In mid-January, Alonzo Printing closed its doors after more than a year of struggling financially. Jim Duffy, owner of Alonzo Printing for 22 years, shared his thoughts on the closure and had some advice for others in the same situation.

WTT: Alonzo Printing was not just a flagship green printing company, but seemed to be a successful web, sheetfed, and digital printing company. And yet, in January 2010, after 30+ years in business, you shut the company down. How did it all unravel?

JD: In an effort to reduce labor costs, we made a lot of investments in equipment in 2007. We put a new press in and we had enough work for two shifts a day. Things were going OK and we were making money.

November 2008 came along and sales were down. We lost money that month, but we were still profitable for the year. Then the bombshell hit.

December of 2008 and January and February of 2009 were awful months for us. By the end of January 2009, we were down from 50 to 36 employees and Alonzo had lost more than $300,000. Despite our efforts to reduce costs by May 2009 Alonzo was behind on press payments.

“A large financial company” – I’ll just call them that – removed our press in October 2009. With the cash deposit, the dollar value of 20 payments and a conservative street value the leasing company had received more than a million dollars in assets.

Despite this the “the financial company” sued Alonzo Printing – and me personally – for $1.2 million. Because of this Alonzo had no choice but to cease production and close its doors

When a company closes, employees lose their COBRA benefits unless there are at least two employees in the system. In order to ensure employees the ability to receive COBRA benefits, Alonzo prepaid healthcare insurance for two employees through June 2010.

That’s really what happened. Some of us get caught up in this and some of us skate through it. I do know that a lot of printers are on the edge. They’re hanging on with their fingernails and running out of cash.

Some printers will benefit from Alonzo’s departure. That’s $4 million of web work, $1 million of sheet fed, and $1 million of digital that has been absorbed by other printers.

WTT: What about your initiatives as a marketing services provider? As a company that offers more than printing, a company that offers direct mail, pURLs, campaign management, and other marketing services?

JD: I never viewed Alonzo as a marketing services provider. Did we understand what pURLs are? Did we understand what Direct Smile is? Yes. While we used the tools sometimes, I never truly felt that the West Coast adopted them as much as the East Coast.

We bought Printable and never used it. We didn’t really have the technically skilled people to make it come to life. Did we do variable? Yes. Did we have a storefront? Yes. We used Page DNA because they were local with no upfront costs; it’s pay as you go with them.

We marketed Alonzo, and from a pure marketing perspective, it was just a dream. And yet, it was another issue of not having the right people to make it really come to life. Then we reached the point where we couldn’t hire the right people. That’s how you get caught in the spiral.

You do need to market yourself; you need to do it in a way that’s going to be meaningful for your clients. But, when you’re caught in this web of reduced cash flow, how do you do it?

We started with a monthly newsletter. Then it became bi-monthly, then quarterly. Then I got so busy and I stopped producing it all together, not to mention it cost money we didn’t have.

WTT: What is your advice to the other printers? To the ones who might be hanging on by their fingernails?

JD: Number one: set your egos aside. For the most part, we’re talking about presidents in owner-operated companies. They have to set their egos aside and actively consider merging with other printers to keep it all alive. It’s hard to do; nobody wants to fail.

Do it from a business model and not from a personal model. You may need a facilitator to help you get there; someone to help you clearly define roles and responsibilities. You will have to lay some good people off for the entire entity to survive. It hurts to lay them off, but if you don’t do it, you’re going to fail.

Number two: I would caution people to think very seriously about the commitment they make for digital equipment. It’s very expensive to operate.

There’s no doubt in my book that HP has the best print quality of any color digital application, but it’s a very costly system to maintain. And if you’re stuck in a lease with an older model, you’re paying a premium while the new buyers are paying less money and have a competitive advantage. It’s not like buying an offset press where you can pay off the press and keep running it for years. Digital equipment has a definite shelf life.

If you lease equipment, don’t get a fair market value lease. Instead opt for the $1.00 buyout. It may cost slightly more but it gives you much greater flexibility. Also, get a short term lease; I wouldn’t lease anything for more than three years because you’ll get caught up in it. Just don’t plan on keeping any of this equipment for a long period of time.

People are going to be a lot more cautious about buying equipment. There’s so much equipment out on the market right now; it’s readily available. Unfortunately people don’t have the cash to buy it.

Number three: cut, cut, cut, cut, cut! Don’t be afraid to cut. You have to do it. You don’t have an alternative. Too many people are just too kind. It’s “Oh, we can’t lay this person off. She’s a single mom, and she’s got this and she’s got that, and we’ve got this and we’ve got that.”

WTT: In your perspective, has the green initiative lost its edge? Are people asking you for green? Are they backing off? What’s happening there?

JD: When you have a softening economy going on, print goes down. When pricing is the key, the green initiative takes a backseat. We reduced the amount of FSC-certified products that we’re bought, because it cost more.

In 2008, we measured our carbon footprint. A part of that process included the papers we purchased and the recycled and post consumer content of those papers. 92% of all the paper we purchased contained recycled content and 48% of all the paper purchased was made with from post consumer waste. Needless to say this was a monumental achievement and commitment to using environmentally sustainable papers.

In 2009, we were forced to change how we bought paper. We went from buying 40% recycled content to 10% recycled content. We even went to buying virgin FSC-certified papers because they had a certified history and you could be assured they were coming from sustainable forests and they did cost less.

Everything was price. Some people wanted green. They wanted recycled. They wanted FSC. But you know what? Many printers are FSC certified because it is the green thing to do not because customers are will to pay for it. For the most part, they want the FSC logo but didn’t want to pay for it. We kept running low VOC inks – vegetable and soy-based – and we used low VOC cleaners and press washes.

I realize that with the shutting down of Alonzo coming to a close and having the time to think back, given the chance, I would do many things differently.

Thank you for the opportunity to tell the Alonzo/Jim Duffy story. I’m committed to sharing my strong commitment to a “green” and sustainable print industry. It wakes me up inside and I realize that we – by we, I mean the print industry – certainly can do a better job of caring for our environment.

WTT: Thanks, Jim, for being so forthright with us. Our best wishes for you!

Decisions about increasing or reducing prices are inevitably complex and difficult to make unless, of course, your prices are very low or very high relative to others in your market.  It’s tough to pull the trigger on a price change because of the inherent uncertainty about what the financial impact of the change will be.  If I lower prices, will I generate enough new sales to increase my profits?  If I raise prices, will I lose so much business that my profits will be harmed rather than helped?

These questions are extremely difficult to answer.  In fact, to answer them accurately, you have to know what the “elasticity of demand” is for your company’s products and services.  And unfortunately, your company’s elasticity of demand isn’t something you can find in your local library or look up on the Internet.

The good news is that there is a simple calculation that can help owners and managers make more rational decisions about price changes.  The calculation is simple because it doesn’t try to predict what will happen if you raise or lower prices.  Instead, this calculation describes what must happen for a price change to be profitable.

Specifically, this calculation can answer two questions:

• How much would I need to increase sales volume in order to profit from a specified price reduction?
• How much could my sales volume go down before a specified price increase becomes unprofitable?

The measure of “profit” used in this calculation is contribution margin (sales minus variable costs).  This calculation can be used to evaluate across-the-board price changes and price changes that apply to major segments of your business.  It cannot be used for individual jobs.

The calculation uses the actual contribution margin (expressed as a percentage of sales) generated during a base period (usually a year).  When you reduce selling prices, the contribution margin goes down, and new sales volume must make up for that decline before profits will be improved.  On the flip side, your contribution margin goes up when you increase prices, and you can afford to lose some sales volume before profits are impaired.  This calculation will tell you where those “breakeven points” are.

The formula is:  -(Price Change) / (Contribution Margin + Price Change)

To give a simple example, suppose that your contribution margin during the base period was 80% and that you are considering a 10% price reduction.  How much will your sales volume need to increase for the price reduction to be profitable?  The answer is 14.3%, calculated as follows:

Breakeven Sales Volume Increase = -(-10%) / (80% + (-10%))                               

Breakeven Sales Volume Increase = 10% / 70%

Breakeven Sales Volume Increase = 14.3%

If your company had sales of $5 million during the base period, you would need to increase sales by more than $714,286 for the 10% price reduction to be profitable.

I’ve created a simple Excel worksheet to calculate these breakeven points.  If you’d like a copy, e-mail me directly at ddodd(at)pointbalance(dot)com.

The company has had a history of financial trouble. In early 2000, Master Graphics Inc. filed for Chapter 11 reorganization and reorganized under Premier Print Holdings, doing business as Premier Graphics. Going into the bankruptcy, the company had been operating 18 divisions. The sale of seven “non-core” divisions during the bankruptcy proceedings added $30 million to the $60 million in exit financing from GE Capital. The most recently published financials date from 1999, when the company generated $261.5 million in sales and had 1,900 employees.

Calvin (Cal) Aurand was named CEO and managed the company under reorganization from January 2001 until February 2002 when Nationwide Graphics took on management of the group. “The company was in default again in 2001 and Nationwide took over in 2002,” said Carl Norton, Chairman and CEO of Nationwide Graphics. “I’m very proud that we kept it going from 2002 until now. The downturn has been hard on Nationwide, but it was especially tough for Premier because of their debt.”

The relationship between Nationwide Graphics and Premier Graphics is based on a management contract. Nationwide does not own or have any equity in Premier, nor does Premier owe any money to Nationwide. While they are independent stand-alone entities – that is, Premier has its own independent board of directors and business executives – Nationwide provides day-to-day management of the operations.

According to Norton, Nationwide is hoping to buy the assets of Premier. “They’re a good company, just strapped with a lot of debt. They came out of their bankruptcy with considerable debt and when the recession hit, it took them down.”

The two of the five Premier Graphics divisions each have some digital capabilities, but the offset presses are primarily 4-color, 5-color, and 6-color sheet fed (28” and 40”) and 5-color web presses. There are a few smaller 1- and 2-color presses.

We will be posting more excerpts over the next three weeks to coincide with the ERC’s Thursday newsletter.

We hope you enjoy this sneak preview of this exciting and (we hope) controversial book.

Catch a Wave: Swimming, Surfing, and the “Power” of Print

We were amused last week to see this news item, which got a fair amount of comment, for and against, on the social media and here at the Print CEO:

Five leading magazines launch ad campaign touting the benefits of print.

Magazine publishing executives are returning their focus to print, after spending much effort in the last year in taking publications digital. Five leading publishers announced today, at the opening day of the 2010 4A’s Leadership/Media Conference in San Francisco, that they will join forces to push an ad campaign promoting the power of print.

Hooray! The industry is saved! We especially liked one particular quote, which lends itself perfectly to endless parody:

The first ad spread features a photo of swimming superstar Michael Phelps with the headline “We surf the Internet. We swim in magazines.”

Good grief. This is such a 1990s view of the Internet. Does anyone “surf” the Internet anymore? Sure, we did a long time ago when there was no Google and no particularly compelling place to go. We used to surf to try to figure out which search engine to use—Yahoo!, AOL, Lycos, Webcrawler, Altavista, and Omygoshicantremembertheothers. Today, there are many destinations, and we have more bookmarks in our Web browsers, pointers from our friends and colleagues in social media, and, of course, Google, that we hardly have time for it all.

So, we guess you could say, you can surf the Internet, which is boundless (limited only by our ideas and the number of computers connected to it) or you can swim like Michael Phelps in a well-defined place (a demarcated lane in an Olympic swimming pool), that is heated, chemically balanced, closely supervised by lifeguards, and is not subject to the weather or any other random factors. And Michael Phelps. Does a swimmer in the environment we described above convey the new world of any place, any time, any format, any device communications? No. The imagery is of a specialist, only good at one thing, and nothing else, with no resilience, flexibility, or wiggle room. This is not to take anything away from Michael Phelps, of course, or his achievements at the Summer Olympics, we just question the wisdom of using a one-trick pony (or sea-horse, perhaps) to represent print when online media are capable of many more things.

(We also can’t help but recall this classic Onion story: “Michael Phelps Returns to His Tank at SeaWorld.”)

Anyway, the venerable BoSacks (publishing guru Bob Sacks)  hit the nail on the head in a subsequent Print CEO post:

I guess my complaint is their marksmanship. There isn’t any. The people who put this campaign together to protect print don’t have a clue what they are doing and who to aim at. It is also clear that the instigators of this campaign don’t use the Internet or any digital component therein. I say print has much integrity and life left in it, but you wouldn’t know it by this desperate ad campaign.

The campaign claims to target advertisers, shareholders and industry influencers. Well, listen up, my friends, you just insulted them all. The media buyers live in a digital world. When you bellow in one of the ads that, “The Internet is fleeting. Magazines are immersive,” every media buyer knows that is pure bunk. It is the Internet that is immersive, and the kids that buy the ads and spend the advertising money know it. They live on Facebook, Twitter, and hundreds of other social network sites and programs. You display an utter lack of contemporary culture and knowledge. You show your dotage at every opportunity. Don’t attack your customers where they live. Media buyers live on the Web and only visit magazines. And in my book, visiting is okay and can still be very profitable, but not if you try to tell them that they live in a fleeting, soon-to-be-evaporated world. That is a lie.

Oh, and the other tag line—“We surf the Internet. We swim in magazines.” Oh, really? Perhaps you missed the report that the Web is now the second most trusted place for news—second only to TV.  Perhaps you missed the news that 57% of the Web’s social media users are over the age of 35. Perhaps you didn’t know that Facebook has more than 400 million active users, and of those active users, 61 percent of Facebook’s users are middle-aged or older.

All I am saying is that the campaign is a total waste. Exactly to whom is it directed and exactly what are your expectations on an ROI? Is this the campaign that will save the nation of print?

Look, I love print and have been deeply involved in it for over 40 years. It is a beautiful technology. It still has great merit and worth. We will survive by being what we are—useful, informative, reasonably priced and unbreakably transportable. We have the best editors and writers on the planet and have the ability to band together thousands and sometimes, hundreds of thousands, of like-minded readers to our brands on a regular basis.

When  they say “we swim in magazines,” one can easily imagine folks in quaint, Victorian-era beachwear sticking a tentative toe in the water while repeating “we are not being amused” and clucking their tongues with derision. Meanwhile, online, we’ve gone from “surfing” the Internet to the equivalent of using that “surf” as a hydroelectric power source.

Funny: the MPA tried this in 2006:

The consumer magazine industry will unveil a new advertising campaign on February 27, showcasing the medium’s ability to engage consumers and improve advertisers results, it was announced today by Nina Link, President and CEO, Magazine Publishers of America (MPA). This campaign is the next phase of the industry’s three-year, multi-million-dollar marketing initiative that launched last year to promote the value of magazines to advertisers.

And it was obviously so effective that they felt the need to repeat it. So much for the “power of print.”

We are mentioning this because the solution to the printing—or publishing—industry’s woes is not another futile “Got milk?”-type promotional campaign. What will save our industry are fundamental changes in the way we do business. It’s not just about buying a new piece of equipment, or trying in vain to create demand for print. It’s about challenging our assumptions, questioning the conventional wisdom that guided many print businesses in the heyday of the industry, but now is no longer valid and relevant. It’s about understanding media choice and realizing that print is one communications medium among many and that to be a true communications company one must be conversant in all media, strategically and holistically.

All of this is covered in great, painstaking (but we hope not painful) detail in the forthcoming book Disrupting the Future: Uncommon Wisdom for Navigating Print’s Challenging Marketplace. In the previous book Renewing the Printing Industry, we offered alternative strategies that print business owners could use to recast their businesses. The new book takes the discussion even further and explains how the transition from “printers” to full-service communications providers is a critical strategic path. Disrupting the Future explains why the old business advice and common wisdom that guided the industry for decades no longer has the right context, and provides a new set of guidelines, advice, and “uncommon wisdom.”

Ultimately, it’s our goal in this book take printers by the hand and walk them through the steps needed to transition to a new kind of printing business, to get away from the old discrete job-based approach to printing (we receive a file, print it, send it out the door, bill for it, and that’s the end of it) to the new continuous process-based approach to communications in general (we manage and monitor all a customer’s communication needs on an ongoing basis and bill on a retainer basis at predetermined intervals).

This and the next several blogposts comprise excerpts and condensed portions of Disrupting the Future.

Why that title? “Disrupting the Future” is another way of describing “innovation”—which is the only way the industry will survive. The book discusses disruptive technologies—specifically, means of communication that provide alternatives to print, be it radio, television, or the Internet. But, let’s not forget, print itself was the original disruptive technology. But, like any technology, it was eventually superseded by new and newer media. The industry needs to find ways of not combating, but adapting to and building upon prevailing trends.

The future of print as it stands today is clear: continuing decline, throwing more workers to the streets, and more owners out of business. Can you think of a more important future that should be disrupted, and a more urgent time to disrupt it?

The strategies we outline in the book are vital, because trying to increase the awareness of print is not the answer. After all, people are aware of print—that’s exactly why they stopped using it. They bring their recycling bin filled with printed items to their curb every week or two. Sure, they may still surf the Internet, but they’re drowning in “junk mail” (or at least they feel that way, even though mailing volumes are significantly down). Making people more aware of print today is a classic “be careful what you wish for, you might just get it” situation. After all, they might say, “Darn, I do get a lot of junk in the mail, don’t I? Maybe I should support do-not-mail legislation.”

So, people are aware of print; they just often choose not to use it. Disrupting the Future explains this in a unique way, and changes the focus from the print medium, to the print business as a communications catalyst. It will not be for everyone—but then neither is entrepreneurship.

WhatTheyThink spoke with Warren this afternoon and he was upbeat and is making moves to to get the business back on track after taking chances to grow the business in tough economic conditions. He is working with his suppliers and is forming a strategic alliance with financial backers from outside the industry.

“Moving forward, I have every intention of maintaining the same level of integrity and respect that I have had for this industry over the past 18 years.” says Werbitt

Pazazz made large capital investments within the last year which included a KBA 56″ UV 6-colour press and a Xerox iGen4 digital press.

Werbitt’s gained industry notoriety when his fanatical love of print was captured in a viral video the company posted on YouTube.

Statement from Warren Werbitt

I am writing this letter to set the record straight and to correct rumours that have been circulating recently. As the Founder and CEO of Pazazz I want to personally reach out to you during this important time in my company’s history.

On Monday March 1, 2010 Pazazz file a Notice of Intention (“NOI”) to preserve and maximize the value of the business. However, in the next weeks we will be making a proposal and restructuring the company.

Pazazz will continue to be a productive, efficient and capable print solution provider. We remain confident in our strategic decision to acquire the KBA 56″ UV 6-colour press as well as the iGen4 digital press. Those acquisitions have enabled us to provide our clients with unique applications such as printing UV on plastic, flute and board up to 48 points that no one else in Eastern Canada is capable of doing. As usual, our presses are running continuously, our services continue to advance and our employees continue to be trained. As always, our goal is to provide you – our clients with superior print products and services. Our commitment to our employees, clients and suppliers remains strong.

On Tuesday March 2, 2010 I spoke with every Pazazz employee face to face to proactively explain the current situation. Everyone had the opportunity to process the information and ask questions. Employee response was sincere; they respected my honesty and were very supportive.

On Wednesday March 3, 2010 I began to call our suppliers and advise them of the circumstances. My goal was to personally talk to each one before they received a letter. We are loyal and will continue to be loyal to our suppliers. We have been dealing with the same suppliers for several years and have witnessed outstanding cooperation and moral support.

On Thursday March 4, 2010 I started to call our clients and advise them of the current situation, they too have offered a strong vote of confidence and are willing to stand by Pazazz.

Going forward I have brought together a couple of strategic partners to help advance Pazazz in the future. We have introduced many exciting innovations and we are confident that we can continue to serve your needs in a most meaningful manner.

In the last week I have learned that after 18 years of being an entrepreneur, my consistent effort to be honest, respectful and loyal to others has paid off. It is true that what goes around comes around.

I firmly believe that with the encouragement and cooperation of our dedicated team, loyal clients and committed suppliers Pazazz will be better and stronger.

I am available to everyone at anytime if you want to speak to me. I hope that we can count on your continued support.

Yours Truly,
Warren Werbitt 
Founder and CEO

Seeking a higher profile for Xeikon digital presses and its other print market technologies, Punch Graphix today opened the doors of its international headquarters in Liel, Belgium, to a contingent of more than 70 print industry journalists from around the world. The plant tour occupied the second day of a pre-IPEX media briefing that included presentations yesterday by Atlantic Zeiser, EscoArtwork/Enfocus, and Kodak.

The open house was, in the words of Punch Graphix CEO Wim Maes, part of an effort to build a “world wide presence” in the marketing sense for Xeikon, a family of toner-based presses that has been on the market since the earliest days of digital color printing. He and a team of senior managers also promoted the company’s capabilities in toner and CtP, which are be showcased along with the Xeikons at IPEX.

Maes said that despite a drop in sales that caused Punch Graphix’s net losses in 2009 to equal its net profits in 2008, orders have been stable since drupa 2008 and have seen some pickup this year. He said that despite this “atmosphere of crisis,” the company has continued to pursue the technological advancements that it will present at IPEX—including an announcement made to the journalists today but news-embargoed until a later date prior to the show.

Discussed today were the launch of two new toners; a speed upgrade for the Xeikon 8000 press; and the addition of fifth-color capability to the workflow that drives document and direct-mail printing on Xeikon presses. Also demonstrated, as it will be at IPEX, was the company’s basysPrint platesetting technology for UV-sensitive offset plates.

The principal application areas for Xeikon presses are industrial printing, including labels; documents, including transpromo; books; and point-of-purchase materials. The line of web-fed, dry-toner electrophotographic presses comprises the 8000, 6000, 4000, 5000plus and 3300 models.

At the front of the line in terms of productivity is the Xeikon 8000, a 1,200-dpi, four- or five-color duplex color press that has been given a speed increase from 230 ppm to 260 ppm. Existing Xeikon 8000 engines can be field-upgraded to the higher speed. The company says that with the speed increase, three Xeikon 8000 presses supervised by one operator can be lined up to produce one million images per day.

Through Xeikon, Punch Graphics develops its own toners in what it says is an environmentally sensitive way, using no solvents and relying on electricity that is certified to come only from renewable sources. Announced today were two “dedicated” formulations: QA-I (Industrial), for use with the Xeikon 3000 label press; and QA-P (Productivity), for document printing and books. Thanks to a new pigment, QA-I is said to be safe for direct and indirect contact with food in a dry-food environment. QA-P has been optimized for its intended uses with advances in fusing and color-gamut performance.

basysPrint platesetters once exposed UV-sensitive plates with conventional UV lamps; now they do it with laser diodes in the violet range for improvements in exposure speed and energy consumption. At IPEX, Punch Graphics will present its new 857 UV-Setter, an eight-up, flatbed CtP device that images up to 30 plates per hour and can be equipped for automated plate feeding from multiple cassettes. Punch Graphix also offers basysPrint platesetters in four-up and VLF configurations. The line is said to expose all types of UV-sensitive plates for all offset press formats.

Also to be demonstrated at IPEX are the Xeikon X-800 digital front end, which now features JDF-compliant integration with MIS; and the IPDS workflow for transactional/transpromo documents and direct mail, which has been enhanced with fifth-color capability.

These findings are similar to the results of a November 2009 survey by BtoB Magazine.  In that survey, 47% of respondents expected 2010 marketing budgets to be flat, 39% expected more spending in 2010, and 13% expected more cuts in 2010.

The Target Marketing survey also reflects the continuing shift to online marketing techniques and channels.  When asked where they expect to increase spending in 2010, marketers (both B2B and B2C) responded as follows:

• E-mail – 68.4%
• SEO – 47.7%
• Paid Search – 45.2%
• Advertising on Web Sites – 32.9%
• Direct Mail – 31.8%
• Webcasts – 24.5%
• Affiliate Marketing – 22.0%
• Outbound Telemarketing – 20.2%
• Mobile Marketing – 19.3%
• DR Space Advertising – 12.1%
• Insert Media – 10.9%
• DR Radio – 6.1%
• DR TV – 4.3%

With respect to direct mail, Target Marketing said, “Compared to last year’s numbers, the percent of marketers expecting to decrease their budgets for direct mail has dropped a few percentage points, while the amount stating they don’t use direct mail held steady; the result should be a flat year in terms of investment.”

Chris Payne, director of business-to-business marketing, noted that 70% of Kodak’s sales came from B2B in 2009. He said that Kodak is “very, very optimistic” about opportunities for its B2B customers, including those in small-business markets. The ability to leverage multi-channel communications is the foundation on which these opportunities rest, said Payne, noting that Kodak will present these opportunities at IPEX in the same way it presented them at Print 09—with multimedia kiosks and interactive displays doing the work of traditional installations of equipment. But, unlike Print 09, Kodak’s stand at IPEX will also feature systems and equipment in live operation.

Kodak’s Oscar Planas recapped what IPEX will see from the company in terms of prepress. The highlight will be the launch of the Trillian SP Thermal Plate, which he said will establish new standards of productivity and efficiency in platemaking. The Trillian plate requires no pre- or post-baking for long runs, sharply reduces chemistry and water consumption, and processes quickly with 25% less energy than its predecessor plate.

Also to be highlighted at IPEX is the commercialization of Kodak’s Intelligent Prepress Manager, a dedicated prepress workflow “for perfect plates at the touch of a button.”

Package production will be another area of emphasis, with the Flexcel NX platemaking system taking center stage. At IPEX, the Kodak Flexcel NX Direct System will make its debut, offering an imager, media, and workflow in one package. It will ship in early 2011, Planas said. The Kodak Approval NX System will be the proofing platform for Flexcel NX.

Barb Willans, director of marketing for unified workflow solutions, overviewed Kodak’s portfolio of workflow solutions, which is to be augmented with Kodak’s new “Print Practice Consultancy,” a collection of business advisory services for Kodak customers. It includes analysis of the customer’s existing operations along with recommendations for improvement using Kodak solutions.

Kodak’s presentation of digital printing equipment at IPEX was the focus of a segment by Kevin Joyce. Kodak remains committed to supplying electrophotographic, drop-on-demand inkjet, and continuous inkjet printing systems, Joyce said. He noted that Kodak has begun to penetrate the newspaper market with the Versamark VL 4200 continuous inkjet web press. Prosper, another continuous inkjet technology from Kodak, has enormous potential in book manufacturing in runs of up to 7,000 copies, and for direct mail as well, according to Joyce. The NexPress electrophotographic press also has been embraced for direct mail, he added.

“Digital without compromise” is what the Prosper press platform delivers, Joyce said, adding that the first installation of the black-and-white version will be announced this week, At IPEX, Kodak will debut the Prosper 5000XL, a full-color, high-volume platform for catalog work and other high-end applications. An installation of this press is also soon to be announced. Depending on configuration, the target price range for the Prosper line is $1.5 million to $4 million, Joyce said.

In this morning’s lead-off presentation, Oliver C. Mehler, CEO, Atlantic Zeiser, announced that what he called “Industrial Digital Printing 2.0 is here”—and that with the help of his company’s technology, printers actually will make money doing it.

Atlantic Zeiser specializes in high-resolution digital printing and coding on industrial products. Its customers produce materials that frequently need content changes. “We don’t care about the substrate,” said Mehler, as the printable surface could be anything: paper, carton stock, non-porous materials such as plastic or glass, or three-dimensional structures. The conditions in which the printing is done vary greatly as well.

Mehler said that IDP 2.0 isn’t out to replace offset and flexo. These methods will still be used for static content; Atlantic Zeiser supplies the technology for the addition of variable print at the late stage of manufacturing: inline marking, coding, serialization, and decoration. Variable data must be verified for accuracy on the production line, as the printing is being applied to the product.

Atlantic Zeiser offers a choice of 18 different digital printing engines, including the ultra-high-speed and -resolution Delta family. Its Omega family consists of UV-capable spot color engines. The Gamma line includes single-pass CMYK engines with resolutions up to 1060 dpi.

The newest addition is the AZ Delta family of single-pass spot color engines operating at speeds up to 300 meters per minute in print widths up to 205 mm at a native resolution of 600 dpi. Also announced was the AZ line of high-resolution digital inks, including UV inks curable by LED arrays. To complement these inks, Atlantic Zeiser offers the Smartcure UV LED curing module. The advantages of UV curing include “cold light” exposure that protects sensitive materials; and ozone-free operation.

Among the applications for Atlantic Zeiser’s inline printing systems are packaging and direct product imprinting. ROI should take place between two and 18 months, says the company, thanks to economies achieved by integrating the systems with existing production lines. Packagers and product manufacturers now can do their own variable imprinting without having to rely on outside services.

Mehler also talked about VDP enhancement for PDF workflows. At IPEX, the company will announce a solution that makes it possible to print with small, flexible, and secure data streams.

For customers preferring offline solutions, Atlantic Zeiser offers the DigiLine family of web-to-web and sheetfed digital printing units for coding and imprinting. There are two models for web printing, and four or sheetfed. Three models of the DigiLine single-product imprinting system are available. Mehler spoke of imprinting costs of “several cents per thousand” with an anti-counterfeiting solution that the company has devised.

“We can prove that this increases the operating profits of many industrial product manufacturers,” Mehler said.

At IPEX, which takes place from May 18-25 in Birmingham, UK, Atlantic Zeiser can be found in Hall 6. The stand will present 11 world premiers products and product enhancements.

EskoArtwork fielded a panel of no fewer than seven executives led by CEO Carsten Knudsen. He spoke of the company’s recovery from a downturn in 2009, but with a number of “bright spots” that bode well for 2010 and beyond. He challenged the notion that “workflow improvements are dead,” promising a number of advancements from EskoArtwork that will be on view at IPEX.

Jan de Roeck, director of solutions management, detailed some of these. Prominent among them will be Suite 10, an updated collection of EskoArtwork software for packaging, print, signage, and display. Suite 10, de Roeck said, “pushes prepress beyond the definition of prepress” because of its advanced capabilities. These include support for shrink-sleeve labels, 3D structures, and workflow automation.

A Suite 10 demonstration featured the creation of graphics for shrink-sleeve packaging and 3-D container shapes, including visualization and simulation of the packaging process. EskoArtwork says that Suite 10 contains the first solution for modeling shrink-sleeves in a realistic 3D design environment. Shipments of Suite 10 will commence on May 1, de Roeck said.

Wire-framing and other techniques enable the designer to preview the sleeve both before and after the application of heat that shrinks the sleeve to whatever it is wrapping. In this way, the preview anticipates and displays the image distortion that takes place as part of the process. A rotatable, photo-realistic display of the finished product also can be viewed.

The workflow solution, Automation Engine 10, supports multiple tasks in the design of a container or a label, including graphics, CAD, and 3D imaging—another first-time combination of capabilities in a single application, according to EskoArtwork.

On the hardware side, EskoArtwork will be represented at IPEX by its Konigsberg cutting systems. The show premier in this category will be the i-XE 10 fully automated finishing system, an end-to-end solution for cutting and stacking at up to 4,800 pieces per hour.

Enfocus, a business unit of EskoArtwork, will introduce a number of publishing applications at the show. Discussing them, Elli Cloots, director of product management, noted that “one out of four PDF files fail preflight,” mostly for the same reasons that PDFs failed preflight 10 years ago. She cited failures in communication between the creative and the production sides as the main source of problems.

To solve them, Enfocus will offer PitStop Connect—software that generates “connectors” that make all PDF print parameters available to creators as soon as they begin working with a file. Printers distribute PitStop connect, embedded with their PDF instructions, to their customers. The solution includes error correction and certification requiring sign-off by the creator has been notified of the error.

PitStop Connect is activated by dropping PDFs on its icon on the desktop. When a printer uses PitStop Connect to convey PDF instructions to creatives, said Cloots, the likelihood of file-preparation errors is greatly reduced.

Print21online, an online journal for the printing industry in Australia and New Zealand, reports “Kiwi outrage” over the postponement of Printech, New Zealand’s quadrennial printing trade show, from 2010 to 2012 “due to a lack of support from both sponsors and the industry.”

XPO Exhibitions, owner of the Printech event, recently announced that the decision was made in order to give the show more time to deliver on “the new promise” of a reorganized approach that will emphasize the benefits of print to print buyers and marketers. It claims to have received written commitments to a postponed event from “several large key suppliers.”

According to Print21online, this explanation was echoed in a member newsletter published by PrintNZ, an industry trade association. But the story also quotes Joan Grace, president of PrintNZ, as saying that “there were signs that the show’s future looked shaky for some time” and that “XPO was not able to get the commitments needed to go ahead with a show this year.”

The fact that 2012 is a drupa year could cause “some difficulties” for Printech if it takes place then, Grace also observed.

The story characterizes Kevin Trye, a print industry consultant, as being “irate” at the news. In his blog, Trye asserts that the postponement is because “none of the major sponsors being Heidelberg, Agfa, Xerox, Canon, etc. were willing to front up.” He also claims that PrintNZ “actively campaigned” against the show and that “without PrintNZ blessing, Printech 2010 never had a chance.”

Says Trye, “It will be printers and the local industry that will suffer as a result. Millions in lost revenue and new business.”

“We’re lucky this fiasco happened in little NZ. Elsewhere, it could have ended up in the courts. It might still,” he muses.

In a statement to WhatTheyThink, Marke Baker, president, MLP USA said “Our strategy for presenting Mitsubishi technology and meeting with press customers and prospects continues as in previous years. Even though MLP will not have booth on the show floor, we still plan to maintain a highly visible presence among printers during Graph Expo 2010.”

Heidelberg and Komori recently announced they are not exhibiting at Graph Expo 2010.

Related
Cary Sherburne: Heidelberg & Komori pass on Graph Expo 2010; KBA, manroland and Presstek to exhibit
Frank Romano: The era of our ways
Andy Tribute: Its Not Technological Change, Its How The Message is Presented and Financed
Andy Tribute: Do We Need Graph Expo Each Year?

Among the items in the cost cutting plan was a bullet point to “adjust delivery days to better reflect volumes and customer habits”. Many took this to mean the USPS was heading toward finally stopping Saturday delivery.

The only question is what in the world took them so long? I haven’t anticipated Saturday mail in some time. I actually usually forget it until I get the Monday mail. Given the running joke of how much the postal service loses annually I never understood why this move wasn’t made years ago. I might even argue that I only really need to get mail 2-3 times a week really. The other pressing items can be sent to me via Fedex, UPS, or USPS Express Mail. Saturday delivery for business still needs to happen, but this can be accomplished with less resources than full delivery to every household.

This will obviously affect marketers and printers trying to gain business from marketers who want to get their mail into the hands of the consumer over the weekend. I notice a great deal of my mail is the dreaded “junk mail” (ahum…direct mail pieces) that people complain about. Timing such pieces to arrive on Friday shouldn’t be that much of a challenge if they do stop Saturday delivery.

What affect do you think it will have on direct mail marketing and printing to not have Saturday delivery by the USPS?

Update: Gail has a great post up on this as well

I guess my complaint is their marksmanship. There isn’t any. The people who put this campaign together to protect print don’t have a clue what they are doing and who to aim at. It is also clear that the instigators of this campaign don’t use the Internet or any digital component therein. I say print has much integrity and life left in it, but you wouldn’t know it by this desperate ad campaign.

The campaign claims to target advertisers, shareholders and industry influencers. Well listen up my friends, you just insulted them all. The media buyers live in a digital world. When you bellow in one of the ads that, “The Internet is fleeting. Magazines are immersive,” every media buyer knows that is pure bunk. It is the Internet that is immersive, and the kids that buy the ads and spend the advertising money know it. They live on Facebook, twitter and hundreds of other social network sites and programs. You display an utter lack of contemporary culture and knowledge. You show your dotage at every opportunity. Please don’t attack your customers where they live. Media buyers live on the web and only visit magazines. And in my book, visiting is OK and can still be very profitable, but not if you try to tell them that they live in a fleeting, soon- to-be-evaporated world. That is a lie.

Oh, and the other tag line from yesterday’s report – “We surf the Internet. We swim in magazines.” Oh Really? Perhaps you missed the report that the web is now the 2nd most trusted place for news – second only to TV. Perhaps you missed the news that 57% of the webs social media users are over the age of 35. Perhaps you didn’t know that Facebook has more than 400 million active users, and of those active users, 61 percent of Facebook’s users are middle-aged or older.

All I am saying is that the campaign is a total waste. Exactly to whom is it directed and exactly what are your expectations on an ROI? Is this the campaign that will save the nation of print?

Look, I love print and have been deeply involved in it for over 40 years. It is a beautiful technology. It still has great merit and worth. We will survive by being what we are – useful, informative, reasonably priced and unbreakably transportable. We have the best editors and writers on the planet and have the ability to band together thousands and sometimes, hundreds of thousands, of like-minded readers to our brands on a regular basis.

More or less that is who we are. You may think I have over-reacted, and perhaps that is so. But I firmly believe that attacking the web and the future of information distribution is, at best, terribly misguided.

The Internet is not going to go away, get smaller, nor become irrelevant.

Corporate acquisitions have never been cheaper, And What RRD has really done is put a major competitor out of business. They bought extremely valuable relationships with the financial services legal community, which constantly needs bailing out to meet schedule deadlines that they naturally abuse. Hence, customer service and sales personnel will be retained. IT folks are needed to consolidate into RRD’s proprietary systems throughout the world (even though this is a hodge podge). Production and other overhead won’t be needed as work is consolidated into RRD existing plants.

The 8 page complaint filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Delaware (PDF) says Google AdSense and AdWords, Yahoo’s Contextual search software infringes its 2004 patent on a system for automatically generating queries. Xerox also alleges that Google Maps and YouTube, and Yahoo Shopping infringes its 2001 patent on Method and apparatus for the integration of information and knowledge.

Xerox spokesman Bill McKee told BusinessWeek, “We’ve been in dialogue with Google and Yahoo for some time without coming to a resolution. We believe we have no option but to file suit to properly protect our intellectual property.”

Google AdSense and AdWorks programs generates billions in revenue for Google. In Q4 2009 Google earned $2.04 billion, or 31% of total revenue from 3rd-party sites using the AdSense program.

Last weekend, I competed in the 33rd annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, held at the Brooklyn Bridge Marriott in beautiful downtown Brooklyn, NY. It’s located right across the street from the Supreme Court Building, and rumor has it that the hotel was constructed for the primary purpose of sequestering juries, although I’m told that’s likely apocryphal.

The event drew about 650 contestants (and many other non-competing guests, such as spouses and significant others, who ran the gamut from being supportive to staring slackjawed in horror that people actually do this for fun—well, chacun à son goût) and worked like this. For most contenders, there were seven puzzles, which ranged in difficulty from pretty easy to “queen bitch” difficulty (Will Shortz’s term). Everyone gathered in the main banquet hall at long tables, and yellow folders help ensure that one’s eyes stay on one’s own puzzle. More than one person I hung out with during the weekend likened it to the SATs. That may not have been a compliment….

A puzzle is passed out. All those who have “think about the environment before printing this e-mail” in their sig files would probably jump off the top of a tree if they saw how much paper they go through at this event. There are seven puzzles times ~650 contestants, and because of how puzzles are formatted, left-handers are allowed two copies because their writing hand obscures the clues as they fill in the grid, and then there are large-print clues for people with vision problems. There is also an eighth puzzle—and there are three versions of it—that everyone is given to follow along with during the playoffs—see below. Finally, everyone is given a complete set of the tournament puzzles at the end of the event. Some paper company should sponsor this tournament!

Anyway, after the puzzles are passed out, Will Shortz says, “Ready, set, go,” and a clock ticks down the time allotted for a given puzzle—15 minutes, 20 minutes, etc. When you are done, you raise your hand, a proctor picks up your paper, marks the time, and you are released to go out to the lobby and commiserate with others—“What the heck was 19 down?” “What was the theme of that puzzle?” “I have shamed the family and the House of Atreus,” “I paid money to do this?” and so forth.

It’s interesting how the puzzle scoring and tracking has evolved. (Well, I say “interesting,” but then I just spent a weekend solving crossword puzzles, so perhaps I am not the best arbiter of what is interesting…)  It’s become a somewhat sophisticated process. Every contestant is given a contestant number, and a sheet of bar-code labels that you stick on the back of each puzzle. (How fortuitous that a crossword puzzle grid can be easily used as a bar code!) These all vary by contestant.

The passed-in puzzle is graded by hand; judges manually verify that each square is filled correctly, and deduct points for wrong letters and blank squares (I am happy to say that in seven puzzles, I got no wrong answers, nor did I leave any blanks). Points are then awarded by how quickly the puzzle was completed (this is what got me). The marked puzzles are then scanned, the bar codes keep track of all contestants’ scores, and the scans are uploaded to the contest Web site. Players can log in with their contestant number to see how they did, as well as track the standings (which are also posted in hard copy on the wall near the banquet hall) over the course of the tournament. I would say that at least half of the contestants had iPhones and BlackBerrys or at least laptops. There were computers in the lobby of the hotel, as well. It was not uncommon to see people between puzzles in the hotel bar or lobby hitting “refresh” on their Web browser every few minutes.

There are a bunch of different contestant categories, based on skill, age, and geography. The A category is the best of the bunch—these are the power solvers who are more like human laser printers and can fill in an entire grid faster than I can write a single letter. (There are all sorts of tricks they use, only some which I have any aptitude for.) They don’t always (or ever) worry about penmanship, and at the end of the tournament the judges give out a tongue-in-cheek award for “Best Handwriting.”

At the end, there is an eighth puzzle that is used for the playoffs. If you’ve seen the 2006 documentary Wordplay about this event (and the crossword puzzle craze in general) you know how this works. There is a stage on which is a set of three large dry-erase puzzle grids mounted on easels. The three contestants stand at their easels (they are angled such that they can’t see each others’ grids), they are given sound-proof headphones, and then solve the final, really hard puzzle while 700+ people watch—and Neil Conant of NPR and puzzle constructor Merl Reagle do play-by-play commentary. Merl likes puns. We’re all masochists.

People were tweeting and Facebooking the event (as was I) and I was talking with one other contestant—a Web programmer for a NYC investment bank who is probably about 10 or so years younger than me—about the possibility of the event going entirely electronic and dispensing with laser-printed puzzles. He didn’t seem especially sanguine about the idea; the expense and logistics of hooking a room up with 700 computers would likely be prohibitive. And you also have a very large puzzle-solving contingent that doesn’t like solving puzzles on a computer and would be at a severe disadvantage. (I don’t really like solving puzzles on a computer either, but can do it if need be.) And the crossword puzzle iPhone apps I have used leave a great deal to be desired.

But who knows? Some day, the demographics may work out that everyone will have some kind of portable computer with them—we thought that perhaps the Apple iPad could fill this niche in some way. But not for a while.

Anyway, it was a fun time, and I look forward to next year’s tournament. I must work on my speed. (Oh, for the record, I finished 75th out of 644. Not too shabby!)

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At PMA 2010, the trade event for “everything photo,” Mohawk Fine Papers announced the acquisition of LabPrints, a developer of workflow software and services for professional photographers and photo labs. “Wait,” you say, “a paper company bought a software company?” In search of clarification, I spoke to Bart Robinson, Mohawk’s VP Marketing and Customer Service, and Bill Gamble, LabPrints’ CEO.

What might look like a diversion from a core strategy is actually well-planned diversification to develop a creative ecosystem that extends through the supply chain from the user and creator of content to the provider of the substrate on which the image is printed.

In the late 1990s, recognizing that digital printing would be evolving and taking hold, Mohawk launched a line of digital print papers. Working closely with production partners like HP influenced Mohawk to become much more technology driven. Today digital papers are an important part of Mohawk’s paper sales, for both converted products sold through distributors and under the Mohawk name. As photobooks became more popular, a Preferred Partner relationship with HP helped drive sales until Mohawk now claims a significant share of photo book pages produced.

Looking at the changing face of the print world – with volumes changing and printers evolving or closing – Mohawk looked at their experience as a supplier of media to the photo segment as adjacent to their core market.

In 2009, Mohawk made several moves along the supply chain including a strategic investment in liveBooks and the launch of Felt & Wire Shop.

liveBooks is a provider of website development and hosting services for creative professionals, including photographers, architects, and graphic designers, that need graphics-intensive websites and search optimization services.

A “curated collection,” Felt & Wire Shop offers graphic designers a site to promote and sell their products, including framed posters, greeting and post cards, gift wrap, and other paper-based printed items.

Located just a little over a mile apart since 2002 – a left turn and a right turn – Mohawk and LabPrints operated in their own universes until recently, when it became clear that those universes were overlapping.

Bill Gamble launched his company to provide tools to photographers and add value to the workflow as more photographers moved from film to digital. Gamble partnered with photo labs that were fulfilling orders for professional photographers and leveraged the lab to reach the photographer.

The business grew and adapted to the change in the photographer’s market too. Photographers began selling photo greeting cards, photobooks and other products printed on digital presses rather than traditional photo finishing equipment. It was at that point that LabPrint recognized the overlap with Mohawk.

Similar to the current offering of VDP/Web to Print/Workflow Integration tools available to printers who produce custom printed documents through web portals and store fronts, LabPrints facilitates the content creation by giving the photographer the means to organize, edit, order, design, post and sell images online with a single desktop application. In other words, a web-to-print solution for a photographer and lab or digital printer, much like those sold for document production.

• The proPhotographer suite comes with a free core product, LP Digital Studio, and nine separately priced modules that allow the photographer to “custom fit” the solution. The modules also integrate with Adobe applications and other desktop workflow tools.
• The proLab solution is a workflow solution for photo labs and digital printers that can be integrated with photo production applications and accounting programs.
• The third element is the Online Services option that provides a storefront site with album presentation and online ordering.

The technology also allows for an ecommerce website to give the photographer an online retail presence. For example, Pinhole Press offers a web stationery boutique featuring clean, contemporary design templates for custom photo greeting cards. Pinhole Press notes, “You can choose from our collection of unique card designs, easily upload photos, and create a personal message.” LabPrints is the “man behind the curtain” letting this group of designers reach a new audience and sell their products online.

Are there more of these deals in the works? According to Robinson, “We at Mohawk are committed to being more than just a paper company. We’re always looking at new opportunities as they come forward. They don’t have to be in our core market, just related. And we are going to bring Bill’s successful toolset for photo finishers to the digital print community, both printers and photo labs.”

What is content marketing?  Joe Pulizzi, co-author of Get Content. Get Customers., defines it this way:  “Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.”  The basic idea behind content marketing is to create content that speaks directly to the issues and challenges that potential buyers are facing, and thus provide those buyers a compelling reason to engage with the selling organization.

Content marketing has become a critical discipline because today’s B2B buyers are researching buying decisions independently, and they are delaying conversations with salespeople until much later in the buying cycle.  If your company doesn’t provide useful and compelling content, potential buyers will simply find it somewhere else.

To understand the importance of content marketing, think of your marketing and sales activities as being part of a process that must in itself create value for customers.  In other words, treat the marketing and sales process as if it is another service that you provide.

And how do marketing and sales create value for potential buyers?  By providing information and tools that help them better understand the problems and challenges they’re facing and how those problems and challenges can be addressed.  Content marketing is the vehicle for providing this kind of information.  Therefore, once you treat marketing and sales as a process that must provide real value for prospective buyers, the logic behind content marketing becomes clear and compelling.

You can read more about content marketing here.

With all of the discussion about how many trade shows we really need in the printing industry and whether they need to be held annually, a consolidation theme that has been on the table for some time, a new printing trade show pops up at Messe Dusseldorf, home of drupa.

According to the press release, digi:media is planned as an annual event starting in 2011, will be an integral part of drupa in 2012 (May 3 – 16) and as of 2013 (April 11 – 13) will be held again as a separate event.”  The release also states that digital printing has opened “up new target groups for print communication.” What the release does not say is that this show is targeted at German-speaking attendees, although it would like to attract vendors worldwide, and of course, vendor materials will likely also be available in English.

It will be interesting to see what type of vendor and attendee support there is for this European show. It sounds very similar to the On Demand model in the U.S. Last year, from my perspective, On Demand brought to mind the dying days of Seybold.  Perhaps with some level of economic recovery on the horizon, On Demand will regain a level of energy and enthusiasm, but with the stark shift at Graph Expo to digital technologies, and the exit of key exhibitors on the offset side, at least for 2010, one wonders why we need two U.S. printing shows. Perhaps the climate is different in Europe.

The messaging for this new venture at Messe Dusseldorf seems to me to be very print centric. Wouldn’t it have been better to focus this event, if indeed it is even needed, on multichannel communications, making it a platform for discussions between the marketing/agency community and the print community to help establish and better define the new role of print in the marketing mix of today and over the next few years, as well as to educate printers on how to blend alternative media into their service offerings?

Maybe that is the intent, but the language of the release still emphasizes print and does not seem to have the right kind of messaging to draw in the all-important marketing/advertising community, who all-too-often have little print domain expertise or interest in print, and may not even be considering print as part of the picture anymore as they move more budget to alternative media. If they do wish to include print in the mix, it often becomes a commodity part of the project, offloaded to procurement who is tasked with getting the best price per piece.

The challenge for print service providers or marketing services providers, or whatever we are calling ourselves today, is to engage with marketers and agency folks much earlier in the value chain, and that is difficult to do leading with a print message.

April of 2011 will be upon us before we know it … but there is still time to adjust the messaging to achieve the results I am sure the Messe Dusseldorf team wants to achieve and to engage the marketing/advertising community in the dialog.

What do you think?  Is this an event you would attend as a visitor or exhibitor? I guess we will find out in 2011 … meanwhile, WhatTheyThink will be contacting the Messe Dusseldorf team to gain more clarity about their intent for this new event.  Stay tuned.