Compass Capital Partners

THIS IS my 250th column for PRINTING IMPRESSIONS and, as I predicted way back in my first year—1984—the world population would reach 6.6 billion people. How is it I am accurately prescient? Remarkable!

I also predicted the U.S. population would reach 300 million. Yep. I was right about this also. Gee, I’m good.

Furthermore, in these very pages in 1984, I predicted the number of Websites and blogs would total about 6.7 billion­—and, I’m pretty sure that I am right about that number. The remarkable thing about that last prediction is that 1984 was six years before the World Wide Web was invented by

THIS IS my 250th column for Printing Impressions and, as I predicted way back in my first year—1984—the world population would reach 6.6 billion people. How is it I am accurately prescient? Remarkable! I also predicted the U.S. population would reach 300 million. Yep. I was right about this also. Gee, I’m good. Furthermore, in these very pages in 1984, I predicted the number of Websites and blogs would total about 6.7 billion­—and, I’m pretty sure that I am right about that number. The remarkable thing about that last prediction is that 1984 was six years before the World Wide Web was invented by (Brit) Timothy

DOES ANYBODY really, really, ever, ever listen when a recorded message tells you, “This call may be monitored for quality?”

I don’t think so. I don’t believe there are any monitors. Monitors are a fictitious form of marketing communication. The company is just telling us, “We care about quality, and so we are monitoring this call!”

Or, maybe I’ve got it wrong. Maybe they are monitoring my quality. Like maybe they are checking on the quality of my baritone, my diction or my rationale for the call.

Why else would they give me a warning that the call was being monitored?

I’ve been through some tortuous

“DON’T MOVE, or both of us will die,” shouted Wesley Autrey as he pinned a fallen commuter between the subway tracks before an onrushing subway train in Manhattan.

Wesley had been waiting for his train on the station platform with his two young daughters when a young man suffered a seizure and fell about eight feet to the tracks below. Wesley jumped down to the track bed, rolled the man between the tracks and lay on top of him as the train passed over them with two inches to spare.

Wesley is just a 50-year-old construction worker.

He is just a good father who

PARAMUS, NJ—1/11/2007—NAPL (www.napl.org), the trade association for excellence in graphic communications management, has selected 17 graphic communications companies to receive its 2006 Management Plus Awards, which recognize management excellence in all phases of operation. The highest Management Plus honor, the William K. Marrinan Hall of Fame Award, is bestowed on Bloomington Offset Process, Inc., a full-service printing, mailing, and fulfillment company based in Bloomington, Ill. (See NAPL January 11, 2007, press release, “2006 NAPL Management Plus Hall of Fame Award Goes to Bloomington Offset Process, Inc.”) Three companies earned Management Plus Gold Awards, 10 received Silver Awards, and two were named Merit Award

I GUESS you all saw that Mister Hot Shot George Clooney won People magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive!” competition.

This is twice for Clooney.

Brad Pitt won twice.

Last year I called People magazine to inquire about my ranking in the competition. I wasn’t even in their database.

This year I called People again and inquired about my standing in the ranking. A kind and very patient researcher performed an in-depth search while I held on the phone. No luck.

I suggested that just maybe she would find me in the “M’s” as the “Mañana Man.” Yep. She found me. The People researcher said I was in the Hispanic Sexy

Ryobi Plans Third Press Manufacturing Facility HIROSHIMA, JAPAN—Driven by strong U.S. and worldwide demand for mid-size offset printing presses, Ryobi Graphic Systems began construction on a new press manufacturing facility this month. The new facility will be the third at Ryobi’s Hiroshima East central production center. Ryobi officials said the newest facility, Hiroshima East Plant 3, will be at full-scale operations in September 2007. It will add another 99,000 square feet of manufacturing space and represents a total expected investment of $27 million. When the third facility is completed, Ryobi will have 314,000 square feet at its Hiroshima East operations, more than double

IT’S ELECTION Day evening. I’m sitting here trying to get inspired to write my 244th column and my 24th Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa, Holiday column.

There. I’ve gotten the political correctness thing behind me. But my depression lingers. I’m not depressed by the election outcome. We all knew long before now what the results would be.

I’m depressed at being inundated for months by all the phone calls, the multitude of negative television commercials, the handful of positive TV commercials and all of the road signs stretching around highways of America.

I want all that stuff banned and the political money in future elections redirected to the printing

IN THE May 2003 edition of this magazine I predicted some mega deals would begin to occur. I also predicted that the number of printing companies would continue to shrink and that we would have less than 30,000 by 2006.

A reader, who will remain nameless, e-mailed me a few days ago and asked if there was going to be a follow-up column reporting on how well I did with my prophesies.

Hey! I am not a modern day Nostradamus. I’m just a mere mortal human being with, maybe, a tad more talent than the rest of you.

I am gonna stop for a minute and

This is a column about work. That’s right, work! Don’t hang up on me!

I know you work hard. I know you are diligent. I know you are tireless. I’m not writing about you. I’m writing about a bunch of people you know. They are called slackers.

You will enjoy this column because it’s about a bunch of other people that you know and see every day at work. They are the slackers. While you are working, they are slacking.

You’ll get vicarious, sweet pleasure reading about these worthless cheaters who show up, but do little work. There’s that word again. Work.

This country is in deep