What’s Keeping You Up at Night?

I recently met with a group of Kodak NexPress users and I asked them, “What keeps you up at night?” They started throwing out a range of ideas and didn’t stop until we came up with a list of about twenty things like keeping up with technology, driving growth, new competition, automation, legislation, solution selling, and government regulations.

I dutifully wrote everything down and then grouped them into about eight or nine topics areas. I gave everyone three votes to apply to their top three nightmares. After the smoke cleared the top issue by far was the future of print. In short, what is the viability of print in an age of Internet, social media, and mobile communications? Read more »

Top Ten Exhibitors at Graph Expo 2008

The table below shows the top ten exhibitors from Graph Expo 2008 as measured by booth space. Heidelberg has been the number one exhibitor by this measure since I started tracking this in 2004, and they were likely the top exhibitor for many shows prior to Graph Expo 2004. Initially I began conducting this exercise to show the impact of the digital vendors on a trade show that had been dominated by traditional printing press vendors. This point has long since been made. For all practical purposes as you look at the list of top vendors, Graph Expo is now a digital show. Heidelberg’s booth space, which used to be much larger than any other exhibitor’s space, was not that much bigger than either HP’s or Xerox’s booths. It would not be a surprise if a digital vendor took over the top spot at Graph Expo in 2010 (or even at Print 09). Benny Landa, founder of Indigo, predicted at drupa 2008 that HP would be the largest graphic arts company in the world by drupa 2012. (HP, based on show floor space, was the third largest exhibitor at drupa 2008 after Heidelberg and manroland.) What sounded like a bold statement at the time is very likely to come true.