From Print to Digital: Transform Your Business

After reading Todd Moshier rave about the presentation by John Paton at mediaXchange, I looked up the video. I have to agree with Todd: that talk was nothing short of inspirational. And while Mr Paton talks of and to newspapers, it struck me that his words are equally relevant for most businesses, including ours.

"the newspaper model is broken & can't be fixed" #fail #naamxc11#jrc

"There is no general model for newspapers to replace the one the internet just broke." (John Paton quoting Clay Shirky)

This isn't true just of newspapers but of many businesses: print is declining. That doesn't mean the skills or the objectives of print are redundant: you have to figure out what to work on and how to make it succeed. Quoting John Paton again:

"You don't transform from broken, you don't tinker or tweak: you start again anew."

"the new newspaper model must become digital first and print last" #customerswantdigital #naamxc11 #jrc

"Fact: more Americans access their news digitally than they do in print. . . Fact: more American advertising dollars are now spent online than in print. Fact: the customers are gone, folks. . . A business model that focuses on the product they want the least—print—is doomed. You must build your new model on what they want most and, first and foremost, that's digital."

All your customers are online: on Google, on news websites, on Facebook, on Twitter and Quora and FourSquare. Are you still advertising in printed publications? Are you still using that old brochure, putting it up on your website and hoping people will find it?

When we started, Affinity Express specialized in digitizing embroidery designs and other graphic services for the promotional products industry. Then we started producing print ads and marketing materials and quickly moved on to digital.