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Quad/Graphics Leads in Healthcare
Content Management Selection Mistakes
XMLdocs Content and Document Management
Roll Your Own Postage
Friday, May 16, 2003
Print, Perception, and the Brain
Much of my professional career has been spent in the publishing and graphic arts industries -- dealing in the production and manufacture of images and print, or studying the tools and technologies that made it possible. For the past 15 years that has meant lots of time in front of computers -- reading, writing, and doing myriad other functions.In all that time I'd come to feel that information I take in from the computer screen just doesn't stick with me the way it should -- the way I thought it used to. I have to keep referring back, looking again, or maybe printing it out to take it with me. It seemed like my memory used to be better, but I just thought maybe I was getting old.
Now comes Richard Restak, M.D., in his book Mozart's Brain and the Fighter Pilot, to confirm my symptom but not its cause. Restak is a prolific author, having written 12 books on the brain, and is a clinical professor of neurology at George Washington University. In his chapter on attention and concentration he provides a scientific explanation for my dilemma:
[...] Although you probably never thought of it this way, reading and writing on a computer actually has a lot in common with watching television. Both television and computers incorporate a mosaic of images, backlit screens, and near instantaneous speed. All three of these attributes, especially in combination, tend to engage the right hemisphere and thus generate emotional involvement. This, of course, results in conflict since words -- at least the words employed in business communications -- are intended to involve the rational, processing characteristics of the left hemisphere. Further, when words appear on a computer screen, the right hemisphere is called into play in ways that would not occur when you're writing or reading the same words on a page. Indeed, expressing one's opinion on the computer screen engages a different part of the brain than when writing or typing out the same sentiment on a piece of paper. [...]
Restak goes on to postulate that this left-right conflict has also resulted in the shortening of our attention span, something raised by Eric McLuhan in Electric Language: Understanding the Message. Both McLuhan and Restak point out that computers make it more difficult to distinguish raw data and information from knowledge (an area I think weblogs can provide some help) and fill our brains with the logical equivalent of bric-a-brac.
Restak isn't anti-computer. In a later chapter he discusses how they are becoming our outboard brains and how we can best use them. He suggests keeping a laptop within reach at almost all times, and a Palm device whenever a laptop isn't available. But without regard to whether computers are good or bad, they are clearly affecting the way we perceive and process information.
Restak's background for my own (perceived) information processing deficit has given me a new perspective on the situation, and new language to explain my long-standing regard for print. While we may eventually move to the paperless society, our brains are still clinging to the tangible, logical universe. And print will be with us for a long time to come.
Monday, February 10, 2003
Quad/Graphics Leads in Healthcare
This brief from the Dec. 16, 2002 Business Week notes how Quad/Graphics has turned the problem of providing healthcare to 14,000 employees into an opportunity for innovation.
[...] At Quad/Graphics, a printer with 14,000 employees, the company's own doctors and nurses offer primary care on-site, and the company has a small network of specialists. Over the past four years, Quad's health-care costs have risen just 6% annually. That means their health-care spending is now 17% less than the industry average. "Our plan saves us money, cuts down on the bureaucracy associated with managed care, and employees love it," says John Neuberger, a director at Quad. [...] [BW Online]
Monday, January 27, 2003
Content Management Selection Mistakes
This article highlights five common mistakes in selecting a content management system for the enterprise. While written for a web-content audience, these rules apply to almost any technology decision. The rules are particularly applicable to the transitional printing industry, as failure to think strategically about content and establish a broad-based selection team often lead to ill-advised and unprofitable investments.
Five biggest mistakes in CMS selection. Lisa Welchman has written an article on the five biggest mistakes in CMS selection, which she lists as:A practical, well considered article that tells it like it is ... [Column Two]
- Letting a software vendor tell you what you need
- Not establishing a broad-based selection team
- Not understanding the total cost of ownership
- Not thinking strategically about content management
- Not understanding the parameters of Web content management
XMLdocs Content and Document Management
Many small to medium businesses will skip completely over the current crop of expensive, large-scale, single purpose content systems for simpler, less expensive hybrids that meet their need to bridge both print and electronic media.Print service providers with an eye to the future will watch evolving products like XMLdocs, and prepare for the day they are asked to accept data driectly from such systems.
XML Editor Meets Hosted Document Management. What happens when you combine a novel, browser-based XML editor with a hosted document repository? Well, we're not really sure, but it will be interesting to find out. A start-up... [CMSWatch Trends and Features]
Roll Your Own Postage
Daniel Pink, of Free Agent Nation, ponders the possibilities of combining Stamps.com and iPrint to let users design and print their own postage (free article at the Wall Street Journal's StartupJournal.) Conclusion: Interesting idea, but we'll be waiting a while.
[...] This venture -- call it Roll Your Own Postage (RYOP) -- would appeal to both individuals and businesses. An engaged couple could convert a photo of themselves into a stamp for their wedding initiations. A first-grader could turn her latest drawing into official U.S. postage. With the plummeting cost and soaring sophistication of digital cameras, color printers, scanners and design software, millions of consumers would find this task easy and fun.And businesses could use this service to transform the upper right-hand corner of envelopes into mini-billboards. Imagine a stamp for Joe's Insurance Agency or Debbie's Car Repair. Or imagine stamps devoted to particular political and social causes. Who knows? Stamp collectors might even get into the act -- buying new issues and creating a secondary market for RYOP stamps.
Since this venture would exist largely online -- and since it wouldn't do any actual printing -- costs would be low. Revenue would come through charging a premium -- say 40 cents per first-class stamp -- on custom postage. [...]
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