Repurposing Content--Extending Content Services
August 2000
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The role of printer is today the role of content manager. Print buyers are turning to printers for more than one-stop services of an ink-and-paper nature. How do your services measure up?
BY MARIE RANOIA ALONSO
Do your customers have instant access to their files over the Web? As soon as you have scanned or copied their images onto your server, are they available through a secure Website for your clients? Do your clients come to you for scanning, image distribution—and printing? What's more, do you want to do all of this stuff?
Unfortunately, you may not have a choice. Today's truly progressive commercial printers and prepress firms must be content managers.
P&H Graphic Communications knows this content management reality quite well. Founded in 1970 as a phototypesetter—the original name was P&H Photo Composition—the Minneapolis firm added headlining and custom color services in the 1980s. The company transitioned to the Macintosh production platform in 1989. Film services were added in the early '90s, and color retouching and correction came in the last half of that decade.
Today, P&H provides complete print and electronic communications services, from concept and marketing strategy, to production, film, plate, digital file or Web—all under one roof. The company also provides product packaging mockup and fabrication services. P&H serves the corporate, advertising and design industries. Most of the company's accounts are local to the Twin Cities, but its national account base is growing quickly.
P&H is networked to deliver content management to its clients. In August of 1998, the company installed Xinet's FullPress, an OPI prepress server. "When we were searching for servers in 1997 we thought we wanted one with an integrated asset management system," reports Paul Herzing, prepress manager at P&H Graphic Communications. "The idea was that this would help us transition from a 'rules, compliance and punishment' method of managing our files to one enforced by the server, which would sit in the middle of our workflow like a traffic cop."
What P&H discovered (and, for the record, Herzing considers this a good discovery) was that most of the asset management software available at the time was flawed, expensive, awkward and poorly implemented. "Given that our staff has always been very good about following well-established asset management rules, we felt the solutions on the market were worse than the problem. So we waited."
BY MARIE RANOIA ALONSO
Do your customers have instant access to their files over the Web? As soon as you have scanned or copied their images onto your server, are they available through a secure Website for your clients? Do your clients come to you for scanning, image distribution—and printing? What's more, do you want to do all of this stuff?
Unfortunately, you may not have a choice. Today's truly progressive commercial printers and prepress firms must be content managers.
P&H Graphic Communications knows this content management reality quite well. Founded in 1970 as a phototypesetter—the original name was P&H Photo Composition—the Minneapolis firm added headlining and custom color services in the 1980s. The company transitioned to the Macintosh production platform in 1989. Film services were added in the early '90s, and color retouching and correction came in the last half of that decade.
Today, P&H provides complete print and electronic communications services, from concept and marketing strategy, to production, film, plate, digital file or Web—all under one roof. The company also provides product packaging mockup and fabrication services. P&H serves the corporate, advertising and design industries. Most of the company's accounts are local to the Twin Cities, but its national account base is growing quickly.
P&H is networked to deliver content management to its clients. In August of 1998, the company installed Xinet's FullPress, an OPI prepress server. "When we were searching for servers in 1997 we thought we wanted one with an integrated asset management system," reports Paul Herzing, prepress manager at P&H Graphic Communications. "The idea was that this would help us transition from a 'rules, compliance and punishment' method of managing our files to one enforced by the server, which would sit in the middle of our workflow like a traffic cop."
What P&H discovered (and, for the record, Herzing considers this a good discovery) was that most of the asset management software available at the time was flawed, expensive, awkward and poorly implemented. "Given that our staff has always been very good about following well-established asset management rules, we felt the solutions on the market were worse than the problem. So we waited."
Companies Mentioned:
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