I sometimes think we fail to recognize the power of words. Words flow freely from our lips. Words splash across the pages of memos, emails, and training documents. Words are everywhere, but I think, sometimes we take a line of sequenced letters for granted.
Yesterday, someone told me they are sometimes confused with our document management "language." This someone is a very intelligent and well-respected member of our team. She told me when she goes to conferences or speaks with the "experts" big words float indiscriminately without regard to the listeners understanding. I've noticed a lot of this word arrogance lately. It seems like the more technical knowledge we gain the more temptation we have to use words as way of propping up our confidence. Other times, we innocently speak a speical language forgetting the speed of knowledge absorption often lags behind.
Twenty years ago our pool of words were stationary in time. New words entered the vernacular slowly, and we had time to learn their meaning. Today, words pour into conversations from every direction. It's hard for even the most intelligent to keep up.
Sixth grade is where my love for words began. My admiration coincided with a failing grade on a vocabulary test. My father helped me find this love during a parental tirade that included some R-rated words shared at high volumes. Since then, I've paid special attention to words. Unfortunately, just when I think I've attained a new level of word mastery; a new word enters my world. Some new arrivals include Spiff, Sudoku, Ghostriding, YouTube, or my favorite new word iPhone.
The power of words can move our industry or bog us down in mire of complexity. For those of us on the edge of technology, it is important that build an awareness for the words we push into conversations. Words can create vision, clarity, and focus or words can lead us down a path of confusion, ambiguity, and irrelevance.
“Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.”
[Unknown]
“Words may show a man's wit, but actions his meaning" [Benjamin Franklin]
Words
Is Printing Dead?
I hear the question all the time. "Is printing dead?" Every time the work table lies empty; the question rings more loudly. We've heard our friends from the document management world diplomatically warn us for years. Outside forces use the "eliminate printing" slogan as a benefit to using their "industry-changing" document management software. There is no question the trends appear alarming but what is the real story. Is printing dead?
From what the from the old veterans tell me, the same question surfaced during the drafting to AutoCAD scare of the 80's. The question is, do the two transitions compare? After spending hours in conversation — and some worrying myself — I've come to four observations.
First, I think the print industry is following the long tail trends of many other industries — most notably the music industry. (Read my 12.30.06 post) I think those that learn from other industries will have a tremendous advantage over those that sit and wait. It's time to be proactive not reactive!
Second, printing is not going away, its shifting. The biggest competition to the Reprographer is not only the printer down the street; it's the equipment in the customer's office. It is my belief that selling printing equipment is just as important as promoting our document management systems. We must realize the two go together and should be sold in unison.
Third, we need to work on better ways to maximize e-commerce with our document management systems. I've heard a lot of people say that no one would want to pay for a download or insta-print. Reminiscent of comments made by the music industry a decade ago. (John Cronin's blog has many great articles about this topic)
Fourth, successful printers survive because they stay a few steps ahead of the equipment and technology in our customer's office. Machines that are faster. Prints that are better quality. Knowledge a bit further along.
In the future, I will explore these four observations in more detail. I welcome your thoughts and ideas. Thanks for all your previous conversations and emails.
Garment of Destiny
IN HONOR OF MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
Sometimes I think I have adult A.D.D. I can’t sit still very long & boring people about drive me to suicide. Long trips. Rush hour. Emotionless sermons. I can’t stand anything that makes me sit still longer than a few seconds unless it entertains me.
About five years ago, I went to a sales conference that could be categorized as an Alcatraz for ADDers. A middle-aged, well-dressed lady was the prison warden offering the normal torture tactics: false modesty, a monotone voice, overused cliché’s & a bevy of painfully boring stories. I remember drinking massive amounts of water just so I had an excuse to go to the bathroom.
As I drooled on my bottom lip & doodled on a hotel notepad, the ice-pick-my-the-eye boring speaker rambled through a series of irrelevant & over used metaphors about life. I think her goal was to irritate us into being better sales people.With my eyes flickering & attention almost gone, a life-changing quote splashed across the poorly assembled power point presentation.
In a real sense all life is inter-related. All persons are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny: Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, & you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the inter-related structure of reality.
When I first read Martin Luther King’s words, I thought I understood what he was saying about community. He was telling us to comprehend the connection of people around us. Those you see when you walk in a crowd, men of different opinions, races & religions. All the people of the world related together in a single garment of humanity.
I thought I understood, but my initial thought was superficial. It took me five more years to appreciate the expanded meaning of MLK’s discourse. Continued...
Naptster & Reprographics
The music industry faced changing technology with the NAPSTER era. The industry panicked as millions of songs began to be transfered free on the internet. The way music reached customers would never be the same.
Over the last ten years, the Reprogrpahics industry recognized the need for an internet solution but has struggled to establish a profitable answer. Like the Napster era, we have seen document management given away and files transfered for free. Whoever is able to find an answer will have a tremendous competitive advantage. It’s time for the Reprographics industry is to escape it’s Napster Era.
Ten Years+
For over ten years, the reprographics’s industry has tried to market and sell document management systems. For ten years, we've mumbled through presentations with promises to revolutionize the construction industry only to switch products a few years later. (I'll purposely not mention the names.)
Every three years we rally the troupes, gather for a "training session," role plays, re-brand and tell our people to go into the market and sell, sell, sell. "That last system sucked!" we say, "We've got a new system and it’s much better." Sound familiar?
But, the question has to be, why are we not meeting expectations on selling document management? I believe our problem is threefold.
First, we have to accept that living on technologies edge isn't always pretty. Most industries go through the awkwardness of the establishing a new product or service— especially new technology. Remember the internet? It didn't take off at first either, but once it did it exploded. Unfortunately, we're not the only the industry competing for the document management world. Software companies. Venture capitalists. Entrepreneurs. A variety of companies we are not used to competing with.
Second, we need to evaluate how our core competencies align with the required core competencies of marketing, selling, and producing document management systems. I believe we find many of our problems here. From what I've observed, we're sending untrained "print" sales reps to sell high end digital solutions. No offense to our "print" sales reps but they are not qualified to sell high end digital solutions— it’s out of their core competency. This is furthered by our production staffs who we try to make into indexers and high end consultants.
Third, I believe the positioning of “printers” offering AEC document management solutions is damaged beyond repair. For years we've sent unqualified and unmotivated sales reps into our clients, stammered through presentations, and then in the end asked for print orders. Again, this is not unusual for first responders. They often must re-brand, reposition, and realign to reestablish credibility within a market that's witnessed their growing pains.
Now is the time to face these obstacles and develop strategies for success.
RESOURCE: Ries and Trout's classic "Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind" is a must read on the subject of positioning and re-branding.