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Print Industry Insight
30 Oct. 2014 V47, No. 15
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GRAPH EXPO DEFIES EXPECTATIONS—OVERALL A GOOD SHOW
By Katherine O'Brien, American Printer
G
Also Inside: Shift to Digital Runs Deeper Than Technological Changes
RAPH EXPO 2014 was a good show. It was an event that defied many expectations but also gives us pause as
we consider how such conferences can best adapt and evolve to serve constituents.
Many remarked on the configuration of the expo hall. As a man with a receding hairline might try to disguise
the fact, the new layout was something of a giant comb over; with the registration area now occupying a generous
swath of what was prime offset real estate in past years. But at least one exhibitor told me the layout had been effective
at getting traffic into the hall. So I would say it was a good move, but also one that reflects the challenge of reinventing
the show to reflect the times.
According to The Graphic Arts Show Company (GASC), the Expo organizer, onsite verified attendance totaled
19,229. This represents an 8 percent decline from GRAPH EXPO 2012 (PRINT shows—which are bigger—are held
every four years; 2013 was a PRINT year, hence the 2012 comparison). As GASC noted, air transit into Chicago’s airports was completely shut down two days before the show opened, following a fire at a Federal Aviation Administration facility.
I spoke to people who were delayed, and I know several people who had to cancel their plans. Many participants flew
to airports in neighboring states and drove in from there. Most travelers were matter-of-fact—yes, it was a challenge to
get there, but they made it.
Even without the unfortunate arson that interrupted many attendees’ plans, it’s unlikely that this show would have broken any records. It was clearly a smaller show.
GASC offered many testimonials from exhibitors and attendees and I can vouch for their veracity. I heard the same
positive comments, and I reiterate my opening statement: GRAPH EXPO 2014 was a good show.
But facts must be faced—there was one offset press on display, a Ryobi MHI, now installed at Apex Color (Jacksonville, Fla.). Heidelberg did not attend. Goss, KBA, Komori, manroland and Presstek had courtesy booths.
KBA has repeatedly stressed its commitment to and support of the industry. “KBA was extremely pleased with the
quality of attendees at the show this year,” Eric Frank, KBA VP of marketing, told GASC. “With many new introductions, we were able to meet and connect one-on-one with many of our key accounts…it was a great show.”
Mike D'Angelo, managing director, Goss International Americas, called it a solid show for his company: “Seeing
plenty of newspaper and commercial customers, also our packaging technology encouraged lively discussion and we
also closed some deals during the show which, of course, is really what it’s all about.”
I did not solicit comments from the other offset vendors, but I do wonder about their game plans—even with modest
booths, exhibiting represents a considerable expense. Can they continue to justify it?
Digital dominated the hall—Canon/Océ,
Epson, Fujifilm, HP, Konica Minolta, Oki
Data, Ricoh, Sharp, Xerox, Xeikon, to
name a few—and this event also marked the
return of Kodak with a full-fledged display.
Some of these exhibitors booked less space
than at previous shows and Screen didn’t exhibit. Continued on next page, right-hand
column >> TalkBack@GreensheetBIZ.com
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30 October 2014
NAMES IN THE NEWS
COVER (Cont.) GRAPH EXPO REPORT______________________________
 Joseph P. Truncale, Ph.D., is
stepping down as the head of
AMSP/NAPL/NAQP. After a 30year career with NAPL and the
newly blended associations, Truncale is becoming the chief executive officer of the Public Relations
Society of America. Effective Jan.
12, 2015, J. Kenneth Garner will
become the new CEO of
AMSP/NAPL/NAQP.
 Ron Friedman was named as
chief sales and marketing officer
of Doxee.
 Dan MacKillop joined Xitron as
technical support manager.
 Dr. Pierre-Alain Brugger was
appointed to the CMA Imaging
consulting group.
 Steve Urmano became the director of the wide format printing
consulting service at InfoTrends.
 Rory Marsoun was named Esko’s
new VP of flexo business development.
 Jerry Montella of Mail-Gard, a
division of IWCO Direct, was
elected to the National Postal Policy Council Board of Directors.
 John Rafner became the new national account executive at Think
Patented.
 Douglas Jackson accepted the
role of operations director for
Drytac Europe.
 Brad Williams joined Flexo Concepts as OEM account executive.
 Derek Milne became a part of the
U.S. operations team for PuzzleFlow Media Technologies.
 Organizers of the 67th Annual
Conference of the Technical Association of the Graphic Arts
(TAGA), March 22–25, 2015 in
Albuquerque, N.M., named the
keynote speakers, including: Dr.
Bruce Kahn, Clemson University;
Chris Travis, KBA; Michael Van
Haren, Quad/Graphics; and Patrick Younk, Los Alamos National
Laboratory.
 Four professionals joined the Jupiter Visual Communications team,
including; Brian Judge and Mark
Haines as business directors, and
Alex Davenport and Scott Grant
as project managers.
There were a few surprises at this show:
HP and KBA are teaming up on roll-to-roll inkjet solutions for the high-volume
corrugated packaging market. We’ll have to wait for more details—neither company is
ready to reveal the specifics.
XMPie and CHILI Publish announced a web-to-print collaboration. XMPie
will offer the integrated uStore/CHILI Publisher product bundle as part of its solution offering. Both XMPie and CHILI Publish can sell the XMPie Connector to uStore and
CHILI Publisher customers. The Connector integrates CHILI Publisher with the uStore,
XMPie’s workflow solution for receiving, processing and producing orders received
online.
Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A. launched FileAssist, a server-based
file storage and collaborative solution developed exclusively for Konica Minolta and
hosted by Konica Minolta’s Managed IT services provider All Covered. The company
also added iSys Label entry-level digital label printers to its offerings. On the 3D front,
it’s distributing 3D Systems machines.
Ricoh’s expanded portfolio includes the Ricoh Pro C7100 series with fifth color
station—at a price point attractive to small and midsized commercial printers; and the
Ricoh Pro C9100/C9110 high-speed production color laser printers. Its TotalFlow array
of software, hardware and finishing solutions includes its own offerings as well as some
from Mimaki, GBC, Plockmatic, Xante, Duplo, Avanti, CGS, EFI, PTI, RSA and
more. Ricoh USA and PriscoDigital also signed a national distribution agreement, a significant move for both sides. PRISCO has a long-standing wide-format relationship with
HP—this is an interesting move.
Bell and Howell’s CartonWrap is billed as a packaging-on-demand solution. It
creates and fills packages sized to individual product dimensions on demand. It creates
corrugated boxes to fit the volume of the content, eliminating the use and expense of box
filler, reduces shipping expense by minimizing the shipment of empty space, and reduces
labor—a single operator reportedly can produce 15 boxes per minute.
“Motioncutter” is a digital high-speed laser system that lets users personalize direct mail and packaging. A mesh conveyor belt enables the machine to run in-line with a
digital press. Users can cut out shapes for packaging, kiss cut labels, filigree cut cards,
engrave art work and names and even personalize each individual sheet with a “namecut.” I had seen a video of it at Dscoop and was glad to see the actual machine in Chicago.
Standard Finishing Solutions showcased a CD mailer that highlighted two
new offerings: the RD-4055 Rotary Die Cutter as well as the CRF-362 Creaser/Folder.
With this mailer and the other samples being run at the show, visitors could see the possibilities in their own operations to do labels, pop-up mailers, boxes, pocket folders and
more.
At drupa, Israeli-based Highcon debuted “Euclid,” said to be the world’s first
entirely digital cutting and creasing production machine for folding cartons. Taking the
tagline “direct to pack,” Highcon’s converting solution is based on its Digital Adhesive
Rule Technology (DART).
Earlier this year, the Highcon “scored” a key win with American Greetings.
Momentum continued in Chicago: the Highcon Euclid II+ digital cutting and creasing
machine seen at GRAPH EXPO has been purchased by Carolina Graphic Services, a
member of Interstate Resources, Inc. Container Division.
GRAPH EXPO 14 marked the debut of Educators/Associations Day. The
event replaced the long-standing GASC/Printing Industries of America Teachers Conference, which was canceled this year due to lack of funds. “We needed a focused session
respecting the important role that educators and associations play in furthering our industry through the preparation of our industry’s future leadership and the professional development of those already in the field,” said Cal Poly’s Harvey Levenson. “Educators/Associations Day was one last-minute attempt at such recognition. While this first
event was small, I trust that it will be the foundation for future GRAPH EXPO events of
this nature. It would be a perfect part of the Teachers Conference should funding be reinstated for next year and beyond.”
Veritiv, the entity that resulted following the merger of International Paper
Company’s xpedx division and Unisource Worldwide...
Continued on Next Page >>>
GreensheetBIZ
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30 October 2014
AWARDS
GRAPH EXPO (Cont.)_____________________________________________
 Rick Taylor, president and COO
of Konica Minolta, was named
The Cannata Report's Executive of
the Year.
 John Foley, Jr., CEO, interlinkONE and Grow Socially, was
named No. 15 on the “50 Most Influential CMOs on Social Media”
list, in a recent Forbes article.
 INX International Ink Co. scored
high marks from Tension Corporationin, earning a Citation of Excellence Award.
 Visual Magnetics was honored at
the SGIA Expo in Las Vegas for
the newly released VMCHALKboard PLUS, which competed in the Digital Inkjet Media –
Films category.
 Marabu North America earned
the Specialty Graphic Imaging Association (SGIA) Product of the
Year Award in Finishing – Laminates, Adhesives, Films, Coatings
for Marashield UV-Curable Liquid
Coatings at the SGIA Expo.
 Agfa Graphics’ Jeti Titan HS
wide-format inkjet printing system
was selected as Product of the
Year at the SGIA Expo.
 Avanti Computer Systems Limited marked its 30th anniversary.
 InnerWorkings, Inc. received a
first-place 2014 Luxury Packaging
Award for its Glengoyne 25-yearold Highland single malt Scotch
Whisky package and a secondplace award for its Champagne
Bollinger RD package.
 The Association of National Advertisers recognized the 2014 recipients of its Rising Marketing
Star Award. The honorees, all age
32 or under, were nominated by
executives at their companies for
making contributions to the overall
excellence and effectiveness of
their marketing organization. The
Rising Marketing Stars are: Tomas Arias, associate brand manager, BAND-AID Brand, Johnson
& Johnson; Dave Dickson, senior
product marketing manager, Adobe; Eddie Eames, manager, marketing and client services, The National Theatre for Children, Inc.;
and Anna Scott, marketing manager, Rent-A-Center.
…sponsored the publication of a new book by Dr. Joe Webb and Richard Romano
called This Point Forward. Webb and Romano urge readers to identify new marketing
services that clients need but probably don’t have time to pursue, such as a videos, social
media management and database management.
Summing Up: GRAPH EXPO was a good show. But by most accounts, a
GREAT show took place just two weeks earlier: Labelexpo Americas. According to an
announcement from the conference organizers: “Celebrating its 25th anniversary, the
show registered a 12 percent increase in footfall with 16,029 show visitors and achieved
an 83 percent onsite rebooking rate for 2016’s event. Highlights included new digital
presses such as HP’s WS6800 and the Cheetah from Xeikon. Other major launches included Mark Andy’s Digital Series hybrid inkjet/flexo press and Nuova Gidue’s 5 UV
flexo press.”
drupa 2016 will be here before we know it. This could be good—if exhibitors
are ready to generate some pre-drupa buzz—or it could be challenging—if they save
their resources for 2016. I don’t have any pat answers as we look ahead to GRAPH
EXPO 2015. I think the show company has some tough decisions to make and that
things will get harder before they get easier. —Katherine O’Brien is an associate editor
of GreensheetBIZ and the senior editor of American Printer.
THE SHIFT TO DIGITAL RUNS MUCH DEEPER THAN JUST TECH CHANGES
By Dennis Mason, Associate Editor, GreensheetBIZ
e’re now winding up the first round of graphic arts trade shows in 2014-15.
Labelexpo, GRAPH EXPO and SGIA—each in its own way—illustrate the
massive shifts occurring in the printing industry.
Labelexpo has always been a flexographic show, where press manufacturers
like Mark Andy and Nilpeter hold court. Big consumer brands made flexo a major force
because of its predictability over long runs. GRAPH EXPO, on the other hand, has traditionally showcased offset lithography, with its quality focus. But this year, digital took a
significant bite out of both flexographic and offset printing at these shows, demonstrating
its practicality for ever-longer print runs of labels, packaging and general commercial
printing. Old-line manufacturers such as Mark Andy and KBA, for the first time, embraced (and thereby endorsed) digital printing and showed it on their stands.
The shift to digital runs much deeper than just a technological change, however.
We are witnessing no less than the globalization and democratization of print. In North
America, the size of our economy and the fact that our people are spread out across a vast
continent led us to develop a printing industry of specialists based on printing process
and end use. We have flexographic label printers, offset printers who do collateral literature and gravure package printers. If we want almost anything printed, someone is available who does just that and does it well.
The advent of digital printing significantly lowered the barrier to entry for
generalists. Digital label printing was not broadly commercialized by label printers (who
were philosophically and technologically biased toward flexography), but by entrepreneurs who saw business opportunity where others saw an alien process. Ditto the shift to
digital in commercial printing, and other segments.
The idea of embracing more than one process is not new, however, to printers in
smaller countries. In both developing economies and smaller industrial countries, printers
generally serve a spectrum of industries, utilizing many print processes under one roof.
In North America, we are just beginning to adopt this multifaceted printing approach.
Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than at the SGIA show in Las Vegas,
where smaller print suppliers are the rule, and manufacturers display screen printing,
flexography, inkjet, wide-format and virtually every other process—all in the context of
putting images on substrate for any purpose. In fact, North American printers are becoming more like those in smaller countries, offering imaging without regard to industry or
process. Entrepreneurs who want to image materials can go to SGIA and let their minds
roam through the possibilities.
Labelexpo and GRAPH EXPO have suffered because of their dedication to
specific processes. SGIA has grown because of its holistic approach to imaging. Old-line
printers who do not understand this find themselves in the marketplace facing entrepreneurs who have no dedication to process. And digital print is the enabler that makes these
newcomers a threat to tradition. Dennis Mason is principal of Mason Consulting.
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GreensheetBIZ
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30 October 2014
GreensheetBIZ.com includes more in-depth coverage. Bold, underlined text indicates a link in the online edition.
SCUTTLEBUTT & OTHER SUNDRY STUFF

HP announced plans to separate into two new publicly-traded Fortune 50 companies. One half will be PCs and printers; the
other will be servers, networking, storage, software, services and other enterprise offerings. Each is worth about $55 billion as
individual units. CNBC analyst Jon Fortt described the prior HP structure as “scale play.” Fifteen years ago, when HP bought
Compaq, the idea was to be like a big box superstore—pressure vendors for low prices and be a one-stop shop for consumers.
But a big company, spread across many different areas, isn’t always nimble enough to respond to changes in the marketplace,
such as the shift from PCs to tablets. Fortt offered a cynical take on the two new HPs: “The company's Printing and Personal
Systems Group is uniquely good at printing, and that's about it,” says Fortt. “The group is a player in a bunch of interesting,
mostly commodity businesses, but nothing that's growing particularly fast.” The Gartner Group echoed some of Fortt’s observations, but noted that for current HP customers “no rash action is warranted,” because the move is largely one for shareholders and will have little impact on the customers. Managed print services do face some challenges ahead. According to
Gartner: “To effectively compete with Xerox and others, HP’s managed print services customers (which will go to HP Inc.)
need clarification on who will provide the ecosystem of content-related software and services (such as enterprise content management and information governance) currently provided from the enterprise side of HP.” The Wall Street Journal noted the
split was years in the making. And some analysts predict the streamlined HP will make a big 3D splash. — Katherine O’Brien
 IDEAlliance released Version 13 of its Guide to Print Production, a comprehensive review of critical standards and best practices in print production, including GRACoL, SWOP and G7. See idealliance.org.
 Flint Group Flexographic Products presented its new FlexoToolbox App for iPhone, iPad and Android devices, which is
now commercially available. This interactive collection of tools incorporates many different functions for simplifying and
standardizing flexo prepress, plate making and process control. The app can assist platemakers with tasks ranging from the calculation of plate distortion, the control of processing parameters, such as solvent balance or monitoring UVA intensity and the
determination of sleeve diameters. The app is free in the Apple App Store and in the Google Play Store in English. Chinese,
French, German and Spanish versions will also be available soon.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________
Donna’s Discussion from GreensheetBIZ Guest Contributor Donna Vieira
Are you using social media effectively?
If not, you may be missing out on an important
channel for reaching your customers, but you're definitely
not alone. Many in the C-suite still haven't embraced social
media in any meaningful way.
Recently, Forbes published an article and list of the
“50 Most Influential CMOs on Social Media,” and the results were telling. Only nine of the CMOs on the list came
from Fortune 500 companies, and only 10 were from software firms. This is a troubling statistic.
The C-Suite may be missing out on a major opportunity to reach and engage with customers and potential customers by not embracing social media. Their resistance is
understandable: ROI of a social campaign can be hard to
measure if you haven't set concrete goals. And social media's
impact is often described in terms of likes or mentions—
intangible results that don't always appeal to the C-level's
concern for the bottom line.
If there’s one thing the Forbes’ article can teach us,
it's that CEOs and CMOs need more education on social
media's real business benefits before jumping in with both
feet.
To that end, here are just a few things social media can do for your graphic arts business:
1. It can give you a leg up on the competition by
letting you listen to buzz about your company and competitors. Social networks are rich sources of market insights if
you listen carefully.
2. It increases your brand recognition and
reach. By adding your expert voice to the conversation, you have more chances to reach customers
who otherwise may not have heard of you.
3. A well-run social media campaign can
significantly increase your inbound website traffic.
Without social, the only people finding your site are those who already know about your company or happen to search for the keywords you rank for. Every social media post gives more people a
chance to discover your brand and find their way back to your
website.
4. Social media is a very cost effective marketing channel. With just a few hours of work each week, you can increase
awareness of your company and products, without spending a
huge chunk of your advertising budget.
Forbes did a good job of summing up why social networking is so important for CMOs of companies both big and
small: "Social media has become a part of our world...Social media is how we interact with friends, family, co-workers, brands,
and media."
Encourage your own organization and clients to get active on social media. And note: Creating an effective social media
strategy and solid metrics to measure ROI can be a challenge, but
the business benefits of a social campaign are well worth the effort. —Donna Vieira is the vice president of marketing of both
interlinkONE and Grow Socially. The companies’ President and
CEO, John Foley, Jr., came in at No. 15 on the list of the “50
Most Influential CMOs on Social Media.”
GreensheetBIZ management/editorial team: Co-CEOs Andy & Julie Plata; President Bob Tapella; Senior Editor Aaron Kiel; Associate Editors: Clint Bolte,
Sid Chadwick, Noel Jeffrey, Dennis Mason, Katherine O'Brien, Raymond J. Prince, John Werner, Tom Wetjen and William F. Woods, Jr.
ISSN: 0884-6901. OutputLinks Communications Group publishes GreensheetBIZ 2X monthly. Subscriptions: Info@GreensheetBIZ.com
Licensed for exclusive use of the party shown in the address block. All rights reserved. (c) 2014. No reproduction or electronic storage.