carew
Photo Credit: Jonathan Baker-Bates

1. Big Wednesday – “Wednesday/Thursday” – DDB New Zealand

2. DnB NOR – “Finally Married” – Try Reklamebryrå

3. Toyota – “People Person” – Saatchi & Saatchi Los Angeles

4. Weetabix – “Dancer” – Bartle Bogle Hegarty

5. Poland Spring Sparkling – “The Raid” – McCann Erickson New York

Author: Eric Swenson

So what is this “overly restrictive business model”? The USPS is the only––and I mean only––organization in the world that pays out pension funds for employees who are not currently retired. Yes, you can read that again––it is correct. The union negotiated for prepayment of pensions, which guarantees that the money will be there when employees retire. The USPS agreed to these terms back when mailings were strong and profitable and has been unable to renegotiate, even with the large decline in mail over the past four to five years.

As part of its restructuring plan, the USPS has proposed that Congress pass legislation that:

• Gives the Postal Service the authority to transition to a national five-day-per-week delivery schedule
• Resolves the retiree health benefit prepayment requirement

The USPS also continues to make progress on the fronts listed below:

• Studying 252 mail-processing facilities for potential consolidation
• Reviewing 3,600 low-activity post offices for potential closure, consolidation, or contracting
• Enhancing and expanding alternate access sites, including village post offices and usps.com
• Modifying delivery routes and service standards
• Making it easier to do business with the Postal Service with new, innovative products

I can sincerely say that I hope the USPS can figure out how to manage its budget and maintain some sort of acceptable service level, but given the current situation it seems unlikely. I wouldn’t mind 5-day service, or even 3-day service. But that would only work for residential delivery; commercial delivery would need to stay at 6-day service. Over the course of the next few years, we will see what the USPS will make of itself, and speaking on behalf of the industry, I wish them the best. Just don’t raise our postage prices, or we will go to UPS and FedEx!!

Author: John Mehl

• Target – Understand your audience.
• Cost – Determine airtime and production costs.
• Schedule – Advertise when your target audience listens.
• Number of Words – Focus on the main idea.
• Sound – Entertain the audience.

Writing effective radio ad copy is mandatory. It works best when there is a sense of urgency in people’s minds. Terms such as “must end soon” or “weekend only” are proven to work well in radio advertising. Media account executive Rik Ferrell offers these six steps to successful radio advertising:

1. Determine your commercial’s length.

2. Plan what you want to say.

3. Use a strong opening statement.

4. Include key attributes and your company’s personality.

5. Use effective contact information.

You can read more of his suggestions here.

In order to create a successful radio marketing strategy, it’s best if the message is simple. The commercial should:

• Be an attention grabber (whether through humor or sound)
• Talk about benefits (not features)
• Emphasize value (to keep the listener interested)
• Ask the listener to take an action (which should be easy to remember)
• Repeat over and over (the average person will need to hear an ad 11 times before he or she actually listens to it)

Have you used radio advertising in your marketing mix? If so, tell us how.

Author: Marina Kaljaj

This week’s Facebook f8 developer conference may improve upon the vague nature of the Like button by adding Read, Listen, Watch, and Want buttons to better bring relevant content from your social streams to the surface.

Google also joined the tech news this week by pulling back the invitation-only veil on Google+ and opening the Facebook competitor to the world. Anyone care to start the pool on how long before we can delete our Facebook profiles?

Netflix is spinning off its DVDs to Qwikster and keeping the streaming service under the mothership (and adding games). Learn from Netflix’s mistakes––keep a level of transparency in your significant changes, and maybe you’ll avoid the negative-press machine. The social web can damage your brand quickly, so proactive measures with big changes can be good, but also remember that hours are the new days on the Internet. A heartfelt apology video can only do so much. Netflix has battled for distribution rights for both DVD and streaming titles, and as the studios have gotten smarter at pricing for nontraditional distribution channels, services like Netflix must look to the future, one that does not include DVDs. Maybe what appears to be a greedy, anti-customer move will actually make the streaming function more dynamic (since the DVD albatross has flown away to an antique paradise with the likes of typewriters, BlackBerrys, and rotary/corded/cordless phones). Isn’t a tumultuous market fun? Companies keep changing their business models, and the consumer wins early on and loses after the product becomes more widely adopted. With all the cash Netflix has raked in, can someone buy Netflix CEO Reed Hastings a newer laptop than his ThinkPad circa 2004, maybe a MacBook Air?

Foursquare also hit 1 billion check-ins, a monumental increase since 200 million in July 2010. That is a big expansion in a little over a year. Sure, critics say the location-enabled social web isn’t going anywhere and the masses just don’t get how Foursquare and other location-based media really work. Our smart devices are our backstage passes to the lives of the people around us whom we care about. Each user cares about different things––from the goings-on of a Kardashian to your cousin from Hicksville––but apps like Foursquare let us see where they are when they want to share, and maybe a friend will pop up in your area and the service will help connect you. No matter how you slice it, more check-ins means more activity and maybe more users, so let’s raise a micro-brew to the next 1 billion.

By the time this is posted, Utterly Orange hopes someone has won our betting pool on where NASA’s UARS, aka a massive chunk of satellite space junk, finally makes contact with terra firma. Maybe it will just be tech Armageddon? NASA’s UARS could crash into some facility hosting [insert favorite website here]/Facebook/Foursquare/Netflix and cause online mayhem. Ok, fine––it really wouldn’t do anything, but wouldn’t that make the crash just that much more suspenseful?

And for those of you who just adore Google+ so much that you want to “circle” up your Facebook account, let me introduce you to CircleHack.

By the way, show Utterly Orange some love and click the Share buttons below for posterity. The Like button may be gone someday, and who knows about the “+1,” so go ahead and get your share on before time runs out!

Author: John Carew

If you’re reading this blog, you almost certainly have some desire to understand creativity. And while many of us in the creative field would like to claim expert status, the truth is in the numbers.

People come with certain biases. Passions. Backgrounds. Likes and dislikes. And more often than not, we come with inherent tendencies that are out of our control. It’s the recognition of that, I think, that will set us free—but I’ll get to that later.

I once read an article about our inherent desire to be “a little bit racist” (Avenue Q reference––check it out). The study involved two groups of very young kids—somewhere between the ages of three and five (well before they could understand the depths of racial conflict).

The study had half the children wear red shirts and the other half in blue. The children interacted with each other seemingly without a care in the world. It was clear that reds didn’t hang with only reds and blues didn’t hang with just blues. At the end of the study, however, the children were asked a series of questions. When questions came up like, “Do you think red shirts, your team, are better than blue shirts?” kids often responded in favor of their own team.

My point is this: Things that are different are unsettling at best and flat-out terrifying at worst. We seem to crave creativity more than anything else, but creative ideas are often not accepted. Do we have the ability to appreciate a real creative idea? I’d argue not. And as I said, the proof is in the numbers. An article will be released soon in the journal Psychological Science detailing two studies that came to the following titillating conclusions:

• Creative ideas are by definition novel, and novelty can trigger feelings of uncertainty that make most people uncomfortable.

• People dismiss creative ideas in favor of ideas that are purely practical––tried and true.

• Objective evidence shoring up the validity of a creative proposal does not motivate people to accept it.

• Anti-creativity bias is so subtle that people are unaware of it, which can interfere with their ability to recognize a creative idea.

The next time a colleague, friend, or business professional approaches you with an idea he or she finds creative, before you reject it, take a second and think about if you’re rejecting it because it’s crazy or because it’s just crazy enough to be original.

Author: Eric Swenson

And now for my 30-year journey at Vanguard. I joined Vanguard Direct in 1988 and was a vendor for seven years prior. I sold VGD snaps, continuous forms, and labels, and the terms “cross-selling” and “up-selling” were not in my vocabulary. I only sold what my plant was able to provide. My idea of being a solutions provider was getting the order delivered on time. I have an iPhone with over 100 apps. When my Outlook is down, I am depressed. I sell technology, promo, online ordering systems, creative design, social media, and direct mail (and printing, too). I never refer to VGD as a printing company. I am a solutions provider. Not only do I sell what I don’t produce, I sell whatever my clients need to improve the work flow in their organizations. I am on Twitter and LinkedIn. I only see my five grandchildren’s pictures on Facebook. Yes, a 62-year-old printer can make the transition. I can’t take a plant tour, however, without thinking back to the old days of the multipart snap-out form and the smell of ink.

So what’s the moral to this story? I worked at the largest union snap-out forms manufacturer in the country, and where is it today? It is extinct, because it was incapable of change! In this industry, you have to be flexible and willing to change your offerings to what your clients are asking for. It doesn’t take a scientist to make these changes, either––just a driven, hardworking mentality that is open to transition.

So the question is: What are you doing today that you won’t be doing in five years?

Author: Joe Corbo

Last week Utterly Orange commented on how natural disasters and use of social media to distribute information can have mixed results, but we have to remember that there is still a significant portion of the population that has little or no access to the internet. With the census data released earlier this week on the nation’s poverty rates, nearly 1 in 6 Americans live in poverty. How does access to the internet stack up in their list of priorities? We know the internet is the backbone through which carries the “nerve impulses” and provide structural support for the modern commerce and communication world which we live.  As long as portions of the population continue to have limited or no access to the internet, the fragmentation between consumption and distribution channels will continue to grow.

Over the history of mass communication, new technologies always require an entrance fee, as is the case given the capitalistic economy which we live. Once radio became widespread, people had to buy receivers and the same was true with television and telephone. Eventually the components for all became so cheap that cheap “low functioning” versions of the radio, television and phone can be found in all sorts of common items.

Every step we take toward a more wired world means our dependency on these technologies continues, but for the third time in the history of mass communication we have toll collectors who don’t want to play fairly. Whether they throttle data pipes or have regional monopolies on high speed service, the companies who provide internet service to many areas of the US have the deck stacked in their favor.

Case in point with the recent announcement by Comcast to offer $10 internet and $150 laptop coupon to those who qualify for the program aimed largely at those with low income levels. Don’t get all warm and fuzzy just yet, this deal only comes as a stipulation from the Comcast and NBC Universal merger so intentions may not be as clear and friendly as the press makes the gesture out to be.

Companies claim that they are reluctant to enter the social and digital arenas since those channels may not reach their target audience. That sentiment cannot be argued with and the Comcast deal will lessen he divide, but as the market gets more competitive (and less competitive at the same time with upcoming T-Mobile/AT&T deal) consumers options become harder. We need wide spread adoption of internet and availability to all in order to expand the penetration and adoption of online services which can provide incredible services to the full gamut of users. As marketers, technologists and citizens, remember that while profits are often the goal, we must remember to focus on providing services and methods of consumption which can increase the availability of the internet in the homes of every person in this country which will ultimately give us more data and a superior conduit to each person.

Author: John Carew
Photo Credit: Jeremy Noble “UBERCULTURE“

Vanguard has been an active member of the PSDA, with President Bob O’Connell serving as PSDA Board President in 2008. Over the years, Vanguard has consistently ranked highly in this annual list, and 2011 was no different.

Among the Top 50 PSDA Member Distributors, Vanguard Direct placed 4^th overall. Vanguard also ranked 4^th in the list of Top Sellers of Marketing Services, which is an indication of our ever-increasing presence outside the print realm.

Other rankings included 4^th place for Top Sellers of Commercial Print, 5^th place for Plastic Products, and 9^th place for Promotional Products.

Author: Dustin Hill

The PDF was originally used to send clients view-only layouts that they could review and approve before the final files were sent out to be printed. With the improvements made to the PDF format over the years, Adobe made it possible to create high-resolution, print-ready files, thus eliminating the need to package print-ready files via their native applications. Today, designers and production artists are expected to have a thorough knowledge of PDF creation.

When making a PDF, it is important to know its end use. That will determine the kind of PDF you need to produce. For example, if you were showing the client some changes made to a layout, you would send a “view-only” PDF. The view-only PDF would be low in resolution but easy to send in an email because of its small file size. Crop marks would not be necessary. If you were creating a print-ready PDF, however, you would need to ensure the PDF contained crops, bleed, and full-resolution images—in most cases, such PDFs might be too large to send over email.

For Print-Ready PDFs made from InDesign:
First, go to File > Export (Command-E). Select Adobe PDF as the format and choose the destination for the PDF and hit Save. A new dialog box will open. You can select a preset like High Quality Print (for print) or Smallest File Size (for web) as a starting point and modify the settings further if you wish. Pay special attention to the sections in the left-hand window of the options box: General, Compression, Marks and Bleed, and Output.

General – If the job is going to print in spreads, make sure this box is checked under Pages.

Compression – For high-quality color and grayscale images, Bicubic Downsampling should be set to 300dpi for images over that size and the Image Quality set to maximum. You can lower the dpi if the PDF is view-only to be sent via email.

Marks and Bleeds – If you are including crop marks, make sure the box is checked and add the bleed amount underneath.

Output – Make sure Color Conversion is set to No Color Conversion.

One trick that can be useful is to create your own custom settings. Once you have adjusted all the settings in the Export Adobe PDF dialog box, you can click Save Preset in the bottom left corner. You will give the preset a name, and once you hit OK, it will be included as an option under Adobe PDF Preset.

For Print-Ready PDFs made from Quark Xpress:
Go to File > Export > Layout as PDF (Command-Option-P). When the dialog box opens, click the Options button (or you can select a preset like Press – High Quality or Screen – Low Quality as a starting point and modify the settings further if you wish). The PDF Export Options dialog box will open with all the settings. Pay special attention to the sections in the left-hand window of the options box: Pages, Compression, Color, Marks and Bleed.

Pages – If the job is going to print in spreads, make sure this box is checked.

Compression – For color and grayscale images, Compression should be set to None and Resolution set to Keep Resolution (assuming your images are already 300dpi).

Color – If it is a four-color job, the Setup should be set to Composite CMYK. If a Pantone color is included, the Setup should be set to Composite CMYK and Spot.

Marks – If you are including crop marks, have the mode set to Centered (otherwise it can be set to Off).

Bleed – If there is bleed, have the Bleed Type set to Symmetric with the Amount as you wish.

Once again, you can create your own custom settings. Once you have adjusted all the settings in the PDF Export Options dialog box, you can go to PDF Style at the top and scroll down to New PDF Output Style. You will give the output style a name, and once you hit OK, it will included as an option under PDF Style.

Authors: Will Lovell, with assistance by Eric Swenson

Fail: Social Web + Mobile Service After Hurricane Irene
As someone who lives in what is technically called New England, Irene did some incredible damage not only near coastal areas but also far inland, as the media has covered along with the devastation in New York. Densely populated areas in these early Colonies developed back in the days of our first and only Revolution! Geographic barriers (rivers, mountains, etc.) often defined the boundaries of these old towns, and municipal infrastructure has been tied to existing human populations and often governed by poor, short-sighted legislation ever since. Fast-forward to Hurricane Irene and the reliance on above ground power, cable, and phone lines––thousands were without power for 14+ days. Ironically, major electrical providers like Connecticut Light & Power have advanced online systems that can give the percentage of affected customers by town, but once an over sized toothpick-to-be falls on the lines, off goes the power, phone, and––often––the Internet. The natural backup was mobile devices, which were also affected by damage from the falling trees, so the basic online functions that help people stay in touch were gone, leaving many in the dark in more ways than one. Connecticut-area Cox Media stations, including 95.9 The Fox and Star 99.9, banded together and broadcast three FM and two AM stations simultaneously, providing old-school radio information to those without Internet access. Hurricane Irene made it clear that:

1. Many do not rely on the Internet for information.
2. Once the Internet goes out, those who rely on it become disconnected.
3. Traditional media sources have abandoned the core local-information food chain that made them successful in the past.
4. Our infrastructure has no redundancy and needs an overhaul (think buried lines, faster mobile connections, and the ability for networks to bring cell service to disaster areas quickly, i.e., in hours, not weeks).

It must be stated, however, that many community officials and local news sources had outstanding hyper-local coverage after the winds subsided, with reports on closed roads, delayed school openings, and locations where people could get fresh water, charge phones, or shower. Some municipalities used robocalls or Twitter or Facebook, but that meant that users had to be connected to the social web via Twitter or Facebook (primarily). We love touting how deeply social media penetrates into the average American home, but not everyone is online and, even more important, not all have smartphones or know how to use the social web in a mobile environment. The argument can be made that the radio of the 20^th century has been replaced with the smartphone of today, but the cell signal needs to be strong enough to hold the masses once they jump from one channel (landlines) to the other (mobile).

Steve: A Resignation Sends Its Own Vibrations Through the Tech World
On August 24, the media reported that Steve Jobs had resigned from his position as CEO of Apple. The vibrations were not the phantom feeling on your hip from your vibrating phone of choice––no, these vibrations were of a different sort. Analysts jumped at the news and hinted at an uncertain future for the tech giant. Former Apple COO Tim Cook has now taken the helm, and many believe that the iPhone/iPad-creating innovation machine still has two to three years of Jobs-era technology in the works. A pretend screenshot of Steve’s new schedule currently making the rounds on technology blogs jokes about his new daily task of managing Cook from afar. Regardless of the future, Apple brought innovation and put good design first with its operating systems as well as hardware. Without Jobs and his positive force, we might all still be coveting BlackBerrys with their amazing “scroll wheels” (but poor RIM’s future looks grim either way).

Farewell to the black turtleneck and jeans. Thanks for the leading Apple toward better products and forcing the rest of the market to catch up. Your efforts made the marketplace more competitive, and toddlers, fan boys, gadget lovers, and soccer moms the world over have you to thank for the delicious visual goodness that is iOS, the iPhone, and the iPad.

Virginia: Quake Rocks the East Coast

Sitting on the twenty-second floor in Midtown Manhattan Tuesday with two of my tech-loving colleagues, I was surprised by the shaking of my chair at 1:55 pm. While other employees leapt from their offices and cubicles, the sub-thirties jumped to social media and the mobile web. Utterly Orange contributing blogger John Mehl found mentions on Twitter that confirmed our experience as an earthquake, and I sought answers with the iPhone Quake Watch app by LateNightProjects. The intraplate earthquake situated in Mineral, Virginia, kicked off a social tidal wave (tweetquake) of content surrounding the natural event. Check the video below and coverage from Mashable. If people were watching Twitter in NYC, it is highly possible that they found earthquake posts before they felt the vibrations. The mobile web exploded with laughter shocks, and the left-coast folk were amused by the right-coast crazies as we screamed and ran from our homes and offices.

Jason: Coffee Lounge “Cyberpadlocked” on Google
Maybe it is the lingering sensation that someone or something is out to get you. Something perhaps in the social web. As reported by the New York Times, Jason Rule, owner of Coffee Rules Lounge, was the victim of a false “permanently closed” status on Google Places. As the article points out, this is an increasing trend, and the source could be competitors or angry customers/ex-employees.

The article highlights some important issues:

1. We have no clue how to clean up personal or business online presences.
2. Crowd-sourcing can go wrong, and preventative measures need to be in place.
3. Businesses that aren’t on top of their online profiles can lose business.

Author: John Carew

Participants were given seven clues that led them to landmarks all over the city. A team captain with a smartphone was put in charge of group pictures in front of iconic places in Central Park, Chinatown, and the Museum of Natural History. The final clue was a QR Code that led participants to the Houndstooth Pub in Midtown for the after-party.

The winner of the 2011 VanScavenger hunt was Team X-Rays, which consisted of Joe Corbo, Gia Lam, Chris Barnes, Ron Clemente, Cori Eriksson, and Kevin Green. Video of the event is up on YouTube. Check it out below!

According to our Master of Ceremonies, Mark Dion, the VanScavenger Hunts were created with team building in mind. Fostering a sense of competition and creating new friendships among employees was an added bonus. Holding a fun, involved challenge like this helps employees to “improvise, adapt, and overcome” even when the task at hand is problematic.

What kinds of team-building activities does your organization participate in?

Author: Dustin Hill

First, Google did investigate something like this. It ran a program called Google Print Ads. This started back in 2005 as a limited program in publications such as Maximum PC and Budget Living. The idea was to sell the less-desirable ads––such as quarter-page ads––in an auction format. Google would let the advertisers set their own pricing, similar to how AdWords works. The thought was that this would attract a larger base of online advertisers that wanted to transition easily into print advertising. Since this venture never proved to be successful, Google decided to shut down its efforts in 2009 and focus on how it could better serve the print advertising market.

Second, Pitney Bowes just started to offer a web-based, or––to use a common buzzword––cloud-based, transpromo service. The company hasn’t released many details on how this will work or what market it is targeting, but it is promising. If Pitney Bowes can build this functionality into its hardware, then it can really reach a wide array of customers.

To sum it all up, transpromo advertising is an amazing way to keep your customers engaged. Since you already communicate with them on a periodic basis, this advertising is a cheap or almost free way to get the word out. Because there is some programming and technology involved in bringing this to market, however, it hasn’t really caught on with the smaller to medium-sized companies. Therefore, the industry needs a larger company to take the reins and build a solution that is easy to implement into companies’ current hardware. Google could for sure figure out a way to do this, but I think that Pitney Bowes may be an even better candidate given that it is already so heavily established in the print and mailing markets.

If you had an easy way of incorporating transpromo into your statements, would you jump on board?

Author: John Mehl

1. Consumers are shopping earlier and spending more.
2. Mom isn’t the only one doing the shopping.
3. Shopping happens online and offline.
4. Shoppers want deals, deals, and more deals.

With that said, I wanted to share Ace Metrix’s list of this season’s Top 10 Back-to-School Ads.

What’s your favorite and why?

Author: Marina Kaljaj

When I arrived at 5:45, a line of mostly 20- and 30-something techies stretched around the corner onto First Avenue, under the bridge, and onto the next block. For those in line, texting and tweeting was, of course, the order of the day. Doors opened on time, and getting in was far more orderly and friendly than at the average music show or sports event.

Once inside, I found both floors dismayingly jammed—a condition that waxed to the extreme as time passed. But we’re used to crowds in New York, and I soldiered on, bellying up to various bars to ask questions about and briefly caress dozens of smartphones and tablets. Most of the major players, including AT&T, Samsung, HTC, Motorola, and RIM (BlackBerry) were in the house. Other exhibitors included: AC Gears, a Japan-based retailer of headphones and other mobile accessories; set-top media server maker Boxee; and Cadence, makers of the geek-chic 4-Bit Chrono Watch. Amidst the hubbub, two well-lit graffiti artists were for some reason creating a mural in real time, dispensing toxic paint fumes as they worked.

A tantalizing alcove into which I wandered turned out to host a popular, multi-outlet recharging station—essential with all the power-hungry devices in the house.

Steam tables and wandering, tray-bearing caterers supplied a better-than-average offering of complimentary food, including tiny “slider” burgers, chicken potpies, mac and cheese, and small squares of assorted diet transgressions. Several watering holes dispensed soda and juice. Skipping the alcohol option, whatever Engadget’s reason, helped keep the crowd just this side of surly-mob-hood.

Astute readers may be wondering: Where was the 700-pound gorilla on the mobile electronic scene, aka Apple Inc? It was absent and—sorry, fanboys and girls—not especially missed. RIM notwithstanding, this event was by and large a celebration of all things Android. I briefly wondered whether Apple’s absence might be due to lingering bad feelings over Engadget’s involvement, along with rival blog Gizmodo, in the affair of the iPhone 4 prototype left in a Redwood City bar by hapless Apple employee Gray Powell. But then I considered the balancing absence of Microsoft, together with a lack of direct presence by Google, and decided it was all good.

I’m more or less in the market for a phone to replace my one year+ ancient HTC EVO 4G, and a highlight for me among the many candidates on hand was the Motorola Photon—carried, like the EVO, by Sprint. Event swag, in my case, amounted to a couple of branded stress balls and a pair of cheap shades. But I didn’t stick around for the last two or three on-the-hour raffles and may have missed winning something that way. Apparently, the raffle did not include the way-desirable, all-electric Mini Cooper parked out front. I felt better about cutting out early after finding that out.

Everything displayed is currently available, and it occurred to me that one could try out nearly all of it in a much more relaxed milieu by visiting Best Buy, or even one’s chosen phone store, at an off-hour time of day. Admittedly, minus the “tribal gathering” vibe, many attendees no doubt enjoyed the Meetup at Gustavino’s. The product representatives didn’t seem able, or at liberty, to share any juicy factoids or prognostications that aren’t generally available. When I asked the otherwise friendly, helpful Motorola rep about a possible path forward for currently floundering Google TV via Motorola set-top boxes, he shrugged and said, “I get those kinds of rumors the same place as you … Engadget!”

Author: John Wehmeyer

Check out www.sensationalcolor.com to get an insider’s look at current trends in color and some important rationales for correct color choice. Whether it’s color for fashion, your home, or communications pieces, this site probably touches on it.

There’s discussion on theory and color in business as well. The blog portion is infrequently updated but useful when the site’s “color expert,” Kate Smith, decides to post.

If you want to know what the color orange really means or why the Blue Man Group uses blue, then this site is meant for hue!

Author: Eric Swenson

Borders announced last month that it was closing its nearly 400 stores; the reasons stated were e-reader technology and the poor economy. I contend, however, that Borders lost sight of its core business, which is the magic that comes only through turning pages. I love books and have many bookcases filled with them at home, but I also loved to cruise the aisles of Borders just to see new and exciting topics that I hadn’t considered before. In hindsight, it seems that Borders had a core customer base––avid readers––that it let slip through its fingers. A customer’s visit to Borders should have been treated as an event by the company, which should have focused on cultivating more avid readers. Maybe having craftsmen showing how books are made or gold foil artists actually producing book jacket covers would have been sexier than a book signing for Joan Collins’s new autobiography. Not that I have anything against Joan, mind you, but having a book signing is not my idea of an event. Borders let a generation or two drift toward e-books, and I am not so sure the solution is better than the touch and feel of a book. On a regular basis I see people with library books on the train––these to me are avid fans who could easily use an e-reader but still love the joy of turning pages. There is a lot of satisfaction in sitting down with a traditional book and a sense of accomplishment in closing the book after the last page. I submit that the age of the book is far from over.

Now consider the program Imagination Library started by Dolly Parton in Tennessee, which is bringing the joy of reading to young children and their parents. Dolly wanted to foster a love of reading among preschool-aged children and their families, regardless of the family’s income. She wanted children to be excited about books and the magic that books can create. This free program begins with The Little Engine That Could. Newborns through five-year-olds are eligible, and a child can literally bring the first book home with him or her from the hospital. Every month after that, a new, carefully selected, age-appropriate book will be mailed until the child turns 5 (the last title is Look Out Kindergarten, Here I Come!).

Imagination Library has jump-started a long-loved family tradition of reading together at bedtime or anytime of the day. If enrolled as an infant, a child will have collected 60 books by age five. The books are written in English, but native-language, bilingual, and Braille books are available. The program was started in 1996 in partnership with Penguin Publishing, and the response since then has been overwhelming. In 2010 Imagination Library mailed its 30,000,000th book. It is now in 1,300 communities in 3 countries and sends books to 560,000 children each month. The Little Engine That Could was given to 249,145 children in 2010, and just under 126,000 graduated from the program in 2010. As the website proudly states, “What’s the sum of all these numbers? Smiles on faces, books held close, and our four favorite words––‘Read it to me!’”

2010 was also big for New York City; the Department of Education has recently partnered with Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library and other organizations and currently has over 22,000 children enrolled. The goal is to promote the development of emergent literacy and language skills that are important for every child’s success in school. The by-product is bringing families together with the joy and magic of books, not e-readers.

Let’s finally consider the demise of Borders’ 400-plus stores and the $1.275 billion in assets it filed in its 2011 Chapter 11 filing. How much of those assets are books? And the bigger question is why in the 15 years since Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library began hasn’t Borders found a way to bring back its core base, avid readers of books? I contend that technology is NOT the reason, because there is a love of books that has not gone away.

A few thoughts on the subject of books:

“In a good bookroom you feel in some mysterious way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in all the books through your skin, without even opening them.” — Mark Twain

“Books are the perfect entertainment: no commercials, no batteries, and hours of enjoyment for each dollar spent. What I wonder is why everybody doesn’t carry a book around for those inevitable dead spots in life.” — Stephen King

“There is more treasure in books than in all the pirates’ loot on Treasure Island … and best of all, you can enjoy these riches every day of your life.” — Walt Disney

“Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.” — Groucho Marx

Information on Borders
Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library
NYC Department of Education’s Imagination Library Registration Form“

Author: Tom Caska

Let’s cut to the chase––Google wants patents. The hurricane of patent lawsuits over the last few months points directly at the problem. Google’s potential purchase of Motorola Mobility has created excitement since it already manufactures smartphones and has been doing so for some time with debatable success (depending on what measure one uses). The proverbial R&D and patent drag race has bumped the ante up considerably. As Gizmodo pointed out on Tuesday, there are losers everywhere. Innovation is what drove us to where we are, and these patent wars combined with the dismal economy worldwide and bleak future predications could stymie the very momentum that got us to this mobile-enabled, always-connected place, for better or for worse.

If the techie masses rose up in revolt, forming a Wi-Fi-enabled, smartphone-wielding protesting mob, lighting their way by the glow of the Zippo lighter app, there would be little media coverage. Chants of “free our patents, free innovation” would not ring throughout the nation. Protest signs adorned with words written in courier and those archaic, round shiny disks our parents call CDs would not attract TV cameras in droves. Would Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert side with the byte-obsessed nerds and join their ranks on the National Mall or dispatch a senior correspondent to compile a sequence of geek- and social ineptitude–based jokes? Let’s go with, umm, doubtful.

With the market left to its own devices, what may happen? If Google sinks its teeth into Motorola Mobility, maybe we will see the tide turn in the smartphone sea. The good news is that Apple gave the market a huge, delicious taste of an intuitive user interface and higher-quality handsets, and since we like the taste, the competitors are fighting tooth and nail over the tech/patents that will help them stir up some new waves. Those same waves that foster innovation are destroyed as they smash into the breakwater that is the patent lawsuit disaster. At least the Verizon, HTC, and Samsung ships have all given safe passage to the deal since it may reduce the choppy waters caused by the incoming patent hurricane.

Future predictions on the horizon…
Apple buys RIM. Yes, we feel faint as well, but would the scent of BlackBerry destroy the feng shui of Apple’s proposed new Cupertino digs? The keyboard clicking would be a disturbance, at any rate. Microsoft buys Nokia. We agree––it’s like your friends who shared an apartment for 10 years finally getting married. HP splinters webOS to accelerate Palm OS–like separation. RIM refused to get off the recliner and answer the doorbell as the chimes incessantly rang with innovation calling again and again. Now it is faced with a declining market share and what some consider grim expectations of acquisition.)

Author: John Carew
Photo credit: Diver227

On August3, the sales team met at the New Jersey National Country Club in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, to tee off. The Vanguard sales team typically has three sales meetings throughout the year, and the golf outing is usually held halfway through the year to review the first six months of progress. The outing is also a great chance for team-building.

Author: Dustin Hill

For the last few years, I’ve been following the writings of the self-proclaimed “Evangelist of Apple,” Guy Kawasaki. Guy’s motto is “Simple and to the point is always the best way to get your point across,” and his writing style––pointed, compelling, engrossing, and thoroughly engaging––evinces this. Past book topics (he has written 10 to date) run the gamut from specific business interests (leadership, marketing, strategic planning, and social media) to world-bettering ideas (compassion, excellence, and commitment). Kawasaki likes to give back to society as well as help others grasp their dreams. As an at-large business guru, he continues to be an evangelist.

Kawasaki’s most recent book, Enchantment, advocates using entrepreneurial strategies to influence the hearts, minds, and actions of others. He maintains, “While persuasion is good, enchantment is even more powerful.” Kawasaki encourages the reader to positively impact what others around him or her do while at the same time maintaining a high standard of ethics. His three pillars of enchantment are: likeability, trustworthiness, and a great cause. He contends that true success comes not from getting what you want but rather from being able to bring about a change in others, and his book focuses on using tools from the digital age to draw people into the conversation about change. Each chapter ends with an anecdote that helps put his thoughts into practical perspective.

I enjoyed reading this book not only because of Guy’s great wit but, more importantly, because of the integrity, empathy, and passion he has for others that came through on every page. Reading Enchantment reminded me of the importance of giving back and making customers feel good about their choices. Kawasaki’s parting thought about enchantment is that it’s a powerful skill and that with power comes responsibility. Enchantment isn’t just about business, it’s about people, and if you want your business and your world to grow, then you must enchant them.

Kawasaki’s blog

Kawasaki’s Twitter feed

Enchantment Facebook page

If you’ve read the book or follow Guy, let us know your thoughts.

Author: Paul Wry

You are if you:

• Refuse to accept teamwork
• Oversee projects at all times
• Correct details instead of concentrating on the big picture
• Make decisions on your own

Why do certain people act this way? Well, entrepreneurs are doers. They love to take action. Entrepreneurs are the foundation of businesses, and at times they get stuck micromanaging instead of working with others. Micromanaging affects creativity. It affects the business. Micromanaging is bad. It kills team spirit and enthusiasm.

In an article on American Express’s OPEN Forum blog, entrepreneur and Wall Street Journal columnist Mike Michalowicz warns that you should never micromanage:

1. Creativity personnel
2. Contractors
3. Delegated tasks
4. Sales teams
5. Administrators

So what should you do instead of micromanaging?

Hire people who can get the job done on their own. Be a motivator. Positive feedback will most likely result in a positive outcome. Always listen.

A post on Brass Tack Thinking offers some interesting tips on how to respond to bosses with micromanagement tendencies:

1. Listen carefully.
2. Communicate like crazy.
3. Ask for input.
4. Offer feedback.
5. Turn it to them.
6. Learn their tendencies
7. Pick your battles.
8. Reward good behavior.
9. Look in the mirror.

You can read the entire post here: http://www.brasstackthinking.com/2010/06/dealing-with-micromanagement/

Do you have a story to share?

Author: Marina Kaljaj

The study contained three separate experiments:

Part I: Viewing preferences, printing behavior, and content-management habits
Part II: Identification of behavioral and cognition-based differences between print and screen consumption
Part III: Study of eye movement while viewing screen versus print content

The study used photo books of images located in Rochester, NY, and on the Rochester Institute of Technology campus that were familiar to the participants. If you extract the findings of the study and apply them to larger visual communications efforts, the following conclusions should be considered as you evaluate work effort and the priority level given to screen and print collateral:

1. The 56%/44% split of print versus screen preference indicates that design emphasis should be placed to both mediums equally.
2. More frequent eye movement (fixations) for screen viewing compared to print suggests that the traditional design rules that work for print need to be rethought for a new medium.
3. Initial studies indicate that the medium does not impact the time spent with the print or screen version, but time spent with screen media is less than print.
4. The split or fragmentation of end users’ preferences has and will continue to pose a hurdle for any visual communicator. As these young adults age, their buying power will force visual communicators to align their design priorities, but at the very least, print and screen design should be at the same level.

Applying traditional print rules to screen design and layout is a bit like taking an auto mechanic and expecting his manual dexterity to give him the talent to paint an oil masterpiece. The Adobes and Quarks (whatever may come of it in the future) of the world have an interest in creating an application that lets users create content for both mediums, but just because you can, doesn’t mean it is functional, correct, or usable.

Proceed with caution, but remember the mediums are not the same. The RIT study begins to prove that younger people have preferences that embrace both mediums.

Author: John Carew

Product Placement Done Well – Volkswagen

In the movie Van Wilder, the star, Ryan Reynolds, is seen wearing a VW hat backwards. It’s casual. It’s hip. And it’s placed on the coolest kid at Coolidge College. The now “Sexiest Man Alive” made Volkswagen trendier than ever. Just Google “Ryan Reynolds VW hat,” and you’ll see a whole slew of people asking where they can get their own. And it wasn’t just the hat. His campus golf cart also had the letters VW (subtle product placement) on the front of it.

Of course, you could argue that the VW in both of these instances stands for Van Wilder, but we both know we’d only be fooling ourselves.

In-Your-Face Product Placement – Pizza Hut/Subway

These days, when the producer of content is afraid that its blatant product placement will alienate its audience, the company sometimes decides to go head-on. This usually happens with disruptive and direct promotion of the product right in the middle of the show or movie. The actors break out of character or turn to face the camera directly and talk about the product. Humor seems to be the only effective way of doing this, and the response from the consumer is usually an eye roll or the thought “I guess this is what I have to deal with now.”

Product Placement Done Like #@!% – Chex Mix

I can’t tell which is more vomit-inducing: this ridiculous Chex Mix plug in “Days of Our Lives” or the pathetic attempt at acting. Either way, this, in my opinion, is the worst of all three. It tries to be sneaky but is blatantly obvious. The only question that merits asking is: Did the producers of the show suggest this or was it Chex Mix?

I really don’t care what the response is. It just plain sucks.

Author: Eric Swenson

More often than not, I see people using the mail-merge function and calling it variable-data publishing. So what is the difference? A mail merge is simply taking the data you have and displaying it on the printed piece. This can be someone’s name, address, or even birthday. Variable content is taking that data and doing something more than just displaying it. In a campaign for a chain of stores, for example, this could be using the recipient’s address to print a map to the closest store. Some variable-data printing (VDP) pieces are so advanced that without data there is nothing to print. All the images and text are directly related to the data, which corresponds to you. This is what we in the industry call a “personalized piece.” The success of a variable-data piece is based solely on the quality of the data and how that data is used to encourage the customer to take the next step in accordance with your offer. Below are some examples and different levels of VDP.

Mail Merge

Advanced Mail Merge (variable imaging)

Variable Content (displaying names and swapping out images based on preference)

Personalized Piece (name, image, offer)

So, what kind of data do you have about your customers, that could be used in a variable print run, to increase your ROI?

Author: John Mehl

Great account executives tend to have a mixture of skills. They are extremely familiar with the products or services they are dealing with. Excellent communication skills are a must, as well as good customer service skills. Great account executives are successful in keeping their clients involved. They build up good relationships with their clients and quickly answer questions. It’s a way to keep the client interested, as clients take pleasure in interacting with someone who communicates well.

The truth is that you could lose a client––no matter how good the creative––if the account executive fails to maintain the relationship.

In a post on Branding Strategy Insider, Kenneth Roman, former chairman of Ogilvy & Mather, offers these tips on how to be a great account manager:

1. Select clients carefully. Target list.
2. Treat your client as your best new business prospect. Walk the halls.
3. Take a proprietary interest in the health of your client’s business.
4. Get agreement on strategy.
5. Give your clients ideas they didn’t ask for. Take initiative.
6. Build bridges at multiple levels. Pay attention to juniors.
7. LISTEN. Take notes. Confirm in writing. Deliver!
8. Treat the client’s money as your own. Put the client’s interest first.
9. Deal with issues, not people. Never badmouth a client.
10. Make friends with your clients. Hard to fire a friend.

The blog Unsolicited Marketing Advice offers a few more tips that I found interesting:

1. Learn to listen and take good notes.
2. Keep a to-do list that works.
3. Learn to date your work: memos, reports, notes, etc.
4. Learn to delegate.
5. Be enthusiastic, positive, and loyal (to your agency and to your client).
6. Share ideas (don’t be a yes person).
7. Tune into as many media as you can find time for.
8. Learn to use technology, adding new skills and applications regularly.
9. Make time for professional development.
10. Build a network of knowledgeable pros, adding one per week.
11. Develop an outside interest which will add dimension to your professional growth, perhaps providing community visibility.
12. Pick up a hobby or vocation to take your mind off the biz.

Any tips you’d like to add?

Author: Marina Kaljaj

A decade ago, supporters and pundits predicted the end of analog ways, classifieds, bulletin boards, and libraries. It wasn’t until the explosion of social networks and the expansion of smartphones/tablets, however, that the digital services that replaced the analog processes had the momentum to take off exponentially. Now, smartphones and social networks, in conjunction with trusted gatekeepers, are spinning the threads of social connection that were once made through local social groups.

Check out this list below, which includes both start-up and established online entities that have built digital pathways for analog problems. If you have additional suggestions, post a comment and we will expand the list.

The grandparents and great-grandparents of the current generations lived in a time without mass transit, without telephones, and without worldwide networks. Social groups were small and heavily rooted to geography. Technological and logistical breakthroughs like the United States Post Office (now the USPS) parcel post service, railroads, the combustion engine, refrigeration, radio, telephones, and television connected ideas, services, and goods with people from afar. Before those breakthroughs, local social networks centered on societal kingpins, the social butterflies of a group who acted like the router and switch between not only conversation but the ability to fulfill needs within social circles.

For better or worse, today’s gatekeepers are the “admin” and moderators of trusted online sites and communities. Often, an organization’s legal team develops terms and conditions that govern the operation of the body, and then a team (paid or unpaid) manages the operation of the sites. Others are even more laissez-faire and use a self-policing model where users report issues to system administrators and moderators to correct. These websites have replaced the classified ads and the grocery store bulletin board and are infinitely more useful because they are more timely, targeted, searchable, sharable, and integrated.

The major benefit of analog networks was that the user’s anonymity was protected much farther down the line than with today’s digital variations. A user could traditionally wait until literally the moment before completing a transaction before exposing his or her identity (assuming that no one involved in the process knew his or her face). Anyone could anonymously tear the contact information off the bulletin board, jot down the information for an event, or browse the shelves of a bookstore without leaving a trace. Today, the entities that have built pathways to connect users to their needs put up tollbooths to collect information on those who want what is on the other side. Sometimes the data is used to safeguard the community from the likes of criminals and those who detract from the conversation. The amount of data that users must give up varies from site to site, but the burden of protecting this data falls to the builders of the pathway. The financial and healthcare industries have been saddled with this data security issue for the full length of their tenure on the Internet, with every possible transaction requiring a high level of data security to protect both the organization and the end user. Much of the security in both industries is tied to professional standards or government legislation, further placing data security as the focal point of operations for any financial or healthcare organization.

So what about all these new online organizations and the data that users are providing in order to gain access to the pathways and communities that they have built? The same level of attention needs to be paid to any information a user gives to any sort of online community or entity for no other reason than trust. An online hack or security breach, whatever the size, undermines the fundamental trust of users in an entity, ultimately eroding the very community they built.

Whether user or pathway builder, both must remember to be vigilant about data security and support the community with whatever means possible. Recent news of organized online “hacktavist” groups and their high-profile targets are the digital protests of today, comparable to the nonviolent protests and sit-ins of the civil rights and anti-war movements of the middle part of the last century. These online communities and tools––the replacements for the analog bulletin board distribution systems––are the future. The rate of adoption is yet to be determined, but they will become more and more mainstream as the user base increases. Sites will come and go, with brands starting and ending as the economy and market shift, but look at eBay, Amazon, and Craigslist. Founded in 1995, 1994, and 1995 respectively, each has defined a transactional service in three distinct areas––and has seen the subsequent rise of competitive online services––but each is still a strong entity in its particular segment. Entrepreneurs are taking risks with new ventures to provide digital solutions to analog processes. Wait until the next wave of start-ups carves out niches in the interwebs and replaces existing analog needs. The world we live in, the Internet-connected world, can be as global or as local as you choose––you just have to change the search radius.

How will you leverage trust (and innovation) in the communities that you build around your brand, service, or product?

Author: John Carew

BE ORIGINAL.

For heaven’s sake, if you’re an ad agency, pay attention to the ads around you. And when I say pay attention, I don’t mean pay attention enough to steal an idea and make it your own. I mean recognize a good idea, appreciate it, and then come up with something original.  A great ad:

Everyone’s well aware of the successes of the Old Spice campaign. Wieden+Kennedy continues to blow us away with great ideas. What it didn’t know, however, was that it was pushing the door wide open to what I’ll call “Man’s Man” ideas. But it wasn’t the first.

Dos Equis came out with “The Most Interesting Man in the World” campaign in 2006—four years before the Old Spice guy. This campaign has some of the best writing I’ve ever seen. I don’t know if there’s anything cleverer on TV right now.

Was the Dos Equis campaign the first to use the “Man’s Man” idea? Of course not. But I’d argue these two campaigns have led the way to a plethora of repeats. It’s true that ideas have 10- to 20-year life cycles. These two spots, however, created a voice and a tone. Being able to do a million things while still keeping his composure is what makes a man a man, it seems. These spots opened the floodgates. And now, I can’t stand to watch people recycle them over and over.

Old Spice Man’s Man Rip-Off, Exhibit A

Old Spice Man’s Man Rip-Off, Exhibit B (Can’t seem to find the original. Sorry!)

Dos Equis Man’s Man Rip-Off, Exhibit C

There are obviously so many more. And I recognize there are ads that preceded Dos Equis that are similar in nature (think Burger King’s “Scent of Seduction” ad and all the rip-offs that followed that). But do people not notice this? Have you noticed it? What’s your opinion?

I leave you with a parallel from Hollywood. If you’re going to be a screenwriter, let’s try to write a film that isn’t a complete rip-off of the story you just wrote.

The Curious Case of Forest Gump

Author: Eric Swenson

Let’s start with Condé Nast. I recently read Nitasha Tiku’s article “Condé Nast Is Experiencing Technical Difficulties” in The New York Observer, and it brought to mind the inflexibility of large companies. While Condé Nast is one of the leading print publishers of many popular titles, it has struggled with offering its titles in a digital format. For many at Condé Nast and other print publishers, they think that taking a static print design and putting it on a screen constitutes a digital version. But what is the value in that? I would rather read something static in printed format so that I can feel the pleasure of throwing it in the recycling bin when I am finished (or sick of the boring type). A digital version is something that can offer much more than print. I want to interact with it, gather more information on the parts I like, and ultimately share it with my friends on social media to see what they think, too. Pictures should turn into photo albums and videos streams, text should link out to related content, and it should look different on everything, optimizing the content for the screen it’s being displayed on. If it has none of that, no one will see the value in spending more on the digital version, or even buying the device to begin with.

The whole problem boils down to people. The suits empowered with making decisions are old-school corporate big wigs used to pasting headlines on a cover and passing that collage off to one of their designers. These designers––who have primarily only print design experience––are laying out the print file and then trying to repurpose it for the digital version. This is the most common mistake: trying to convert the static print version into a digital version without making a substantial amount of changes. The digital version should be treated as a totally separate element, not a hybrid from the print version. It’s OK to start with the text and graphics from the print version as your base, but you have to reengineer the piece to add the value consumers expect from digital media. It’s not about taking the old and making it new, it’s about starting with good content and making two separate pieces for two totally different markets.

Next we have the newspapers. The inspiration for this section of the post came to me from “Why Newspapers Suck at the Internet!” on Gizmodo. Since I was a little boy, I have been reading the newspaper––and then promptly using it to start a campfire! I actually grew up living next door to the owner of our local newspaper in Erie, PA. I was, and still am, fascinated by how quickly a newspaper can acquire a lead, write a story, and get it on the newsstands the next morning. But they are all dying a slow and painful death. Over the past five years, hundreds of newspapers have gone out of business. One may ask why, and I would answer: the almighty Internet. Why would anyone wait until the next morning to get his or her news when it’s free and available online immediately? Unfortunately, the newspapers were slow to react to this, and when they did, they didn’t take the time to do it right. They have the best reporters and the best process to push out good news quickly, but they didn’t make it user-friendly or profitable. Just this year, The New York Times, for the tenth time, put up the pay wall, and it actually might be working now, let’s wait and see. But they are one of the few who have done something to capture their falling profits from the decline in printed subscriptions. Hopefully all the others will jump aboard Apple’s Newsstand and go from there.

Here is that graphic from Gizmodo depicting the user experience with newspapers’ websites.

So what is the lesson from these three failures? Its attention to detail, living and breathing that 99% right is 100% wrong. Making sure that when you execute technology, you do it right and to the fullest potential of the medium. We are for the most part smaller companies who can be flexible and agile in these turbulent times. Now is the time to shine above the rest and show the big guys what we are really capable of.

So, what do you aspire to do with new emerging technologies?

Author: T. John Mehl

A post on allBusiness notes that an unprofessional approach to marketing material design will cause the following:

• Your business will appear unstable.
• Your business will look amateurish.
• You will look unpolished.
• You will look unfocused.

A professionally created logo might be more challenging money-wise, but it will pay off in the long run. It definitely is an important investment a business owner should make!

Now, some people don’t agree with this. Some say the importance of logos is exaggerated, that it won’t help with branding. Some people think that getting precious about a logo is unnecessary. Really? So why did Gap have 2,000 Facebook comments criticizing its decision to drop the original, well-known logo? Are you aware of the money Tropicana spent after deciding to rebrand its logo and then having to go back to the old one because of customers’ unhappy reactions?

I believe that a company creates a strong relationship with its customers not only through strategy but also by visual positioning. Without a good logo, you are only going halfway. Once a customer becomes familiar with a business, the company’s logo will always be the customer’s prime association. For these reasons, significant effort should be put into logo design.

You can’t really argue the fact that logos contribute to brand building and have an influence on a company’s reputation.

How important is your logo to you?

Author: Marina Kaljaj

My, how things have changed in 5 years. 2006 was pre-iPhone, back when the likes of RIM were still on top and Apple was clambering for market share while expanding its retail presence. With the recent news of RIM’s planned layoffs to “reshape” into a company better fitted to handle the upcoming release of new BlackBerry handhelds, changes in the marketplace over the last 5 years have muddied the waters for organizations hoping to market their products or services.

Utterly Orange has previously covered the difficulties associated with mobile marketing or application development due to the complicated marketplace, and there are some lessons to be learned. Consider these concepts as your plan your mobile presence:

#1 Innovation Wins
RIM is dying, slowly losing market share point by point, and it has no one else to blame but itself. It provided a functional product with marginal innovation. RIM geared its product toward business use, ignoring consumer-side impulses.

Which came first, the chicken or the egg, or in this case, the smartphone or the mobile functions? Mobile functions cover a broad range of features, from mobile applications to mobile-friendly websites to carrier-side, location-aware services that tie in with SMS. We know that the analysts and cell carriers planned the growth of the mobile market, and the proof was in the ramp up to the bigger and faster mobile data connections we sort of have today, but was it the smartphone or the pipes that came first? Answer: iPhone. Yeah, yeah. We hear you––the iPhone isn’t the answer to every question, but user understanding and subsequent adoption is a tremendously large part of the success of a new product. Add some level of innovation to the mix, and you have a recipe for massive growth––or at least it has looked that way over the last 5 years with the iPhone and iPad. Now both devices were and are not perfect by any means. Both have critical features that are still missing, and some design and user interface choices give the edge to some of their competitors.

Twitter and Foursquare had no competitors before each started as a tiny start-up. A creative idea coupled with a powerful, functional mobile device helped expand the adoption of both applications. Regardless, the bar was raised with the release of iOS and its intuitive features. Innovation won and keeps winning as judged by Android’s taking top seat as the leading mobile operating system.
Keep innovation in mind as you consider the right mix of mobile functions for your marketing (and communications) efforts. Providing something new or innovative captures attention and stands out from the tumultuous sea of marketing attempts that users deal with every day via multiple mediums.

#2 Do It Right
Google “failed mobile marketing.” You will find hundreds of examples from the blogosphere, media, and trade journals of failures in mobile marketing. From the ever present QR that points to a company’s non-mobile-friendly homepage to “follow us” with the bird and blue F slapped below all new advertising and marketing collateral, failed use of new mobile functions is prevalent.

Do it right, meaning hire the right people or look at the leaders and users of these mobile functions inside your organization to help you get oriented. None of these mobile functions are inherently complicated. Once you begin to hone your ideas, you may want to bring in stronger firepower, but leverage your resources––whether they be inside or outside––to get the key people up to speed on what constitutes the successful use of these powerful mobile features and avoid what could be an #epicfail.

The disadvantage of waiting to enter the mobile arena this late is that so many have already created mobile functions that are totally awesome. Users know what to expect and can sniff out amateur efforts quickly. Missing the mark on the execution of a mobile effort can spell long-term negative effects for your brand.

#3 Follow the Data
Good news: the Internet gives you a lot of data about your customers. A well-set up website can give you insight into how your customers interact with your existing web presence. Dive deep into the areas of your analytic platform that provide details on mobile traffic, network properties, and browser capabilities. For example, mobile traffic can give you an idea of the percentage of users who access your website via mobile browsers.

Additionally, use existing contact points to determine how existing users interact with your web presence. Ask them their preferences. Remember, users with mobile devices are looking for an intuitive, easy-to-use mobile function that makes their lives easier or simplifies an existing process that they complete with your organization. If you are considering developing a mobile app and can’t decide between iOS, Android, BlackBerry, or some flavor of Windows for smartphones, spend some time in your analytic platform and look at the device types used. Follow your data to make an innovative mobile function and do it right.

One more thing. Take a risk. Twitter was a risk, as was Foursquare, but the risk was taken and now they both are successful products. The overhead required to make a mobile function will vary dramatically, and the recession doesn’t help when scouring for some extra cash, but it’s still the Wild West in many ways. The risk could be wildly successful and bring your product or company to the forefront of the market.

What is your first step (or next step) in expanding your company’s mobile presence? Let us know your thoughts or questions via a comment and join the conversation.

Author: John Carew

Vanguard’s Creative Services group follows a disciplined and coordinated approach to developing your communication programs and achieving your marketing goals. Our systematic approach helps us discover key components that differentiate your product or service in a crowded marketplace. Our award-winning design team works directly with you to develop attention-getting visual solutions that help connect with your audience and communicate your message with maximum impact and excitement. Whatever your design needs––brand identity, collateral design, promotional displays––our talented staff offers years of experience across multimedia applications including print, promotional, and interactive.

We asked our creative experts some key questions about how to successfully start and complete a creative project:

> How do you keep creative project costs in scope?

“This is one of the more difficult parts of the job—keeping edits down to a minimum. I think this depends on the client and how well you know them (and how they work). With some, you know that many rounds of edits can be expected and an estimate should reflect those extra rounds; some may appreciate the budget updates.”
– Susan Hallinan (Designer)

“The easiest way is to plan the budget and keep track of the progress of design time. For a large project, check costs every week; for small projects, check every day.”  – Kevin Green (Director of Creative Services)

“Preparation and communication––do your best to convey as much information at the beginning of the project as possible so that your design team really understands what you’re looking for. And insist on a creative brief––a written summary from your design team of what they understand the scope to be––so that everyone begins the project on the same page.”  
– Kara Damato (Senior Designer)

“Write up a creative brief with as much detail as possible. This way, the client will not have any surprises after the project is almost done. When they approve the brief and the estimate, you can begin.”   – Vittoria Semproni (Designer)

“Vanguard Direct utilizes a web-based project cost–tracking software program. It enables our Creative Directors and Project Managers to monitor each project’s cost from inception through to the end product. Once a new creative project is opened in the system, an estimate is created based upon the client’s project parameters. Each project estimate has Task Categories ranging from Concept Development to Pre-Press, including many subcategories. The Creative Director estimating the project assigns hours and a dollar rate to each Task. Once the project begins, the employee enters his or her time daily into the specific Task, such as Concept Development: 4.0 hours, and so on. With that said, the Creative Director or Project Manager can look up any project in the system, at any time, and see exactly where that project’s cost status is daily. System-generated budget alerts via email serve as backup to keep the project budget on track. This is just one of the tools that Vanguard Direct uses to keep the project’s creative and production costs on track and within scope.” – Mark Dion (Creative Director)

> What type of content should I supply?

“If you’re providing copy, I recommend a Word document that has been edited and proofread, so it is as final as possible. If you’re providing images, the largest, highest resolution images you can get. This ensures the best-quality images in your printed piece. We generally use 300dpi images at actual size. If you can provide larger images, that gives us the flexibility to enlarge and crop if that works better for the design.” – Kara Damato (Senior Designer)

“Content that belongs to you or that you have the right to use.”
– Vittoria Semproni (Designer)

“Content is critical for a smooth project with reduced AA charges. If a PDF is supplied, the fonts should be embedded, there should be crop marks and bleed where applicable. The file should also be in the correct color space––no RGB.”
– Kevin Green (Director of Creative Services)

“Content depends on the audience and the way the information will be viewed. Web and mobile information would be written differently from a printed piece––web has a tendency to be short with many links, while printed pieces should be more of a linear read.”
– Susan Hallinan (Designer)

> How do you initiate a design?

“In terms of starting a design, I try to analyze all the information I have at hand: the creative brief, the client history, and the business objective. From there, I do research on my topic. For example, if the campaign is to sell used cars, I look up the definition of “used car” and what trends are happening in used car sales. I look up competitors’ advertising. Most of all, I do a lot of research, ranging from watching TV ads to looking at print ads in magazines and newspapers. I really immerse myself in my topic and the objective of the design.”
– Gia Lam (Senior Designer)

“A creative brief helps. Usually the information in a creative brief dictates design. A theme or message will give me the necessary parameters in which to construct a design based on what is written. If there is no creative brief, I rely on the text supplied by the client, as that sometimes gives me ideas for visuals.”
– Will Lovell (Graphic Production Artist)

“Either fill out a design order form or supply a creative strategic brief. This should be followed up with either a strategy meeting if we are doing a proposal or a start-up meeting if the job came in with a purchase order.”
– Kevin Green (Director of Creative Services)

“If you haven’t worked with the client before, you need to get a feeling for your client and their project. First ask them to provide you with designs they have seen out there, either competitors’ or just pieces they like. Usually clients will have pieces around that they like for one reason or another. The best way to begin a design is with information copy and photos if included in the job. You need to have a sense of their competition and who their target audience is.”
– Vittoria Semproni (Designer)

> What questions should I ask to ensure my design is what I want?

“I would ensure I have an agreed-to brief or even a simplified brief. I’d also ask to see 2–3 treatments of the proposed design before it is agreed to start.”
– Kevin Green (Director of Creative Services)

“Who is your audience? What is your budget? Do you have any materials we can use, e.g., photos, illustrations, etc.? What is your timeframe for the completion of this piece? Is this piece part of a series, or is it a stand-alone piece? Do you have a brand? Are there colors you use to identify your brand or typefaces? What other material have you done, and what does it look like? Do you have samples? Do you have a logo?”
– Vittoria Semproni (Designer)

Do you have any questions to ask our creative experts? Comment below, and we will feature your question in a future post!

Author: Stephanie Huston

Is it possible to view this ad without laughing? The questions that come to my mind are: How much was the media cost for this? How do you get a city agency to agree to this? Costs and logistics aside, the idea is genius. I just hope it doesn’t distract the drivers too much!

An oldie, but a goodie. This ad, created by Draft FCB, made a ton of headlines. Be sure to check out the video below. The Oreo, placed on an elevator, replicated the action of dunking whenever the elevator returned to the ground floor. If my knowledge of New York locations can be trusted, it looks like the inside of the Manhattan Mall near Herald Square (a terrible mall, by the way, but a really fun ad to distract consumers from the lack of useful shops).

As much as I love this ad, I wonder what the original intent was. The Economist, a newsmagazine with a soft spot for free trade, limited government, and the highly intelligent, doesn’t make it super clear with this ad. Or maybe I just don’t get it. There’s certainly a cerebral sort of nod here, but the light bulb turning on typically represents a new idea. Is it suggesting that the person walking by the billboard is getting one from reading The Economist? Is it trying to say that The Economist is born from new ideas from readers like us? Or is it simply a metaphor for a magazine that is filled with new ideas? There is some uncertainty as to why the light bulb is blinking on. Then again, maybe its intent was for a simple peon like me to get lost in the possible translations. In which case, well played, The Economist, well played.

Author: Eric Swenson

Context. The way you deliver the message. It matters most when it comes to leadership and meaningful connections. Also known as paralanguage, it is nonverbal communication, which can be broken down into a few categories: eye contact, gesticulations, posture, overall facial expression, and state of emotion (anger, fear, confidence, etc.). People interpret specific actions as having specific meanings, so it’s important to learn how to communicate skillfully.

Consultant and former senior executive Steve Tobak has the following tips for effective message delivery:

• Look people straight in the eye and really “see” them.
• Be direct and genuine.
• Remember that executive presence isn’t about power and domination.
• Learn to be a storyteller.
• Increase your self-awareness.

For more on this topic, please refer to Steve Tobak’s article on BNET.

Other factors that play roles in effective communication are:

• Culture – Past experiences can be valuable in understanding something new.
• Noise – Environmental noise could mess up the message delivery.
• Perception – Talking too fast might affect the listener’s concentration.
• Message – Focus on the big idea, not just the facts.
• Environment – The lighting in the room could cause distraction.
• Stress – Being stressed is not an option when trying to connect with others.
• Ourselves – Ego and an air of superiority won’t get you far; focus on the person in front of you.

Do you have any stories to share on effective communication?

Author: Marina Kaljaj

Stats Compared

*Estimates reported by the media––no official numbers have been released by Google.
**-Total ad revenue for Google, including all Google products.

How It All Began
As the legend goes, Facebook started as a dorm room project at Harvard with Mark Zuckerberg and team. It was a techie way to view classmates in a dynamic personal directory format with functions for communicating. The platform quickly expanded beyond Harvard to other Ivy League schools, then to other universities, and ultimately to anyone with a valid email address over the age of 13. Google was the research project of two Stanford PhD students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and was based on an algorithm that used relationships between sites to determine page rank and search results. The algorithmic love child of two soon-to-be entrepreneurs was received as a fresh way to find content online. No one saw the full potential of either company. Fast forward to today: Both are powerhouses commanding the attention of millions of users’ eyeballs for a lot of time each day.

The Matchup
The big difference between Facebook and Google lies in their draw of new and returning users. Facebook attracts new users through the forces of human nature, specifically the desire to shout down a long hallway hoping people listen (i.e., the desire to communicate or, more specifically, to silently stalk or whine incessantly about mundane things). Most users come to Facebook to share, comment, play, stay connected, or some combination thereof. While eyes are glued to the blue and white goodness, advertisers pay to get their messages to you backed by the delightful demographic info that Facebook uses to target ads to users.

Google, on the other hand, built free tools––often some of the best free alternatives on the market––for its users and then built an advertising model around it. Stamped with the “do no evil” mantra and avoiding the missteps of the likes of Microsoft and Yahoo, Google’s free approach was refreshing and adopted by users of all types. Google has an audience of users who already use its core applications like Gmail, Google Calendar, Contacts, Picasa, Google Maps, Google Earth, etc., across multiple devices––from desktop to mobile to tablet. These users have Google accounts and already understand how the arsenal of Google products interacts. Adding social media to that arsenal is easy and natural. Instead of receiving an email or pushing notifications to a mobile device or Gmail account, you can receive notice of social interaction through the status bar now found at the top of many Google applications.

Facebook is continually adding new features. An underlying function of many of Facebook’s new bells and whistles has been to keep users on the site longer. Facebook users already spend an average of 14 minutes on the site per day, and the longer users stay, the more ad revenue Facebook earns. Facebook has added features like Chat, Games, and iFrames integration to its business pages, where companies can create engaging experiences that will keep users on Facebook instead of clicking out to other sites. Google, on the other hand, already has users coming to its sites daily to use core productivity applications like Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Calendar. Those key productivity functions combine both business and personal use, and it is these overlapping reasons for visiting Google sites that is a massive advantage for Google.

Facebook has fumbled with privacy and security issues over the past five years, and limited differentiation between groups of “friends” makes sharing content complicated. Facebook added “Lists,” allowing users to combine groups of friends and share limited content, but the feature was added years after the start of the platform. The security and privacy settings for Facebook have been complicated from the beginning, and with each new release and update, the settings have become even more complicated. The average user may be sharing content with the world and have little knowledge of what he or she is sharing. Many argue that it is in the best interest of companies providing social tools to educate and protect their users’ privacy above all else. Facebook has failed its users again and again in terms of privacy, but it is Facebook’s failures and missteps that can guide Google+ toward larger user adoption.

Google+ Circles vs. Facebook Friends

Let’s be honest, few people really have hundreds of friends if you define friend as someone close to you with whom you share personal thoughts or experiences. Many users with hundreds of friends (Facebook claims the average is 130 per user) would consider only a limited number among their close friends. Facebook doesn’t provide an intuitive way to share content with specific groups of people. Google+ is based on the concept of “Circles,” or groups of friends combined by any label the user chooses. By default, Google+ offers Friends, Acquaintances, Follows, and Family. With the ability to make your own circles, the sky is the limit, not only for sharing but for parsing the streams of content each circle shares in order to further connect with your contacts.

As Google+ increases its user base and Google+ “Entity Pages” (for businesses and brands) are introduced in the coming months, the competitive pressure from a different social media platform will make waves across the net. Facebook needs to adapt to the pressure, but based on its history, the adaptation will hinge on user adoption and innovative features, which Google has also proven itself capable of over the past 5 years. Hang on folks, it may be a wild ride, but why not join both and compare Google+ and Facebook for yourself? Now we must begin to think about whether to include a new platform in our social media mix…

Author: John Carew

Each case study, introduced by the organization involved with each project, showcased how social communications were used to reach patients and consumers. Among the cases discussed were “How To Use Social Media to Engage with Physicians Online,” “Connecting Both Healthcare Professionals and Consumers Through Social Strategies,” and “Showcasing Sustainability Through Social Communications.”

During the presentations, a large video screen behind the presenters showed the live Twitter feed. The hashtag #bd1 was used for all tweets pertaining to the event. Audience members were able to engage with each other as well as the event organizers, discussing the presentations as they were happening.

The roundtable discussions were led by the presenters of the case studies. Our Vanguard representative sat in on discussions that included “Measuring/Monitoring Social Media” and “Social Communication for Hospitals.”

Vanguard Direct has a lot of experience with the healthcare industry, and this forum was an excellent way to learn more about how to help our customers navigate the ever-changing world of social media.

If you’re participating in social media, let us know what you think about the changing dynamics of this new medium and its impact in the Healthcare field- we’d like to hear from you!

Author: Dustin Hill

Of course, these high-speed inkjet presses require a substantial investment in finishing equipment, but a traditional offset plant may already have invested in that equipment. The T400 is special in that it can deliver on a 42″ roll or split that web into two 21″ rolls to match most preexisting finishing equipment.

Since HP started installing its T200 and T300 high-speed inkjet presses in 2010, these presses have already printed 1.46 billion pages. Acclaimed print enthusiast Frank Romano, a man I was privileged to study under at Rochester Institute of Technology, has stated that this press is at the “top of the industry,” meaning that this is now the standard of print! Not to mention that in all aspects concerning speed, flexibility, and image quality, this press trumps all the competition.

It is additions like the T400 that will continue to keep the print industry alive and well. Being able to pair variable print with amazing speed is what will allow marketers and advertisers to target exactly who and what they want, when the time is relevant. I honestly can’t wait for the first opportunity that drives me to use this press; it will be a true joy to work with such spectacular innovation.

So, what opportunities do you see this machine opening up for you?

Author: John Mehl

Lucrative business relationships are built on reliance, self-confidence, supportiveness, and success on both ends. These relationships require ongoing effort and are very important for future growth. They are complex and necessitate cooperation to be effective. The client and the agency both need to be present and active in building a relationship, monitoring the level of trust, belief, and consideration. If you fail to connect with the client, this is an issue. Continuous and open communication can build a true client-agency relationship that technology––no matter how advanced––just can’t provide.

So go out there and follow these tips from agency consultant Judy Neer:
•    In-person creative briefings/kickoff meetings
•    Creative concept “check-ins”
•    Picking up the phone … to speak, not text

For a more detailed explanation, read this AdAge article by Judy Neer!

Author: Marina Kaljaj

On July 12, Netflix announced price and plan changes via a blog post, and the Internet blew up in response. Netflix has always had great customer loyalty and has listened to customers in the past, but a 60% price hike is hard to stomach. As mentioned in a CNET post, Hollywood is beginning to wake up and smell the cash as it learns how to price streaming correctly, but we end users just see fewer big titles available for streaming and a higher price to pay. Netflix abandoned its loyal customers with this change and, more important, shows signs of following a trend online where companies offer an innovative product, wait for it to go mainstream, and then bamboozle their customers once all parties involved realize how much they can make from the product. To complicate that even further, Netflix––like many other data-intensive online services––has felt the pain of network limitations in the US. Slow adoption of broadband and pathetic high-speed mobile connections make its product sluggish for the end user when, in reality, the pipes that carry the data are the issue.

Which brings the conversation to throttling and the newest entrant in the “let’s throttle your data” game show: Sprint via Virgin Wireless and its testing of data-speed throttling. Sprint joins the ranks of AT&T and Verizon in that once a threshold of data usage is breached, the clammy hand of data death clamps down on your download speed. Sprint claims that only three percent of its users are affected, but as more and more cloud services are offered, that number will increase. Data-throttling begs the question, “Why throttle anyway?” The easy answer is the almighty dollar, but the real answer lies in poor network development. The pipes just can’t handle the current load, which leads to network performance issues, which ultimately affects every service or application that requires a connection to the net.

As more and more cloud services are offered, the data caps will just become a bigger issue. The amateur smartphone owner who surfs the net and does basic emailing and social media posting may never really have an issue with data caps, but once these users start streaming video, music, and files through cloud services, they are in for a rude awakening. Mobile customers need better options, and so far, the market has only narrowed the offerings on the floor and raised the price for each.

Author: John Carew

The Margaret O’Connell library was created in 2006 as a way for the company to invest in its staff. The marketing and communications industry is forever changing, and our team always stays ahead of the curve.

Many of the books in our library deal with ways to change behavior. These include attitude, peer relationships, motivation, and surviving in a cubicle environment. As we see it, reading a book that improves your technical skills is beneficial to both the employee and the company. Reading a book that involves behavior modification to improve your outlook and relationships at work and in your personal life makes for a happier, healthier employee in all aspects.

Around 95% of Vanguard Direct’s employees participate in the continuing education system. This includes employees in our outer offices and warehouse––we even have books available in Spanish. Of the 95% of employees who participate, 90% achieve an A rating on their annual performance appraisal, which includes a continuing education factor. Each year, many employees far exceed the requirement for an A rating!

Employees are allowed up to three hours a month on company time to spend in the library or working on their continuing education. We have a plethora of options for gaining continuing education credit: books, plant tours, webinars, videos, attending and giving presentations, conferences, etc. This formal training program is evaluated twice a year as part of employee performance reviews in July and December.

Let us know if you have any book/webinar/conference suggestions for our employees’ continuing education program. We are always looking to expand and improve.

Authors: Stephanie Huston & Dustin Hill

There are many advantages to using QR codes on your printed pieces, and many marketers have had great success with them. But the United States Postal Service has just upped the ante. From July 1 through August 31, the USPS will be offering a 3% discount on all first-class and standard mail letters and flats that include a mobile barcode on the printed piece. The push is designed to give customers an incentive to use QR codes, which will help the USPS demonstrate how printed and mailed materials can still prove relevant in a digital world. While this may seem like a small thing to many, you have to consider the source. This marks a new way of thinking for the USPS, a company that is operating under an $8.5 billion budget deficit due to the decreased mail volume over the last decade. This promotion suggests that the USPS is trying new things and thinking outside the box. Let’s hope this trend continues.

I originally thought that the QR code had to contain data specific to the piece’s mailing address, but I was wrong. The QR code must only be relevant to the marketing purpose of the mailing and offer the end user a multimedia experience above and beyond what is offered on the printed piece. More detailed specifications about this program can be found here.

Basically, if you do a lot of direct mail, you should already be using QR codes to engage your customers beyond the printed piece. The instant metrics and added features alone should be reason enough to adopt QR technology. The 3% discount on postage should just be icing on the cake, so why not take advantage of this?

Food for thought: Valpak is using QR codes on their summer mailings, but they don’t mention the postage savings of around $2 million, coincidence, I think not!

Author: John Mehl

Simply put, the functions of Google+ allow users to make the on-line connection seem more like a real world one by creating communities that mirror those in real life.  An interactive tour of Google+  details five key features:

o Circles which let users share different things with different people thus ensuring that the right information is shard with the “right” people. Circles make it easy to put
friends in one circle, parents in another, and colleagues  in a third.
o Hangouts which facilitate online meet ups between users and friends (or entire circles) in real time.
o Instant Upload which eliminates the frustrations and hassles currently associated with on-line photo and video upload.
o Sparks which serves as a web concierge that sends the user customized content specific to preselected interests.
o Huddle which allows multiple users to merge different conversations into a single group chat.

And what of its application to the business community? Brands go to where the customers are and this emerging social technology looks to be something completely different that consumers will flock to as the next best thing in technology.  Take the tour and see for yourself!

Author: Paul Wry

Question: What do moose, iPads, social media, and Maine have in common? Answer: Tourism!
The presence of iPads means data, and data means the possibility of social media, but moose habitats––primarily rural areas of North America––currently have few iPads and minimal social media activity by tourism-centered businesses. Moose-inhabited rural areas tend to rely on tourism as a major source of income, therefore moose, iPads, social media, and Maine should all be connected. Moose and iPads are elusive in and around rural areas of North America––Maine’s Mount Desert Island, for example––many of which rely on tourism dollars to support the local human residents. Sure, moose and iPads may occasionally be seen near Acadia National Park, but both are not common sightings during a summer trip to the area.

Social Media & Tourism
Tourism has always been a social experience. Rarely do you wake up one morning and exclaim, “I want to travel to latitude 51.392351, longitude -68.667297!” and arrive to find that it is a remote crater lake in Northern Canada. The natural link between tourism and social media is huge. People view images from their friends’ proverbial “summer vacations” via Facebook, Twitter, and other photo-sharing sites (most often with geolocation data), which just might spark their interest in traveling to the same locations to share similar experiences. Without the social connection, their friends may never have wanted to travel to a new locale or experience a different area in their own backyard. The bottom line is that travel is social or, at the very least, the preparation and planning for it can be enhanced by social media.

In yesteryear, say before 2000, planning long-distance travel involved trips to the bookstore or library to check out dated travel books. Once you selected a destination, you would make a trip to a travel agent or make a series of calls to various airlines, hotels, and tourist destinations to make a bevy of inquiries and reservations. Beginning in 1997, as Internet access became more prevalent, many of the big airlines and hotel chains began to move their rates, availability, and reservation systems to the web. Fast-forward to 2007. The smartphone revolution was just beginning to crest, with BlackBerry still standing strong, iPhone just bursting onto the scene, and Nokia, Palm, and the rest of the pack picking up the pieces. As the adoption of web-capable mobile devices soared, travel sites took notice and designed apps that allow users to book entire trips to Tahiti while sitting the mass transit hell on NJ Transit. As social media becomes more integrated into websites of all types, users are able to see what their friends have liked, commented on, shared, and tweeted. The social backbone of many sites ties in greatly with travel and tourism, with more tourist destinations adding social media functions to their web presence every month.

So where do iPads and moose fit into tourism?
Plain and simple, they don’t––at least not yet. The scarcity of mobile technology (let alone voice and data service) in remote tourist destinations may never increase, but some interesting observations can expose areas of opportunity for marketing professionals and advertisers both on and offline. The table below compares two similar burger/bar establishments in two coastal towns: the tourist destination of Bar Harbor, Maine, and Stamford, Connecticut, a larger city with many residents who commute to NYC.

The frequency and quality of the reviews for the Bar Harbor restaurant and the social media activity surrounding it may surprise you, but consider the incentives and circumstances. Sites like TripAdvisor allow users to see if any of their Facebook friends have traveled to a given destination and add a second level of data to a prospective visitor’s deluge of information on any locale. For better or worse, people are reviewing places where they travel, and because of human nature, the bad reviews tend to be the only comments worth the effort to post. Visitors to Bar Harbor are frequently reminded to leave a review on TripAdvisor or similar sites, as local proprietors have begun to learn the value of a good  review online.

The adoption of social media and check-in based deals (like Foursquare) among Mount Desert Island–area businesses is very low. The same is true of many rural tourist destinations across the country. One might guess that this is due to a lack of understanding or personal adoption of this technology among proprietors. Sound the alarm: (huge) opportunity ahead.

What does this mean?
Climb aboard rural, tourism-driven business or get left behind. Smartphones/tablets, social media, and better voice and data coverage combined with a better strategic presence for rural, tourism-based businesses can and will be instrumental in their future. As more visitors adopt the combination of hardware, software, and network coverage that allows them to interact in the social web, the gap between businesses that have invested the effort in developing an online social presence and businesses that have not will increase. The Bar Harbor/Stamford example was only to illustrate the power of concentrated visitors and how they can propel a given business to the top of various social media and travel review sites. As more and more people use these sites and as more social and review sites enter the marketplace, businesses with a strategic marketing plan that includes a social, mobile, and online presence will increase their chances of long-term success.

Author: John Carew
Photo Credit:  Natalie Lucier

We spoke with Chief Operating Officer Ralph Fucci, who has been developing this training program since 2001 using Total Quality Management goals to improve customer service through continuous training. Ralph explained to us that “the goal of continuing education and the library is to enhance technical and communication skill sets to provide exceptional customer service.” The program helps employees to improve their written and verbal skills as well. Ralph Fucci and our senior management team are always trying to refresh the program, so it continues to improve and evolve.

The library is dedicated to the mother of the company’s owners, Bob and Don O’Connell. The Margaret O’Connell Library was launched in March 2006 in her memory, as she always pushed her sons to do well in school and to continue learning. She stressed how important education was, and Bob and Don hope to pass that on to the Vanguard Direct staff.

Now our NYC team has a collection of more than 150 books and videos to use as resources. Each of our outer offices also has a dedicated library. New items are added when suggested by staff or management. Many of the books are not necessarily work-related but deal with self-improvement ideas that can be applied to personal lives as well as the work environment. Continually improving employee education and knowledge gives us the tools to make projects 100% right. That’s a philosophy we can proudly stand behind.

Authors: Stephanie Huston & Dustin Hill

Below each image, I’ve written a little something about why I chose to post that particular ad last week—why it stood out to me, and why I think it’s great. Forgive me, for you are about to read pseudo-intellectual, pulling-it-out-of-my-*** commentary.

These ads are just so clever. It’s one of those ideas where you’re just like, “Duh, why didn’t I think of that?” Which, to be fair, is how most great ideas make you feel. I only chose a select few, but there are a ton more on the Cannes website. These print ads speak directly to the digital audience, which I find interesting. It’s a play on the Amazon/Netflix/every other e-commerce site in existence—we see you liked this, so you’d probably like this. Instead of the obvious, Young & Rubicam, the agency behind this campaign, has gone for the clever. Some funny, some ingenious. My favorite is the trench coat and the stack of embroidered towels—alluding, of course, to the possibility that the user is some sort of secret agent with multiple identities. The design itself is simple, clean, and easy to follow. I love the colors and hexagonal, Venn diagram–style layout.

Certainly not from America, this ad isn’t the most eye-appealing but is absolutely eye-catching. An ad seemingly straight from PETA’s handbook is actually for a Saran Wrap–like product called M Wrap. Photoshop geeks alike would agree that this is genius. If Photoshop wasn’t involved, then muchos kudos to the stylist/prop person who was able to make these animals. I love ads without a lot of copy, and this ad works perfectly without any. Using M Wrap is like having meat so fresh it’s practically straight from the animal. This concept would be great for almost any restaurant or grocery store, but I think it works wonders for a plastic wrap. Brilliant.

How the judges decide which ads get gold medals and which ads get anything else is beyond me. Again, for those Photoshop geeks, this is just flat out ri-donk-ulous. Again, no need for copy, as this idea is strong enough for the image to hold its own. For some reason, I love the regal feel of these images, too. I don’t know why it applies, but it really works. The setting, the furniture, and even the looks on the dogs’ faces bespeak fancy-pants. And to be honest, if I wasn’t going out to buy a new bottle of Febreze, I’d be out trying to find these sick chairs.

Author: Eric Swenson

The end of the printed Federal Register is the start of a new era at the Whitehouse.  For decades millions (if not billions) of documents have been printed and distributed almost directly to the recycling bins.  Miles and miles of red tape have forced the government to print every piece of legislation regardless of the fact that it’s available online. There’s been mixed reactions to this message throughout the printing industry, but I have to say I side with the president.  When it comes down to it, political/legal documents are better viewed online.  Being able to search their content rather than skimming through hard copy. Instead of thinking about how the president is bashing our industry, we should be following in his footsteps and thinking how our clients could benefit from eliminating their printed materials and taking them to a digital media?

President and CEO of Printing Industries of America (PIA), Michael Makin’s response to this announcement was outright telling.  His response can be plainly categorized as a misinterpretation of the president’s message.  It is evident that he is in denial about the state of the printing industry.

Have a look: http://www.myprintresource.com/video/10286890/pias-michael-makin-voices-concerns-over-president-obamas-anti-print-comments

In the end, it makes sense for this document, and documents alike to only be available online.  While not everyone was able to obtain a hardcopy, everyone is able to view it online. So lets take a moment and think; what material do we print on a regular basis that is better suited online?

Author: John Mehl

The biggest change to cigarette packaging in more than 25 years is about to arrive: a new warning. In accordance with a 2009 federal tobacco law, cigarettes can’t be sold in the U.S. after Oct. 22, 2012, without packaging featuring one of nine large, graphic images selected by the FDA. We are talking about images of a corpse, cancerous lungs, bad teeth, a man inhaling smoke through a hole in his neck, disturbing baby images, tears … Pretty unsettling, if you ask me. Each pack must include one of these images along with the punch line “Smoking can kill you.” The image will be covering the packaging for the most part, leaving about 50%  of the pack for the brand’s design.

Click and see for yourself!

Author: Marina Kaljaj

Personally, I love the fact that the iPhone records my location; it helps jog my memory if someone asks me, “Where did you go today?” With over 20,000 data points stored in my phone, I have a pretty accurate record of my whereabouts. I can even load up a map of all the data points and then run through them in chronological order. I fear that I am in the minority, though; most everyone that I have talked to about this is up in arms. So, this got me thinking, how else are people sharing their location without knowing it?

Photo Sharing: Do you like to take photos on your smartphone and email them to your friends? Did you know that inside the photo’s metadata is the time when and location where you took that picture? Sometimes this metadata carries through when you post pictures to social media outlets, too.

Check-ins: Love to check in at local hot spots on Foursquare, Facebook, or any other social media application with check-in capabilities? Surely you know that this shares your current location with all of your connections!

What this all boils down to is this: If you don’t want people to know where you are, then you have to be very careful about what you do on your smartphone. If you do want everyone to know where you are, then continue on with business as usual! And don’t think that this is just on the iPhone. This is integrated across all smartphones these days––I just chose the largest population for this article. Yes, it may be concerning to many that Apple (or others) can get access to your whereabouts, but what can they really do with this data? The answer is: not so much. They basically want this data to feed back to the service provider for use in determining which areas need more signal strength. This is not real-time tracking and is most often very inaccurate! So, unless you are the President of the United States or someone who is in the witness protection program, this probably doesn’t affect you negatively. But you would be in the majority if you said you didn’t like this!

If given the option, would you switch off all location services on your smartphone?

Author: John Mehl

Printing stands as the cornerstone of our business. You benefit from our vast knowledge and experience, access to the best technologies, and an unrelenting drive to excel on each run. You will find our print work clean and compelling because it is our goal to make you look your best. And you can rely on us to manage rush jobs that require extraordinary attention to detail.

The picture below is an example of Vanguard Direct’s print production services. We printed the envelopes and inserts that were distributed in newspapers across NYC. The Mayor’s Office was looking to highlight the importance of not parking illegally in accessible spaces, so adding the envelope and insert to the ad in the newspaper was a great way to get the attention of NYC drivers.

Our full-service agency can solve any communications challenge you face. You can count on us to deliver marketing expertise, including creative, production, and distribution services. Our approach to integrated marketing allows you to orchestrate your various marketing activities, improve the productivity of your efforts, and make your marketing dollars work harder and more efficiently.

Author: Stephanie Huston

Gold:

Silver:

Bronze:

Author: Eric Swenson

Amazon is one of the largest––if not the largest––on-demand book publishers. When you order a non-mainstream book from Amazon, the order is usually sent directly to a digital press to be printed and shipped to you.

Better than Amazon is Lulu. Lulu.com is a company devoted to online on-demand book publishing. Authors of all levels can sign on to Lulu and upload their books to be ordered in printed or even digital formats. Lulu also goes a step further and offers help with many services that surround successful book publishing that might not be readily available to all authors. These services include pre-publishing, marketing, and ISBN distribution. This is the key factor that has led many upcoming authors to Lulu instead of its competitors.

So, when is the right time to pursue on-demand book publishing? Basically the answer is: anytime you want to publish something that doesn’t have a large initial distribution plan or is not immediately time-sensitive. Or maybe you just want to print your family photo book for the holidays, for that is the fastest-growing segment of on-demand book publishing!

When was the last time you thought about an on-demand book publishing solution?

Author: John Mehl

Many marketers have changed their marketing communication plan by adding social media to their communication path. However, many marketers have made and still make mistakes in thinking that being present on social media is enough. Then there is that other group of marketers who ask—what should my social media strategy be?

Would you be surprised if you hear that —“Social media is not a strategy. Social media is a venue for marketers … a set of technologies or tactics that enable us to elevate and amplify brands and their marketing communications.” At least, that’s what Anthony Young says in his Ad Age article, “Social Media is a Venue, Not a Strategy.” Being social out there is a must in today’s market. Therefore, Anthony Young makes sense by saying that the question shouldn’t be, “What’s our social-media strategy?” but, “What do I need to do to make my brand more social?

If you want to be the winning brand— you have to get the product messaging and communication strategy right. Social media should be taken as a single, thought-out, powerful part of a communication mix. You should know your audience, set realistic goals, as well as track your results. Click here, to get an idea of a successful social media campaign.

Have you incorporated social media within your marketing mix— any stories to share?

Author: Marina Kaljaj

What was the takeaway? Twitter is no longer a fad.  It may not last forever and few of the first in any product category last for the duration of the product’s use, however Twitter has deeply embedded its heels into modern human communication.

User adoption and integration into the web has become common, meaning that Twitter is mainstream.  Twitter is comparable to email, TV, radio and snail mail ¾ part of the communication mix. Like other communication channels, Twitter doesn’t reach everyone, but in certain areas of a market, it will penetrate deeply and very close to the target audience.  Twitter has added another medium to the human communication system giving the masses another method to share content with anyone who wishes to receive it. Twitter joins the likes of media monoliths like newspaper, radio and television without the massive upfront costs of equipment and infrastructure to support the organizations. At the 140 Character Conference (140Conf), founder and host, Jeff Pulver related the impact of Twitter to that of his early experience as a ham radio operator. Jeff would listen to a transmission, filter out the interesting content and relay the content to other ham users or off air to other mediums like his family and friends, very similar to Twitter.

Over the thirty plus presenters at the 140 Conf in NYC last week, the theme of content curation was paramount. The net has exploded the amount of content which anyone can access, but it is the individuals who filter that content and provide added value who will win the race for clicks and eye- balls. The other substantial take away was that Homo sapiens adore talking about themselves. We love the perception that people care about who we are and what we have to say. It is leveraging our desire to talk about ourselves that many have been able to develop significant communities around any given topic. The community could be a support group for individuals with an illness to nerdy farmers who tweet to stay connected to the outside world.

No other media in history has been able to curate the opinions of the masses instantly. We have seen Twitter support revolution in the Mid-East, but the potential for Twitter to cause a revolution in human communication is ever present. Marketing and advertising adoption of social media has been toward selling a product or service.  The lack of overwhelming success supports the fact that social media will be great for helping brands expand their presence and learn more about what makes the brand tick in the eyes of their consumers versus selling a widget directly.

Twitter is like a live wire tap on the public conversations of every user which the media and business world can tap into, evaluate and report on at their every whim. The future of Twitter and the social media landscape will be riddled with the success and failure of people to develop communities who can support any given objective. Some will monetize and others will make the world a better place, but by creating an environment where people can connect, share and “do good,” the power for Twitter to act as a revolutionary tool in human communication is immense. Whether you are a marketing professional, advertiser, CEO or grandparent, you must add Twitter to the likes of radio, TV and newspapers in your mind. Realize that Twitter is nothing more than a short collective, conversation between any user of the medium. One guarantee can be assured ¾ we are only on the crest of the wave of change which social media, and the new mediums which they have yet to introduce, will be brought to humanity.

Author: John Carew

The Pennsylvania office opened on December 1, 1999. They were established to help support our Philadelphia clients and expand our service markets in the mid-Atlantic region. Our Pennsylvania team works closely with our NYC headquarters. John Incollingo is part of our Upper Management team as the Regional Sales Manager and supports the office’s function to service and develop marketing opportunities.

Our Pennsylvania team has just recently moved from West Chester to Fort Washington in December 2010.  The move has allowed them to be more centrally located and to best serve their customer territory.  For the PA office staff, it has also improved the commute time and distance for most of the employees and has enhanced the office space. The new expanded conference room allows for onsite client presentations and serves as a training center for our staff.

The Pennsylvania office covers the five county area of Philadelphia, plus South Jersey, Delaware, and Florida. We have a very seasoned staff in the PA office – our sales team of five has over 125 years of experience, as well as our customer service team of five, has over 100 years of experience! That’s an average of over 22.5 years per person.

You can reach our Pennsylvania office at:
Phone: 267-468-0211
455 Pennsylvania Avenue, Suite 128
Fort Washington, PA 19034
Author: Stephanie Huston

6. Overusing Centered Text – When using centered text, it tends to be serried and jumbled in appearance. It may even be perceived as sophomoric in most cases, so I suggest saving it to flyers and the like and nothing more. And while we’re on the subject, try to limit typographical alignments. If you have blocks of copy that mix left, right and centered text, you will have a very visually confusing page.

7. Body Copy is Too Large – Normally, non-designers will immediately use a 12-point font for body copy since that is the default setting for most applications. Smaller font sizes create a more professional look. Large body copy, on the other hand, can be clunky (unless you’re designing a children’s book). It’s also important to note that viewing text on a computer monitor is much different than print. In most instances, type on a screen appear smaller and less crisp. Get into the habit of looking at preliminary printouts of your design.

8. Know Your Grid System – Understanding the grid has become one of the most important things for a designer to learn. It’s the basis for creating clarity and making your type and layouts more cohesive. Plainly speaking, the typographic grid is an invisible two-dimensional structure made up of a series of intersecting vertical and horizontal axes used to structure content. The grid serves as an armature on which a designer can organize text and images in a rational, easy to absorb manner. It upholds the four basic principles of graphic design which are Contrast, Repetition, Alignment and Proximity. Check out the site called The Grid System (http://www.thegridsystem.org), for links and resources pertaining to grid systems. Or read the seminal book on the subject, Grid systems in graphic design by Müller-Brockmann. A blog post could be written on this subject alone.

9. Double Word Space After a Period – Remember when your grade school teachers told you to add a double space after a period? Well, forget it. Double spacing derives from the Victorian and typewriter days. It’s best to stay single. Unfortunately, the people who are supplying you the text usually don’t know any better, so it’s a problem designers have to put up with. In the meantime, use the “search-and-replace” feature of your software to eliminate unwanted double spaces.

10. Watch Those Rags – When aligning type on the right or left, the uneven or the ragged side of the text block should have good rhythm and be consistent. Make adjustments for the text to read properly and become more balanced. In Quark Xpress, for example, try to keep the tracking generally between +3 and -3. Only in dire circumstances should you exceed those numbers. The strategically placed shift-return will also help, as well as reduce hyphenation. Finally, remember to look out for widows at the end of a paragraph.

Author: Eric Swenson; Assistance by Will Lovell

Inkjet now is a whole different world. It used to be that a customer would supply a laser print of their project and ask the printer to improve upon that quality. But, today some customers supply an inkjet proof with their job and ask us to keep the quality the same! This, as we know can almost be an impossible task. There is at first the difference in the dot structure. Inkjet being continuous tone, and offset being line screen, but, that’s not the problem. Today a $100.00 desktop inkjet printer can be using seven or more ink colors!  They have the traditional CMYK + light magenta, light cyan, matte black, photo black, and some even having a gloss optimizer! The gamut of these printers far surpasses that of any traditional four-color offset press.

So, how do we handle this? You could print all your offset jobs using six-color processes (hi-fi printing). Or, you can have the difficult, yet appropriate conversation with your client to which that what they had supplied, just isn’t achievable given the processes at hand.

Basically what this boils down to is that you need to keep yourself and your client educated and updated on the latest technologies and processes. If you have a better understanding, your job will be easier. But, I didn’t answer my own question; what is the new standard? And for this, I would have to answer inkjet, for its quality is unsurpassable!

So, how can you use what you know about inkjet printing to your advantage?

I completely agree with him––from concert festivals, outdoor events, and weekend getaways to general excitement and the summer vibe, summer offers many opportunities to get in touch with Gen Y.

Horsey reveals some interesting conclusions from a survey of several thousands of Gen Y consumers conducted with the help of the Event Marketing Institute. This mysterious demographic explained that a good experience at an event will most likely result in a product sale. Easier said that done, of course, as creating a good experience is not that easy. Marketers need to reach Gen Y consumers’ minds. As Charlie Horsey says: “Brand managers now need to think of themselves as ‘brain managers.’”

He concludes with four rules on how to best connect with members of Gen Y, who––let’s not forget––have grown up with the Internet as a normal part of everyday life:

Let them in. Permit ongoing communication with a brand after an event.

Show, don’t tell. Explain the relevancy of a brand to consumers’ lives.

Sell it. Exploit live engagements.

Constant contact. The relationship should start before the event and continue after it ends.

According to Charlie Horsey’s survey results, when asked how they would like to continue the conversation after a live event:

• Nearly 21% of survey respondents said they’d like to be driven to a website;
• 22.1% requested email correspondence;
• 20.6% asked for promotions;
• 16.9% wanted invites to future events.

As summer approaches, marketers’ opportunities are greater than ever to reach the hard-to-get Gen Y. Remember: Connect and reconnect in person, and always create relationships. For a more on this topic, please refer to Charlie Horsey’s article: http://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/summer-lovin-ways-connect-gen-y/228178/

Good luck!!

Author: Marina Kaljaj

In 2007, Apple introduced the first iPhone. Before then, Treos and BlackBerrys were the kings of the smartphone realm, but they were heavily limited in their functionality. The pipes that provided the data to these devices were small and slow (not to mention pricey), and the form factor of the devices was nothing to write home about. In comes Apple and the iBrick iPhone with its touch screen goodness and wholesome Apple fanboy following. The new iOS, coupled with an innovative user interface, made developers flock to the product, and now, some 4 years later, Apple reports that there are 400,000 active, downloadable apps on the App store Store, which is the largest source of apps in the world.

That is all fine and dandy, but look at the facts: The iPhone was years in the making, and some sources claim that Apple started researching touch screen technology in 2005 just for the iPhone 1. Now we know from the past four updates to the iPhone that they tend to arrive annually, like the migration of the swallow. Once a year, the hype machine rolls into full gear, and out plops an invite to an Apple event that debuts a new iSomething––usually of the phone variety––to the anxious mobs around the world who line up in the wee hours of the morning to get their hands on the new device come launch day.

The iCloud release last week signifies a new sequence of product releases and maybe a change in the roadmap for Apple products, a change that all users and marketers need to pay attention to. From iPhone 1 to iPhone 4, the new features and their slow and iterative releases were strategic. Each iPhone with new features was marketed as an upgrade from the previous device, but other manufacturers and many of the iPhone’s biggest advocates felt that the phones were incomplete without specific hardware and software functions (a better camera and multitasking and notification capabilities, for example). So if cloud storage––and the sharing of all content over multiple devices––becomes the norm, where does that leave the innovation that the world has come to expect from Apple? Two guesses: unfathomable awesomeness, to the tune of coolness the world has never seen, OR stale, service-based, nickel-and-dime monetization methods. Apple, how are you going to continue to make me buy new iPhones or new devices? OK, OK––we are still in the early stages of the current iPad and iPhone lifecycles since we are only at versions 2 and 4, respectively. We know NFC (near field communication) has to come soon to each, but technology-wise, what is going to come next that will make the masses want to buy a new device? Apple provides services that allow you to store your content in multiple places (selling the product as a service), and that may make users more likely to buy another Apple product to take advantage of this content-sharing goodness.

It has to be acknowledged that we are moving closer, step by step, to a world with one “dumb” handheld device that accesses all of our content from the cloud, over the air. The addition of the word “smart” to our mobile phones reflects only the ability of our phones to do more than call and text. First came the Internet, then faster data speeds opened the floodgates, and then came a deluge of apps all pulling, pushing, and “curating” content directly from the cloud to our devices. Smartphones, tablets, and netbooks have proven that the model works and that the public is comfortable to an extent with placing its content in the hands of a mega-company.

Mobile phones began the path to the cloud world, a bigger pipe (bandwidth) for data gave it momentum, and now widespread adoption of mobile devices–– tablets and smartphones––seems logical. But what is the next step? How will iCloud change the product landscape in the future?

Author: John Carew

While there, we walked the exhibit hall, where we met industry leaders from over 100 companies and spoke with many of the 5,000+ attendees. We also attended educational seminars that were hosted by industry-elite speakers and trainers in the fields of sales, marketing, and technology. A lot of the buzz centered on social media and how best to incorporate it into a company’s marketing mix.

One new addition to the expo this year was the presence of QR codes at every exhibit, allowing attendees to quickly learn more about the exhibitor and share contact information with the touch of a button (the snapshot button on their smart phones!). We have a white paper available that can tell you more about QR codes and how they can help support your marketing goals––comment below, and we will email you a copy.

Author: Melanie Meile

1. Not Enough Leading – Leading/line-spacing can improve the overall readability of large blocks of text on a page, making it easier on readers to follow lines of text without losing their place. Too little can cause a cramped feeling. It’s important to remember that different fonts need different line-spacing. Varying heights in letterforms may demand more or less.

2. Not Enough Tracking – Tracking is applied to increase or decrease the spacing between letters. It prevents letters from running into each other or, conversely, keeps the text from being too spaced out. It’s similar to leading in that it can improve or hinder readability, flow of text, and the density/weight of a block of text.

3. Lengthy Lines of Text – Reading many long lines of type causes eye fatigue. Readers are forced to move their heads and eyes more often from one line to the next. Various sources suggest keeping lines of text under 50–60 characters, which, to me, is a bit of overkill.

4. Mixing Too Many Typefaces and Weights – Too many typefaces on one page can become distracting and disconnecting (lacking unity). Try using three or fewer fonts per project. Too many weights can cause a reader to be unclear about where important elements are on a page. This creates the possibility of the reader missing something important.

5. Lengthy Text Material: Serif or Sans Serif? – Serifs are alleged to make it easier to read lengthy material, such as books and magazines, for longer periods of time and reduce eye strain/fatigue. Also, serifs seem to sit better on the baseline. This is debatable to say the least. Sans-serif fonts, however, have become the de facto standard for body text on-screen, especially online. This is partly because interlaced displays may show twittering on the fine details of the horizontal serifs. Additionally, the low resolution of digital displays in general can make fine details like serifs disappear or appear too large.

Author: Eric Swenson with assistance by Will Lovell

Newsstand is your digital “news rack” for all your magazines and newspapers. Apple is hoping to make digital subscriptions to these publications more user friendly by separating them from the iBooks completely. Subscriptions would be purchased once and updated automatically in the background when new issues are released.

So, one may ask, what does this have to do with the printing industry? Many would say nothing, but I would argue that it has everything to do with the printing industry. It seems like every time Apple releases a platform that allows other parties to sell their products to iOS users, it’s a huge success. Take for example iTunes, which revitalized the music industry; the App Store, which put small developers on the map; iBooks, which made amateur authors famous; and lastly the Mac App Store, which doubled and even quadrupled developers’ revenue in 6 months! Given that track record, who in his right mind would think that Newsstand won’t have an impact on print?

Of course, magazines and newspapers will still be found in printed form, but that won’t be the majority of the circulation. With over 200 million iOS users, the conversion rate from print to digital media should be astounding. But this is not about a diminishing industry; it’s about a changing industry. Designers who laid out print ads will now be learning how to design and lay out digital publications. With the new release of Quark 9, this will be easier than ever! Those who think this is bad news have already missed the boat. This could be for the printing industry what the iTunes Store was for the music industry. Stay tuned!

Will you convert from printed subscriptions to digital subscriptions?

Author: John Mehl

Serving customers is the key. As complicated as it seems, you simply need to listen to what consumers have to say. It’s a way to survive and gain competitive advantage. According to business researcher Josh Bernoff: “A customer-obsessed company focuses its strategy, its energy, and its budget on processes that enhance knowledge of and engagement with customers, and prioritizes these over maintaining traditional competitive barriers.”

For better positioning within the marketplace, you might want to consider the following ideas:

Change the way you do research. Listen to social media and explore customers’ unstated needs.
Change the way you do service. Create a widespread, cross-channel customer experience program.
Change the way you do sales. Pay attention to connecting directly with end consumers.
Change your advertising. Spend it on interactive content, online programs, and mobile apps that build relations and trust among customers.

Basically, listen to the consumer, and you will be at the center of your competitive strategy.

Author: Marina Kaljaj

Mac OS X Big 10 Features

1.     Multi-Touch – In what is clearly the future of the Mac platform user experience, Apple has extended scrolling, tap to zoom, pinching, and swiping as basic user gestures across the OS.

2.     Full-Screen Apps – In this era of small screens, developers have struggled to use the full-screen real estate to its fullest potential, and now full-screen apps come baked into Lion.

3.     Mission Control – This new feature––a combination of Exposé and Spaces––lets you see everything occurring on your Mac.

4.     Mac App Store – Apple claims that its Mac-oriented App Store has become the #1 PC software channel for buying software. Lofty claims, but regardless, it makes downloading content easy. Apple will, however, take a cut of every transaction, similar to the 30% from the iOS App Store.

5.     Launchpad – This iPhone/iPad home screen meets Mac offers instant access to all applications, with the ability to group them into folders like the iPhone.

6.     Resume – This brings you back to where you left off system-wide.

7.     Auto Save – This automatic saving and versioning feature is presented with a Time Machine–like interface.

8.     Versions – This gives the everyday person the ability to roll back to any version easily.

9.     AirDrop – This peer-to-peer, Wi-Fi–based network for file sharing is built in, with no setup required beyond both the sender and receiver accepting a request to share files.

10.  Mail – This brand-new email interface has intuitive search, conversation view, and tagging features.

Lion will be available only in the Mac App Store––no more optical media––and will work with all authorized Macs for a mere $30.

iOS Big 10 Features

1.     Notifications – All notifications are combined into one unobtrusive interface, very similar to how Android handles notifications including info on the lock screen.

2.     Newsstand – This “news rack” for all media is able to download new content as a background task.

3.     Twitter – Since it is now integrated directly into the OS, sharing anything via Twitter will be very simple using a single sign-on.

4.     Safari – Features have been added to enable easy, uncluttered viewing of websites, with Reading List built in and shared with all iOS devices via iCloud.

5.     Reminders – This task list is complete with location alerts and iCal and Outlook integration and can be shared with multiple devices via iCloud.

6.     Camera – The iPhone’s camera now offers grid lines, auto focus, exposure lock, pinch zoom, and the ability to use the volume button as a shutter button as well as the ability to access the camera from the lock screen.

7.     Mail – You can now send email with rich formatting (bold, italic, underline) and indents. Flag support and the ability to do a full-text search also top the list of new features.

8.     PC Free – There’s no need to own a PC to have an iOS device––wireless updates come to the OS with software updates over the air (OTA).

9.     Game Center – Extensions of current Game Center features allow comparison with other users, including support for turn-based games, directly from the OS [?].

10.  iMessage – You can send unlimited text messages to other iOS 5 users via Wi-Fi or 3G––it’s BlackBerry Messenger meets iOS.

iOS 5 is slated for release later this year.

Finally, the long-awaited and much-rumored iCloud: Apple states, “iCloud stores your content and wirelessly pushes it all to your devices.” MobileMe was the basis for the development of iCloud and was written from the ground up, sharing contacts, calendar events, documents, and mail-syncing with folders and inboxes synced on all devices via an @me.com account. iCloud offers once-a-day backup of all content via Wi-Fi, including purchased music, movies, apps, photos, and books. 5GB of storage comes free, but if you want to sync your music library with iTunes Match, it will cost you $25 per year.

Author: John Carew

The meeting included a pre-lunch networking event and a panel discussion after lunch was served. The event focused on multichannel engagement. The discussion revolved around the different mediums that can be used to support a direct mail campaign.

The panel was led by members of the retail community and was very engaging. The networking event offered several opportunities to discuss direct marketing with other members of our industry.

Author: Dustin Hill

Whether your wide-format printing project covers an office wall, conference room window, high-end window display, or city apartment building, considering a few key points can make the project more successful.

Duration
How long will the graphics remain in place?
Wide-format substrates can vary significantly from one to another. The material used for a massive billboard may cost as little as a quarter per square foot, whereas the more versatile vinyl used for vehicle wraps may be more than a dollar per square foot. It is critical to the success of any wide-format printing project to know how long the graphics need to be in place in order to the best substrate for the installation.

Surface
What type of surface will the graphics be installed on? Glass, drywall, concrete, metal?
A project can fail––literally fall off the wall onto a client or customer’s head––if the wrong material is selected. The complexity of a specific location can add hundreds of dollars to the installation cost as well.

Imagery
What kinds of images will be printed? Full-color images or type only?
Believe it or not, not all digital output devices are created equal, and not every wide-format printer prints using the same settings. One printer may be running its machines at a higher resolution while a lower-priced vendor is running them at the bare minimum. In reality, if the graphics were intended to support the sale of a high-end product, the print from the lower-cost vendor using lower resolution would most likely detract from the buying experience. It is important to provide an early mock-up of the planned graphics for the wide-format project. If the project is printing skin tone, cosmetics, or a neutral color like silver, color consistency and high resolution will be critical, whereas large solids and small images may make the lower-cost printing option work out just fine.

Location
Where will the graphics be installed?
Is the location outside or inside?
“Location, location, location” applies to wide-format graphics as well as real estate. Indoors or outdoors is the biggest factor, but if graphics will be installed on a narrow, closed window in direct Miami sun for 10–12 hours per day midsummer, that could make or break a wide-format graphics project. Graphics installed against the top edge of a wall in close proximity to an air conditioning vent will, with the changes in temperature and dust produced from the ventilation system over time, peel from the wall if not properly reinforced and printed on the correct substrate for the wall type.

There are several other dozen factors that should be taken into account when printing wide-format graphics, but considering duration, surface, imagery, and location will get you on the right path.

Author: John Carew

Ogilvy died in 1999, years before I even knew I wanted to work in marketing or advertising. And now, roughly 10 years after I began learning about this industry, I continue to ask myself the same question: Is there such a thing as David Ogilvy anymore?

We’ve all heard the names Rubicam, Burnett, and Bernbach and know about all the key figures at BBDO. For many of us, they are players in a game that took place well before our time––a game we wouldn’t even recognize today. Agencies were huge and unstoppable. It feels like there were only a few voices speaking and those voices belonged to these seemingly indestructible gods of advertising.

These days, there are thousands upon thousands of small, medium, and large agencies. Add to that the plethora of freelancers available, and you can see how diluted and diverse the voices have become.

With the advent of digital technology, the channels available for communicating with the consumer are practically endless. Campaigns are not held to a simple standard of print, radio, and TV. I find myself lost in choice. If, as Marshall McLuhan said, the medium is the message, then holy shit––that’s a ton of messages to be mindful of for one campaign! (It should be noted that McLuhan would have celebrated his 100th birthday next month, too.)

How do you shout the loudest in a crowded room? How do you stand out in a sea of similar? Who are today’s leaders, and how do you know that what they’re saying is even remotely credible?

Author: Eric Swenson

Multi-Device Support
Windows 8 is expected to support touch-friendly interfaces flawlessly across tablets, desktops, and laptops. This is the first significant push by a software company to move a mobile OS to non-mobile hardware.

Supports Dual-Processing Architectures
According to Microsoft’s Angiulo, Windows 8 will support both x86- and ARM-based architectures.

Legacy Hardware Support
Based on the information presented on June 1, it appears that Windows 8 will be supported by legacy Windows 7 hardware. In addition, Windows 8 will already have many of the Windows 7 features baked in and back-supported.

CNET posed an interesting question: Did Windows Phone 7 have “the kind of consumer impact that warrants this elevation?” The article goes on to state that “Windows Phone 7 commands only 1 percent of the U.S. smartphone marketshare”––a measly number to be hedging a new OS release against.

A closing thought: Apple will launch iOS 5 at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) next week and release iOS 6 next year, just in time for the Windows 8 launch. Will the two new operating systems clash in a head-to-head death match, or will Microsoft’s newest stepchild cower, forlorn in a corner, while Android, Apple, and maybe even RIM or––gasp––HP steal the spotlight at the 2012 laptop/desktop/tablet/smartphone party?

Author: John Carew

Gia Lam’s “Mad Men”-Inspired Pitching Techniques

Let me start off with a confession. I always thought my pitching style was good enough. I presented creative concepts just how I used to in design school: show your designs and talk about the process behind it. Then this TV show called “Mad Men” came around, and I realized, boy, was I doing it all wrong!

On the show, no matter how much chaos there was, when it was time to pitch, the whole office teamed up to hit a grand slam. The pitch was sacred, more a “production” then a presentation. Almost like a ritual.

I learned that pitching is an art! From then on, I planned, crafted, rehearsed, and performed my “productions.” I had to be a teacher, lawyer, and––most of all––a salesperson. Because the goal of a pitch is not only to sell the concepts, but also to sell your company––after all, a good idea is only great when it is paid for!

Gia Lam’s Top 11 “Mad Men”-Inspired Pitching Techniques

1. Use visuals
2. Talk common language
3. Add interactivity
4. Practice, practice, practice
5. Dress to impress
6. Create drama
7. Define the problem
8. Ta-da! moment
9. It’s all about teamwork
10. Show your homework
11. Perfect your closing statement (close like a lawyer)

Bonus Tip:
12. Rehearse in front of a mirror, with a smile

Author: Stephanie Huston

The initial commercial was shown on the Web first before going on television. The entertaining spot “The Entrance” made its way onto TV in about 30 countries three months after first being viewed online. “The Entrance” has been watched more than 3.6 million times on YouTube. The idea is “to think digital at the inception, not as an afterthought,” said Alexis Nasard, chief commercial officer at Heineken International.

The “Open Your World” campaign has just recently launched another spot: “The Date.” It will premiere on Heineken’s homes on YouTube and Facebook before being shown on TV. Plans call for it to arrive on television around September.

The new spot is about a young man on an unusual date.
From the New York Times:

“The Date” takes place in what seems to be a nightclub in Hong Kong; it was actually filmed in the Rivoli Ballroom in London. The music in the spot is an Indian song from the 1960s, “Jaan Pehechaan Ho,” performed by the songwriter Mohammed Rafi.

To watch, CLICK HERE.

Author: Marina Kaljaj

Looking forward, Google Wallet may not turn out to be a long-term powerhouse but merely apply pressure to banking, retailers and phone manufacturers to develop competitive NFC-based, “tap-to-pay” technologies. Either way security concerns will explode, but market adoption will be the true test.

Check out these links for some more detail

Google Launches Trail of Tap-to-Pay Phone System

Google Wallet

How secure is your wallet in Google’s hands? (FAQ)

Author: John Carew

Vanguard Direct sends a team every year, and I was fortunate enough to attend this year. As a contributing blogger to Utterly Orange, it was great to represent Vanguard Direct’s social media initiatives. I attended several seminars on how our industry is embracing this technological revolution. Most notable were seminars on mobile marketing and how to network in the digital age. Also making the trip were Tom Worrilow from our Pennsylvania office as well as President Bob O’Connell and Vice President Joe Corbo from our NYC office.

It was certainly interesting to note the many ways our industry is evolving to incorporate these new marketing channels. Continuing education is a vital part of Vanguard Direct, and attending industry events like this is one of the many ways we stay ahead of the curve when facing new trends.

Author: Dustin Hill

The artist Stephen Wiltshire, who is autistic and lives outside London, definitely can. He is able to draw detailed panoramas of expansive cities after flying over them in helicopters. Pretty cool! This amazing talent got him a new project: the “We will not rest” campaign for Swiss bank UBS.

Wiltshire is creating an extraordinary ad––250 feet long and seven feet wide––that will be displayed in the international arrivals hall in Terminal 1 at John F. Kennedy International Airport. It is part of a campaign for UBS by the London office of Publicis Worldwide, part of the Publicis Groupe. “The whole idea, in financial services terms, is attention to detail, commitment to even the smallest things to make the big picture successful,” said Jay Williams, executive vice president and executive creative director at the Publicis New York office.

Wiltshire is creating the panoramic view of NYC from memory only. The 37-year-old artist’s autism affects his social interactions, but it has also given him a photographic memory––and the ability to draw what he has seen. “I just looked without drawing,” said Wiltshire to a Daily News reporter back in 2009, describing a helicopter ride over NYC for an earlier project.

Author: Marina Kaljaj

The advantage of this PSA certification process is that it encompasses multiple standardization methods and certifications, auditing them all as a whole and making sure they work synergistically. Contributions to the PSA certification process came from multiple international leaders in standardization, including KEE Consultants (France), Fogra (Germany), Ugra (Switzerland), SCGM (Netherlands), BPiF (UK), and IDEAlliance (U.S.).

KEE and IDEAlliance proved to be huge players in making the PSA successful. KEE’s ISO 12647–based Gap Analysis Audit is fully aligned with the PSA process, and some of KEE’s tools for assessing conformance to a PDF/X compliant workflow were also part of the PSA process. Another important partner was IDEAlliance, which has enabled printers to achieve a shared neutral appearance across multiple technologies and substrates with its G7 calibration method. Both collaborators, in addition to others, were instrumental in making the PSA certification process a success.

As printers seek to differentiate themselves in the marketplace, they are faced with the tough decision of which certifications to seek out. The PSA certification process makes a good case for itself, since it is one of the only to incorporate several standards and workflows to aid printers in obtaining balanced results from the beginning to the end of their processes.

So, when you are looking for a company to print your project, how do its certifications affect your decision?

Author: John Mehl

A big part of Facebook’s advertising strategy is to turn user “likes” into advertisements that show the user’s name and image. And that strategy is a major reason brands love Facebook so much––if a user “likes” a brand page, Facebook will spread that endorsement around the network as far as the user allows it to go. But what if that user endorsing a brand happens to be a child?

A recent Consumer Reports survey found that as many as 7.5 million Facebook users in the U.S. are under 13, a violation of Facebook’s user policies. But an additional 14.4 million are between the ages of 13 and 17, younger than the age of legal consent in most states. Should the images of these minors be used in advertising?

To continue reading this article, visit the source.

Author: Eric Swenson