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Wide-format Blogs

The next internet revolution

Companies that have barely adjusted to Web 2.0 – the user-generated content revolution which made it possible for anyone to become a publisher – may not want to here this but the digerati are already talking about Web 3.0. In essence, Web 3.0 is the customisation of the internet. Using services like Facebook, millions of internet users will use people they know or trust to help them navigate the billions of pages on the web.
Travis Katz, one of the founders of MySpace, says: “In the future, every page will be personalised. If I’m planning a trip to Paris, you shouldn’t see 900 hotels. You should see six, based on where you’ve been before, the places you’ve checked on Facebook and Foursquare and places where your friends are stayed”.

October 2011

The Widthwise Report 2011 has come out stating that number one priority with us printers is that we would like the machine manufacturers to spend more on R&D to bring running costs down. Personally, I think there should be more transparency in cost. I bet my last pound that if every person who took part in the Widthwise survey had shopped around for ink and other consumables they would have found that the running costs of the machine they had bought could tumble.

Computer says “What?”

The collision of two powerful forces could stifle business innovation in the 21st century: new fangled computers and old fashioned bosses. That is the fear expressed by Andrew McAfee, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (http://andrewmcafee.org/ ). While new technology gives companies the potential to create a collaborative, networked business – a model that some have labelled Enterprise 2.0 – most bosses, McAfee insists, aren’t interested: “They say let’s not have a networked enterprise, let’s have a row-and-column enterprise, let’s have a grid enterprise, where people are sitting at their work stations everyday, with their heads down, getting work done every day, all day, not really forming communities and having voices, but just cranking out work.”

Innovation in their DNA

McAfee’s point is underlined by an interview once given by James Watson who, with Francis Crick, discovered the double helix structure of DNA. Asked how they had succeeded where others had failed, Watson explained that he and Crick had succeeded “because we weren’t the most intelligent people pursuing the answer”. The smartest, Watson added, was a scientist called Rosalind Franklin who, he said, “was so intelligent she rarely asked advice”. In contrast, Kenneth Lay, chairman of the scandal-plagued energy business Enron – run by a group of executives who really thought they were the smartest guys in the room – died in custody awaiting a prison sentence.

Making sense of the blogosphere

For smaller businesses – a term which describes most wide-format printing companies – the internet and social media can seem a tedious drain on time and budgets. The Internet seems to offer unlimited opportunity to make your voice – and company – known. Yet with millions of companies all trying to achieve that goal, how do you stand out?
The Image Group isn’t exactly pushing boundaries in cyberspace but its blog strategy (www.imagegroupuk.com/banners-blog ) is just plain common sense. Little and often is far better than a site where the last blog – which might look vaguely topical to the unwitting visitor – proves, on closer inspection, to have been written six months ago.

The trouble with cloning

Printers dissatisfied with their own website – and let’s face it, if you’re not, you ought to be – may be tempted to just copy one they like. Some call this plagiarism, others say it’s just learning from best practice. Yet web usability guru Jakob Nielsen (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/copy-big-sites.html) says whatever you call it, you shouldn’t do it.

Don’t copy, just be inspired

Nielsen’s warnings should not stop you learning from what other companies are doing online. The Chicago large format printer Benchmark Imaging and Display has a simple page on its site called The Idea Gallery (http://www.benchmarkimaging.com/Gallery/index.php?option=com_joomgallery&func=viewcategory&catid=1&Itemid=61 ) which does pretty much what the name suggests. The work is simply presented, the notes accompanying each idea/application are succinct and relevant, and the cumulative effect is pretty impressive.

Computer says “What?”

The collision of two powerful forces could stifle business innovation in the 21st century: new fangled computers and old fashioned bosses. That is the fear expressed by Andrew McAfee, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (http://andrewmcafee.org/ ). While new technology gives companies the potential to create a collaborative, networked business – a model that some have labelled Enterprise 2.0 – most bosses, McAfee insists, aren’t interested: “They say let’s not have a networked enterprise, let’s have a row-and-column enterprise, let’s have a grid enterprise, where people are sitting at their work stations everyday, with their heads down, getting work done every day, all day, not really forming communities and having voices, but just cranking out work.”

Innovation in their DNA

McAfee’s point is underlined by an interview once given by James Watson who, with Francis Crick, discovered the double helix structure of DNA. Asked how they had succeeded where others had failed, Watson explained that he and Crick had succeeded “because we weren’t the most intelligent people pursuing the answer”. The smartest, Watson added, was a scientist called Rosalind Franklin who, he said, “was so intelligent she rarely asked advice”. In contrast, Kenneth Lay, chairman of the scandal-plagued energy business Enron – run by a group of executives who really thought they were the smartest guys in the room – died in custody awaiting a prison sentence.

Making sense of the blogosphere

For smaller businesses – a term which describes most wide-format printing companies – the internet and social media can seem a tedious drain on time and budgets. The Internet seems to offer unlimited opportunity to make your voice – and company – known. Yet with millions of companies all trying to achieve that goal, how do you stand out?

The trouble with cloning

Printers dissatisfied with their own website – and let’s face it, if you’re not, you ought to be – may be tempted to just copy one they like. Some call this plagiarism, others say it’s just learning from best practice. Yet web usability guru Jakob Nielsen (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/copy-big-sites.html) says whatever you call it, you shouldn’t do it.

Don’t copy, just be inspired

Nielsen’s warnings should not stop you learning from what other companies are doing online. The Chicago large format printer Benchmark Imaging and Display has a simple page on its site called The Idea Gallery (http://www.benchmarkimaging.com/Gallery/index.php?option=com_joomgallery&func=viewcategory&catid=1&Itemid=61 ) which does pretty much what the name suggests. The work is simply presented, the notes accompanying each idea/application are succinct and relevant, and the cumulative effect is pretty impressive.
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