Xerox Corp.

LAST MONTH, I suggested some ways that you can put public relations to work and get the word out about your business. This month, the topic is self-promotion—a subset of PR in which you can showcase the skills, expertise and capabilities of your organization. The two go hand in hand. In November, for the third year in a row, I had the pleasure of judging the DICE Awards. DICE, the Digital Imaging Customer Exchange (www.dicegroup.org, formerly the Indigo Customer Exchange), has been around for more than a decade and just reached the 300-member mark. The group has expanded beyond owners of Indigo presses

American Firms Win High Honors BUDAPEST, HUNGARY—Winners of the Sappi International Printers of the Year awards for 2006 were announced at a gala event held here at the Museum of Applied Arts. The nine winners were chosen from 33 finalists in the following categories: annual reports, books, brochures, calendars, catalogs, general print, magazines, packaging and labels, and printer’s own promotion. North American firms bringing home the cast bronze elephant trophy included Nahan Printing, St. Cloud, MN, for its Bergdorf Goodman Magazine Resort/Holiday 2005 in the magazines category and Cenveo Anderson Lithograph, City of Commerce, CA, for the 2006 Cadillac XLR brochure in the brochures

CIP4 Group Announces New Slate Of Officers DARMSTADT, GERMANY—CIP4, the International Cooperation for the Integration of the Processes in Prepress, Press and Postpress, recently elected advisory board members for 2006. The board includes representatives from each of three classes of members—partner, full and associate member. Representing the full membership are: Martin Bailey, Global Graphics; Elena Skobchenko, Dr. Lauterbach & Partner GmbH; Matthew Outram, Fujifilm Electronic Imaging; Jacques Thiebauld, Dalim Software; Henny van Esch, Optimus; Gerd van Gils, DiMS! organizing print; and David Watson, Ultimate Technographics. Associate membership is offered at a deeply discounted dues level to companies that don’t develop products for sale to

Digital Press Strengthens Partnership CEDAR FALLS, IA—The joint purchase of a Kodak NexPress 2100 plus digital color press and Kodak NexGlosser unit has enabled Woolverton Printing and American Color Imaging to reach new customers in the photo services market. Since the installation, John Lynch, owner of commercial printer Woolverton Printing, and Mark Lane, owner of American Color Imaging, a professional photo lab, report they have strengthened their partnership and grown their businesses. Press Added for Lenticular Work FRESNO, CA—Big3D.com Worldwide has ordered a six-color MAN Roland 500 press with in-line coating and an extended delivery. The privately held company is a leader in lenticular and three-dimensional printing

RESTON, VA—November 9, 2006—NPES The Association for Suppliers of Printing, Publishing and Converting Technologies announced the election of several new directors at its Annual Conference November 6 in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. Elected to terms expiring at the 2009 Annual Meeting were four new directors: • Michael Fox, President of Screen USA • Don Harvey, Vice President and General Manager of XpedX Printing Technologies • Marc Olin, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Professional Printing Applications • Thomas Wetjen, Vice President of Worldwide Graphic Communications at Xerox Corporation Nominated for re-election to terms expiring at the 2009 Annual Meeting were: • Timothy Combs, Vice President, Sales and Marketing at Fujifilm

SINCE THE digital revolution began, developments in the front end of the printing process have been as much about big ideas as they have specific products and solutions. The latest in a string of topics that have been debated include PDF versus native files, violet versus thermal CTP and process automation via JDF. At Graph Expo and Converting Expo 2006, the discussion tended to be focused back at the product level. The parameters of the state-of-the-art in workflow, for now, have been clearly defined. They include: • PDF-based file processing in a color managed environment is a given; • computer-to-plate is also a given,

A KNOCK frequently made against printers is that many don’t know their true costs and, as a consequence, can’t say if they’ve made money on any given job. Another way of looking at is that they don’t know the dollar value of individual jobs and customers to the bottom line. In order to know that answer, shops need to have the required infrastructure in place and an ingrained discipline throughout the company to capture and analyze the relevant data. It takes a big commitment to implement and religiously use a comprehensive Management Information System (MIS), now also called Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP),

Centenarian Printer Continues to Evolve BARBERTON, OH—Davis Printing is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. The company was founded in 1906 by John R. Davis., who produced a weekly newspaper and provided printing services to the public. Today, the full-service commercial printer offers sheetfed offset and digital printing, complete bindery, mailing and fulfillment, and Web-based services. Recently, Davis Printing also acquired Merrick Graphics. Steve Merrick was named Davis Printing’s vice president of marketing and president of the new creative division, Merrick Design Group. ALABAMA MONTGOMERY—Wells Printing has installed a Sakurai 675SD sheetfed press with coater. It was purchased through dealer Independent Graphic Services.

Ginsberg Joins Graphic Press LOS ANGELES—Graphic Press has restructured its executive group, naming Randolph Ginsberg its president and Michael Hecht to the post of executive vice president, sales. Ginsberg formerly served as vice president of sales at Hawthorne, CA-based Lithographix. Hecht also spent time at Lithographix as executive vice president of sales. Xerox to Obtain XMPie STAMFORD, CT—With an eye towards growth in personalized printing and multimedia direct marketing, Xerox Corp. has agreed to acquire XMPie for $54 million. New York-based XMPie specializes in variable information software. XMPie will maintain its brand name and function as a standalone software unit. Innovator Gegenheimer Passes SHELTON, CT—Harold Gegenheimer, 95, chairman

IT MAY be telling that, with a few exceptions, the presses in operation around the show floor of Graph Expo and Converting Expo 2006 were of the digital variety. Offset units were conspicuous in their absence. Digital presses largely have become part of the commercial printing mainstream, rather than being a specialty product segment or market niche. The exhibition’s Wide Format Pavilion showed ongoing interest in that segment, but adding a wide, large, superwide or grand format digital system still is seen as a way to diversify rather than being standard equipment. Hewlett-Packard shared results from an InfoTrends study that surveyed a sampling