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By Cary Sherburne, Senior Editor
I am happy to report that my two panel sessions, Content Management: The Big Picture, and Soft Signage: Widening Your Horizons, were well-received, largely due to my two excellent end user presenters. Julie Rice from Master Tag shared her experiences in implementing a complex content management solution to manage the company’s digital assets required to produce the horticultural tags, labels and signage that represent its core business. Marco Alvarez, President of Fabric Images, educated the group about the pros and cons of getting into the soft signage (textile) business and had some great examples of work he has done, both in photo and textile format. The Great Offshore Outsourcing Debate One of the most interesting and provocative discussions took place during an evening panel discussion on offshore outsourcing of graphic arts services. Organized and facilitated by industry veteran Thad McIlroy, the panel consisted of Bill Kasdorf, Apex CoVantage; George Kondrach, Executive VP, Innodata Isogen Inc.; Sol Rosenberg, President, Dynamic Digital Content; and Bruce Thomas, President & CEO, Cadmus Communications Corporation. All four of these gentlemen shared their offshore outsourcing experiences, and the benefits their companies have achieved by using services on a global basis. McIlroy pointed out that offshore prepress outsourcing centers are not the sweatshop environment that the press (WhatTheyThink excluded, of course!) likes to portray. They are in fact very modern, high-tech centers that local workers consider very desirable workplaces. He also pointed out that a hybrid outsourcing model, in his opinion, was probably still the best bet, and this view was echoed by the other panelists. This combination of graphic arts professionals located both domestically and offshore compensates for the fact that many of the offshore vendors do not fully understand North American trade practices. Kasdorf reported that in India, his company is able to obtain the same talent he could obtain locally at about one-third the cost. His company leverages that talent by looking holistically at the workflow to rebalance the workflow, taking into account the respective strengths of onshore and offshore resources. Kondrach indicates that his company takes a content supply chain (CSC) platform approach, using what he called “labor arbitrage” to balance the onshore/offshore relationships and determine where it makes most sense to make various technology investments. He also pointed out that ten times more jobs are lost in the U.S. to process automation than to offshore outsourcing. Rosenberg stated that it is important to take a global view these days. He drew an interesting mathematical picture of the availability of resources in various parts of the world as shown in the table below:
He pointed out that India has five times as many people in the top ½% of the talent pool as the United States, and that the ability to take advantage of the incredible talents available in the world labor pool is a powerful business advantage. Thomas added that he views offshore outsourcing as creating a better business model, not just going after lower wages. Kondrach added that in his opinion, it is not a question of whether there are jobs here or there, it is that there might be no jobs at all if companies did not leverage the power of the global labor pool. Needless to say, the panel discussion was followed by a spirited debate with the audience, many of whom feel threatened by offshore outsourcing, as well they should. In the end, the real solution is to reinvent our business practices in a global context, with the hybrid model leveraging domestic and international resources to provide the best possible set of products and services to the market at the most competitive prices. Whether we like it or not, this is the new world of graphic communications in which we must work and play. Speaking to Creatives There was also a very informative panel moderated by Eve Asbury of Saatchi & Saatchi that discussed the relationships between creatives and production, and some of the issues and challenges they present. Panelists providing their views on this often neglected topic included Matt Cadiz, RRDonnelly Creative Director Site Manager, Ace Hardware; Ron Sheffield: VP Print Production of the Doner Agency; and Lee-Anne Setterington, Sr. VP and Creative Director for Leo Burnett. A few key points the panel made included:
Hands down, Lee-Anne Setterington’s presentation stole the show. She was the voice of the creatives on the panel and shared with the conference an informative and fun presentation on “How to Talk to Creatives.” She has been in the business a long time, saying that she started out when “Apple was something you ate for lunch.” She categorized the two groups by saying, “Creatives are blue sky thinkers; they dream the big dream, and are not a fan of details, facts and figures. They want to be new and different, and what was done last time is never good enough. To them, feelings are facts. No fact can be more important than feelings. No fact outweighs the feeling the creative has about the project. “Production people are earth thinkers: Just the facts, ma’am. Structure and order and attention to detail are their bailiwick. They look for concrete results, and are focused on building the end product.” She encouraged blue sky thinkers to come down toward earth and earth thinkers to come up toward the sky, meeting in the middle to deliver a successful project, and offered do’s and don’ts for both creatives and Production to work better together. She held everyone’s attention with this delightful presentation, and hopefully made an impact on this perpetual problem, at least with the people in the room. Workflow RoundUP The last conference session was a presentation of the Workflow RoundUP results, and it seemed that everyone stayed for this important discussion. The results of this initiative, sponsored jointly by the IPA and the Ghent PDF workgroup, were presented by David Zwang and assisted by the team that helped create this event.
One student from Western Michigan University also helped make the event a success:
Zwang indicated that the hardcopy results of the Workflow RoundUP are being preserved for potential future analysis and/or comparison with work done in subsequent years. There were 26 submissions by nine vendors. Vendors included:
The Workflow RoundUp was Page Layout and Processing Workflow that tested:
The purpose was to educate both vendors and users about best practices, and to uncover application issues and bugs. It also looked at RIPs and output processing. Specific tests included:
Test files were ingested into Quark, InDesign, and/or Illustrator and checked for import accuracy. They were then output by the application or other utilities as PDF/X Plus, processed by the vendor, checked for PDF/X compliance and printed. The results are too complex and lengthy to discuss here, so I would urge you to take advantage of the IPA Webinar, and/or the Ghent PDF Workgroup white paper Print 05 session discussing full results. All vendors had some issues; all vendors had levels of success. Much was determined by whether they chose to use Quark, InDesign, or Illustrator; Quark displayed a much higher incidence of failures than InDesign or Illustrator. Interestingly, shortly after the event, Quark announced a strategic alliance with Enfocus designed to improve the overall PDF experience within QuarkXPress and provide bundled solutions that streamline Certified PDF-based workflows. Even though they did not directly participate, both Adobe and Quark were very interested in the proceedings, and it is likely that this exercise will result in improvements, not only in the products coming from the participating vendors, but from the leaders on the creative side as well. On the most basic level, 14 of the 26 files submitted passed the PDF/X compliance; 10 did not, and two were missing PDF files for testing. Results were cross-checked against two pre-flights—Enfocus Pitstop and the pre-flight that ships with Acrobat 7. At this point in the process, much like in the first year of the Proofing RoundUP, results were not tied to specific vendors’ submissions, although the team will review each vendor’s results with them individually. It was generally agreed that this initiative will be of great value to the industry as it continues over the next few years. It did point out that there is still a lot of work to do in a variety of areas. But the attendees agreed that the exercise was well worth the effort and should be conducted again next year. For more information:
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Prior to launching her consulting practice, Ms. Cary Sherburne was the Vice President of Marketing Communications and Outsourcing Solutions at IKON Office Solutions. In that capacity, she developed and implemented a branding campaign to build brand awareness for IKON in the marketplace as well as enhance employee pride in the organization, and was responsible for all internal and external communications, including trade shows and events, corporate newsletters, and industry and press relations. In the outsourcing role, she set strategic objectives and priorities for IKON’s product and services portfolio in its Outsourcing businesses, including development of programs and sales support materials for that environment. Sherburne was a Director at CAP Ventures, an internationally known firm specializing in market research and strategic consulting for the digital document and print on demand industry, before joining IKON, where she launched and managed the company’s Document Outsourcing Consulting Service. Her tenure in the printing and publishing industry has also included sales and marketing positions at Xerox Corporation, Indigo America and Bitstream. She is a frequent speaker at industry events and a recognized author. Cary can be reached via email at cary@sherburneassociates.com, online at www.sherburneassociates.com and by telephone at 603-430-5463.
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