NAPL

PARAMUS, NJ—JULY 20, 2007—The Soderstrom Society of NAPL (www.napl.org), trade association for excellence in graphic communications management, has named Joseph A. Becker, CPA, recipient of the 47th annual Walter E. Soderstrom Award. One of the graphic communications industry’s most prestigious honors, the award will be presented to Becker at the annual dinner meeting of NAPL’s Walter E. Soderstrom Society, at the Art Institute of Chicago, on Saturday, Sept. 8, 2007, the eve of GRAPH EXPO®. This year, the Soderstrom Society Dinner will also mark the beginning of a year-long celebration of NAPL’s 75th Anniversary (see related July 20, 2007, NAPL press release.) In

PITTSBURGH—July 19, 2007—The Print and Graphics Scholarship Foundation (PGSF) is hosting an Educational Summit Meeting at GRAPH EXPO® ’07 in Chicago. The purpose of the Summit Meeting is to present current challenges and possible solutions for those issues that face the graphic arts industry in the areas of education and recruitment. We would like to invite you and others in your organization to attend the Summit Meeting. Speakers are key stakeholders in the areas of education, industry promotion, recruitment, and print production. Each speaker will present their organization’s two greatest challenges and the best solutions to these issues. Our industry has common problems in

RESTON, VA—08/01/07—Providing graphic communications professionals with new opportunities for diversification that play into key market trends, GRAPH EXPO, the largest annual digital and offset printing show in the Americas, will feature a special “Books & Bound Documents Day” on Sunday, September 9, as part of the event being held in Chicago’s McCormick Place South, September 9-12, 2007. Aimed at nearly all types of print providers, “Books & Bound Documents Day” will showcase applications that demonstrate how digitally printed books and bound documents - from manuals and directories to training materials and consumer titles - can deliver lucrative new opportunities for today’s printers. Throughout the

WEST CHICAGO, IL—07/19/07—Independent Graphic Services, Inc. will highlight its full range of sheetfed press service and parts programs, consumables, new services including refurbishing and exchange programs and its new CO2 (dry ice) press cleaning/service in Booth Number 1469 at Graph Expo ‘07 in Chicago. CO2 (DRY ICE) PRESS CLEANING/BLASTING IGS now offers a cost-effective dry ice cleaning/blasting service for use in cleaning presses or any printing machinery. CO2 (dry ice) cleaning/blasting is a safe, non-toxic, non-flammable, non-conductive and environmentally responsible cleaning method used for general maintenance. Lengthy cleaning processes can now be shortened by on-line precision cleaning. Patented dry ice pellets have the mass and density

There has been quite a brouhaha this week in the printing industry after Adobe announced that it is adding a “send to FedEx Kinko’s” button in Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader. Industry associations NAPL and PIA/GATF have been unusually vocal and quick to admonish Adobe. They claim the button creates an unfair business advantage to FedEx Kinko’s and are concerned that document owners, creatives and print buyers would choose FedEx Kinko’s for printing, instead of going through the normal process of choosing a print supplier.

Indeed, the button would make choosing FedEx Kinko’s easy. However, I’m not sure how much of a real threat

PARAMUS, NJ—JUNE 27, 2007 – On behalf of the members of The NAPL Network, Joseph P. Truncale, president and chief executive officer of NAPL (www.napl.org), the trade association for excellence in graphic communications management, and Steve Johnson, president and chief executive officer of the National Association of Quick Printers (NAQP), sent a letter to Adobe Systems, Inc. Chief Executive Officer Bruce Chizen expressing their concern over a recently announced agreement between Adobe and FedEx Kinko’s in which the newest versions of Adobe® Reader and Adobe Acrobat® software feature an embedded connection to FedEx Kinko’s PrintOnline application. The views in the letter

CHICAGO—June, 2007—From building wraps to fine art reproductions, digitally printed extra-large products have provided a path to new profits and opportunity for printers and other specialists all over America. The Wide Format Pavilion at GRAPH EXPO, which returns in September for its 5th year, has been a key catalyst for this trend. The Pavilion has showcased for GRAPH EXPO’s tens of thousands of participants the flexibility and appeal of wide format output using inkjet and other digitally-driven technologies. Many of the products and tools first seen in the Pavilion have since become familiar on the larger show floor of America’s premiere graphic communications exhibition.

On the last day of this month, I will be 65. And, dammit, I’m still not grown up. I still don’t know what I wannabe when I grow up.

This is sad. I ask myself: “How am I defined?”

Ever wonder how you are defined? It’s scary to think about.

When I finish this column, I will have written 251 “DeWese on Sales” columns for PRINTING IMPRESSIONS magazine. Does that define me as a columnist?

I owned the Marple Crawdads semi-pro baseball team, coached more than 1,000 baseball games and won nearly 80 percent of the games. That’s better than the win percentages of Connie Mack

Results of the 2007 NAPL Fulfillment Practices Survey provided a valuable reflection of today’s Mailing and Fulfillment (M&F) market. Survey results suggest there are two views to the M&F story—one that reflects the efforts and actions of larger, more successful firms and another that provides a snapshot of the fulfillment industry as a whole. The practices and expectations of larger firms are a valuable reflection of this dynamic and evolving value-added service, both from the view of printers wanting to get into and improve their fulfillment offering, as well as the fulfillment buyers who want to compare their own service provider. Thumbnail summaries like

THIS IS my 250th column for PRINTING IMPRESSIONS and, as I predicted way back in my first year—1984—the world population would reach 6.6 billion people. How is it I am accurately prescient? Remarkable!

I also predicted the U.S. population would reach 300 million. Yep. I was right about this also. Gee, I’m good.

Furthermore, in these very pages in 1984, I predicted the number of Websites and blogs would total about 6.7 billion­—and, I’m pretty sure that I am right about that number. The remarkable thing about that last prediction is that 1984 was six years before the World Wide Web was invented by