Where's the Love?
I'm spoiled. Why do I say this? As a fifteen year veteran of the technology industry, I'm used to tons of press, lots of analysts, concepts du jour in all sizes and shapes, startups popping out of the woodwork, know-it-all venture capitalists funding dozens of start-ups daily and using jargon like addressable market and discontinuous innovation, daily columns in the Wall Street Journal, and, well, you get the idea....
So what do I see when I look out across the vast $91 billion landscape of commercial printing? I could wax eloquent and use tons of metaphors. Instead, I'll spin-up a best guess statistic. There are probably 1,000 times more analysts for enterprise information systems than for commercial printing systems, easily 100 times more publications, and at least 50 times more trade shows. While we're at it, there are hundreds of forums, communities, and public domain "open source" projects out there in cyberspace. Here's a real statistic: sourceforge.net Registered Projects: 122,467 Registered Users: 1,332,376 (as of today, of course). And that's just one open source watering hole. Boy those geeks sure are busy.....
Okay, maybe enterprise IT is ten times bigger than commercial printing. So, take a zero off all my SWAG numbers. Go ahead. You won't hurt my feelings, or lessen my point. Where's the love? For an industry that soaks up as much of the GDP as commercial printing does, you'd think there'd be more out there.
Why the disparity? Short answer - I dunno (technical term for "no clue"). Perhaps a more pertinent question is what's the implication? So what if there are not hordes of smarty pants analysts, news stories, and/or cover stories of Business Week focused on printing innovations (by the way, that, and all other publications are printed - aren't they?). Here's the so what: This is an inefficient market. Said differently, there are lots of people bumping around that could use more information. Yet, sadly, our "information economy" is failing to produce it. Maybe we are too busy printing the information to share any information about printing. Or maybe there is too little information about printing to print it. Or maybe information about information is more compelling than information about printing. Whatever the case, it seems like we're on to something here at thINK Plaza.
It seems like having an open forum where people can share information, ideas, tips and insights is a good thing. Seems like it may be time to grow our own.
So here is an open invitation. Get your wettest spaghetti noodle and whack me upside the head. Tell me about all the specialty and commercial printing resources I'm missing: all the analysts, the specialty publications, the online forums and discussion boards. Have at! Am I missing something?
Thanks for reading and see you on the Plaza,
Chet the Jet
I'm spoiled. Why do I say this? As a fifteen year veteran of the technology industry, I'm used to tons of press, lots of analysts, concepts du jour in all sizes and shapes, startups popping out of the woodwork, know-it-all venture capitalists funding dozens of start-ups daily and using jargon like addressable market and discontinuous innovation, daily columns in the Wall Street Journal, and, well, you get the idea....
So what do I see when I look out across the vast $91 billion landscape of commercial printing? I could wax eloquent and use tons of metaphors. Instead, I'll spin-up a best guess statistic. There are probably 1,000 times more analysts for enterprise information systems than for commercial printing systems, easily 100 times more publications, and at least 50 times more trade shows. While we're at it, there are hundreds of forums, communities, and public domain "open source" projects out there in cyberspace. Here's a real statistic: sourceforge.net Registered Projects: 122,467 Registered Users: 1,332,376 (as of today, of course). And that's just one open source watering hole. Boy those geeks sure are busy.....
Okay, maybe enterprise IT is ten times bigger than commercial printing. So, take a zero off all my SWAG numbers. Go ahead. You won't hurt my feelings, or lessen my point. Where's the love? For an industry that soaks up as much of the GDP as commercial printing does, you'd think there'd be more out there.
Why the disparity? Short answer - I dunno (technical term for "no clue"). Perhaps a more pertinent question is what's the implication? So what if there are not hordes of smarty pants analysts, news stories, and/or cover stories of Business Week focused on printing innovations (by the way, that, and all other publications are printed - aren't they?). Here's the so what: This is an inefficient market. Said differently, there are lots of people bumping around that could use more information. Yet, sadly, our "information economy" is failing to produce it. Maybe we are too busy printing the information to share any information about printing. Or maybe there is too little information about printing to print it. Or maybe information about information is more compelling than information about printing. Whatever the case, it seems like we're on to something here at thINK Plaza.
It seems like having an open forum where people can share information, ideas, tips and insights is a good thing. Seems like it may be time to grow our own.
So here is an open invitation. Get your wettest spaghetti noodle and whack me upside the head. Tell me about all the specialty and commercial printing resources I'm missing: all the analysts, the specialty publications, the online forums and discussion boards. Have at! Am I missing something?
Thanks for reading and see you on the Plaza,
Chet the Jet
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