Dr. Joe Webb

I have a very short list of industry experts to whom I turn for predictions, critical trends, and business interpretations. These are all very smart people whose opinions I value.

One of these experts is Dr. Joe Webb. He’s well regarded throughout this industry as a consultant, an analyst, a forecaster and a commentator. Surely you’ve heard him speak and/or you’ve read his work, especially on Whattheythink.com.

After last week’s Tip in which I listed a few things I’m watching in 2013, I decided to ask the good Dr. Joe to weigh in on print industry predictions. With answers to my five blunt questions, he lays it on the line. Holy moly. I think his comments are dead-on.

1. It’s no secret the commercial print industry is shrinking every year. We have over 30,000 US print companies currently – where and when will this declining number ‘settle down’?

Dr. Joe: Settle down? The number has been declining 1,000 per year, on average, since the early 1990s. That's not likely to change. Consolidation is one aspect of the way the industry is adapting to the communications marketplace as weak businesses are purged and the relevant ones are left. And even the relevant ones today may not be the relevant ones tomorrow.

2. What would you say is the print industry’s #1 challenge for 2013? Why?

Dr. Joe: It's not just one. The financial problems in which many printers find themselves affect their abilities to adapt to the new communications. Printers have to figure out what their core business is and what they will be doing in 2018, and how to transition to that. There is no challenge for 2013 alone. The upheaval in the print business is about to intensify, and there are about 10 challenges that are all claiming top priority. It's really hard to be a print CEO now. You can have things figured out today and next quarter things look really different.

3. If you owned a commercial printing company, what 3 steps would you take to ensure its relevancy and success, effective immediately, and in which order?

Dr. Joe: We don't have the luxury of order. We have to do everything at once. My answer sounds simple but is not. A typical mid-size print business should consider starting a separate digital media company with a focus on cross media applications. The mainstream print business should focus on communications logistics, coordinating print and the products of the digital media business. The other step would be to downsize the traditional print business and get heavily involved in digital printing and print specialty items. Simple answers, impractical for most printers to implement.

4. If you owned a commercial printing company and could hire a couple of new employees to help your business thrive, what kind of employee/s would you hire? Sales? Production? Marketing? Or…?? And why?

Dr. Joe: Geeks. Folks who can program gadgets and can work with media and optimize it for all kinds of gadgets and viewing circumstances. We're at the point of practical simultaneous deployment of media where websites are viewed on desktops, laptops, tablets, smartphones, and those same images have to work in print whether it's printed at someone's desk, in small volumes on a demand printer, or in higher volumes on a press. Someone's got to make all that work.

5. I’m keeping my eye on Gen C. Can you think of how we could make the printing industry more attractive to members of this always-connected generation?

Dr. Joe: Gen C? You mean those digital natives who don't know a time when there was no Internet or you could not satisfy any content urge instantly? Our industry needs to be younger. The way to attract them is to run healthy, growing, and interesting companies that attract employees like a magnet. It has nothing to do with courting trade schools or high school guidance counselors. It has everything to do with being engaged with the marketplace in interesting ways, digitally and personally.

The printing industry needs to get younger. Lack of age diversity caused the lagged response to the Internet, and everything that's followed it. We wasted our time “educating” buyers about a supposed “power of print” rather than immersing ourselves and becoming part of the revolution.

As you know, I recently moved from Rhode Island to North Carolina. I went to the local chapter of the American Marketing Association where we had a

marvelous presentation by one of the biggest marketing and communications budget businesses in the state and their ad agency. Not a single printer was there to hear them talk about their new initiatives with their customers and prospects, and how they decide to allocate their budgets and how they evaluate the effectiveness of what they do. The audience was packed with decision-makers and advisors, which would have been a great source for networking and a means to identify younger managerial talent for our business. Like they say in the lottery commercials, you have to be in it to win it. These communicator and content creation trade associations are always looking for members, speakers, panelists, and hosts for events, but our industry is absent from those opportunities. I'd love to go to a meeting and hear a print executive talk about the importance of social media, audience engagement, and the comparative costs and effectiveness of media in an independent and unbiased way, and especially discuss how they use media in their business at these kinds of events. We can't afford to be outsiders.

Let me thank Dr. Joe Webb for his forthright appraisal of what’s happening in the print industry. If you want to reach him, email him at . I’d also like to suggest you get his latest book, Disrupting the Future: Uncommon Wisdom for Navigating Print’s Challenging Marketplace, co-written by Richard Romano. Here’s a holiday gift: download this book for free at http://whattheythink.com/disrupting-the-future/.

What do you think of Dr. Joe’s position on what’s happening in the field? I’m very curious.

© 2012 Margie Dana. All rights reserved. You’re free to forward this email. However, no part of this column may be reprinted without permission from the author.