Ready, AIIM, Aspire

By Frank Romano

April 13, 2007 -- Next week there is a little-known secret that most printers miss or ignore. The On Demand show is actually two shows in one. The other part is a show run by AIIM, a 60-year old association for enterprise content management -- the people who manage documents, content, records, and business processes.

Way back when there was the file room. I remember it well (I wonder if any two organizations have ever filed “3M” the same way). But in the 1940s a new technology reared its head -- microfilm. It eroded file room expansion by reducing the volume of paper records. One of my many jobs at the old Mergenthaler Linotype Company was the conversion of all the typographic records to Kodak’s Recordak system in the early 1960s. If you wanted the width information on characters in Garamond No. 3 you inserted the G cartridge and then hit some keys and the microfilm moved to a specific frame. You could then print the page using photographic paper that went through a chemical processor. The processor was built-in and eventually most of the metal parts corroded.

In time microfilm was replaced by scanning and disks of all kinds. Last year the big AIIM technology on display were automated scanners that turn pages and scan at high resolution. This is a hot capability for converting older books to digital data. A lot of what AIIM people do involves metadata -- the information about the information captured. Having a record is useless unless you can find and use the record.

So what does this have to do with printing services? Everything. If we only put colored substances on flat substrates we could be locked in a downward spiral of commodization. We must figure out how to extend our services into areas that add value to the information. When you add value, you add profit.

Take digital printing. You can wait until someone comes to you with a job or you can create your own jobs. There are printers who have partnered with companies that manufacture products that require operating and parts manuals. Some of these products may be discontinued. If you were to digitize the manuals, you could offer them on-demand to users of legacy equipment. In other words, the AIIM technologies and the On-Demand technologies work together.

This is, of course, an oversimplification of what AIIM people do. They are mostly IT professionals who are responsible for an organization’s most precious resource -- information. Thus many of the exhibitors offer software and systems for electronic content management. And print is one of the many output alternatives.

But most printers headed right for the digital printing equipment and bypassed the AIIM stuff. True, demonstrating software is the most boring activity other than one of my lectures. You have to stand while someone moves a cursor at high speed on a small screen while jabbering away. There has to be a better way to demonstrate software.

So take the time to check out the AIIM exhibitors and see if you can discover value-added services that will help your bottom line.

What do you think? Please send feedback to Frank by e-mailing him at fxrppr@rit.edu

Frank Romano has spent over 40 years in the printing and publishing industries. Many know him best as the editor of the International Paper Pocket Pal or from the hundreds of articles he has written for publications from North America and Europe to the Middle East to Asia and Australia.

He is the author of over 44 books, including the 10,000-term Encyclopedia of Graphic Communications (with Richard Romano), the standard reference in the field. His books on QuarkXPress, Adobe InDesign, and PDF workflow were among the first in their fields. He has authored most of the books on digital printing. His latest book is the 800-page textbook for Moscow State University.

He has founded eight publications, serving as publisher or editor for TypeWorld/Electronic Publishing (which ended in its 30th year of publication), Computer Artist, Color Publishing, The Typographer, EP&P, and both the NCPA and PrintRIT Journals. His columns appear monthly in the Digital Printing Report. He is the editor of the EDSF Report.

Romano lectures extensively, having addressed virtually every club, association, group, and professional organization at one time or another. He is one of the industry's foremost keynote speakers.

He has consulted for major corporations, publishers, government, and other users of digital printing and publishing technology. He wrote the first report on on-demand digital printing in 1980 and ran the first conference on the subject in 1985. He has conceptualized many of the workflow and applications techniques of the industry and was the principal researcher on the landmark EDSF study, Printing in the Age of the Web and Beyond.

He has been quoted in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Times of London, USA Today, Business Week, Forbes, and many other newspapers and publications, as well as on TV and radio. He has partnered with InfoTrends on strategic information for the printing industry.

He continues to teach courses at RIT and other universities and works with students on unique research projects.