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Is AI Real? By Noel Ward, Editor@Large It’s a hot topic: Seats are filled at any conference where AI is on the agenda. Everyone is seeking an edge, an advantage, a way of leveraging AI. At one recent conference most AI presentations were underwhelming, yet all showed potential, even though...

Sideways Because being hacked is not fun By Noel Ward, Editor@Large Some of the most interesting things I hear from printers I visit come up after business hours. I’m sitting with the owner, having a drink before dinner. We’re a bit early so the place is quiet. The person I’m sitting across...

Is Your Press Earning its Keep? By Noel Ward, Editor@Large Digital press makers seem to think the 60-month (or so )lease makes the it feel more like buying a high-end car than investing in a critical piece of business equipment. Sorry, but as one who buys high-end cars used and keeps them for...

How Resilient Are You? By Noel Ward, Editor@Large If you are the proud owner of a digital press you have probably wrestled with the best way of servicing the beast that takes up an inordinate amount of floor space while pulling a monthly nut out of your checking account. While far more...

The Time has Finally Come By Noel Ward, Editor@Large The look on the sales manager’s face makes you wonder what bomb is about to land on your desk. He just stormed into your office, dropped his briefcase on the floor and collapsed into a chair. You brace for the worst. The saga unfolds as you...

PE: A Promise or a Threat? By Noel Ward, Editor@Large Tuesday afternoon you take a call over the land line. Expressing what seems like genuine interest in your business, the caller wants to schedule a meeting. Sounds as if there might be an offer in the works. Figuring that could scratch an...

When Close Enough is not Enough By Noel Ward, Editor@Large Your pickiest customer insists the color throughout his new 12-page brochure and assorted collateral match the color of the pristine vintage Ferrari he just inherited from his uncle. Known as “Rosso Corsa” or Racing Red, the unique hue...

You Want Silver on That? By Noel Ward, Editor@Large It used to be that some of the most demanded—and compelling—embellishments to printed pages took a few extra steps of manual labor to accomplish. A common one was adding silver to a page. Yet for many years adding metallic silver to a page...

Print Rocks! By Noel Ward, Editor@Large The press was this huge thing that took up half of the cavernous space in which it resided. I have no idea what it was, it being the first press I’d ever seen. “One of the colors isn’t right,” said my ad agency art director wife, so the pressman...

You May Need This Speed, Image Quality and Large Page Sizes by Noel Ward, Editor@Large This may be the inkjet printer you’ve been waiting for. It is worth some of your time at PRINTING United in Orlando to get a close look at Canon’s new varioPRINT iX1700, the company’s latest sheetfed...

Print and Mail to the Rescue The enduring power of tried and true communications By Noel Ward, Editor@Large A good friend from many years ago sends me a postcard about every three weeks. This has been going on for a while, him upping the frequency from twice a year to monthly. We used to race...

Marketing 101: Think Different Success begins with understanding opportunities By Noel Ward, Editor@Large You are a printer. You made the jump from offset to mixing offset and digital and perhaps went exclusively digital a few years back. So now your money-maker is from Canon, Epson, HP...

The End of Professionals By Noel Ward, Editor@Large Have you noticed that the plethora of “how to” videos on You Tube (and others) are often missing key information or best practices? This lapse is one of the reasons you wind up burning a couple hours watching six videos to do a job that will...

Do More than Print By Noel Ward, Editor@Large The print market is changing. Instead of dwelling on how it used to be, look at what print in your market area can be in the future—and how you can be a part of it. More than a few print business owners I talk with are seeing print volumes...

Is Inkjet Saving Commercial Print? By Noel Ward, Editor@Large Inkjet is in charge was the closing line in a recent article here that noted how inkjet presses are changing the playing field of commercial print. It’s ironic, given that a mere 25 years ago inkjet was a non-starter when it came to...

Is Inkjet the End of Offset? By Noel Ward, Editor@Large Content sponsored by Canon U.S.A., Inc. “I have bought my last offset press,” said the head of a printing company who had a mix of presses under his roof. A pair of three-year-old half-web offset iron stood in one room. An adjacent space...

Technology is good. But! Planet readers speak out By Noel Ward, Editor@Large It is always fun to find out how print pros think and get work done so I asked Print Planet readers a bunch of questions. Offset and digital print providers from Europe and the US responded, answering only questions...

Got VPN? By Noel Ward, Editor@Large Just because you’re not paranoid doesn’t mean someone isn’t out to get you. And there are now more ways to get you than ever. Printers are visible targets and if you haven’t done so already you should take some steps to say safe. On the business level the...

Ransomware at Play By Noel Ward, Editor@Large The bad guy penetrated your computer system while you were sleeping. His ransomware landed while you were driving to work, locking up your files, which are inaccessible behind his encryption. Now you’re having a bad day before your second cup of...

Got ERP? By Noel Ward, Editor@Large A lot of butts were in chairs at recent conference for a session on ERP systems, aka Enterprise Resource Planners. ERPs are complex software offerings that purportedly provide business owners with the info they need to run their businesses more efficiently...