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Last month, Canon sponsored a Book Business webinar entitled Inkjet: The Implications for Book Printing Manufacturers and Publishers . InfoTrends’ Barb Pellow and Jim Hamilton, who were guest speakers, discussed how high-speed inkjet technology for book printers has already had a profound business impact for adopters. Throughout the webinar, the audience was encouraged to submit questions to the InfoTrends panelists. Although many of these questions were answered during the hour-long session, more kept piling in as the webinar was wrapping up. The questions ranged from the cost of inkjet vs. offset to the quality of the newest inkjet technology. Here’s a sampling of the questions and answers that Jim published in his recent InfoBlog post . Q: Can inkjet handle content with math, tables, and illustrations? JH: There is no reason why math, tables, and illustrations cannot be reproduced well by inkjet systems. They all support 600 dpi resolution or higher. Plenty of math textbooks have …

What do you get when you bring together print providers, industry analysts and vendors for three days to talk about the future of the printing industry? One of the most beneficial, productive and exciting events of the year, the Inkjet Summit. The second annual Inkjet Summit, organized by nGage Events, along with publishing partner, Printing Impressions, was held April 7-9 at the beautiful Ponte Vedra Inn & Club in Ponte Vedra Beach, FL. This invitation-only, small group event boasts a unique atmosphere to learn about today’s issues and trends in the print industry and tomorrow’s technology advancements and solutions. Because of the intimate setting, attendees and industry experts are able to focus on building relationships to better understand and advance their needs. The Inkjet Summit plays a vital role to help further strategic partnerships which provide sound guidance to Print Service Providers looking to grow their businesses. For the second year in a row, Canon was a proud …

One of the challenges with selecting a workflow solution for print is that specific tasks and processes that have to be managed and ideally, automated for different segments of the print industry are strikingly different. Jobs flow differently in commercial print shops than they do in high-volume transactional operations, direct mail houses, service bureaus or CRDs/copy shops in enterprise environments. The work is different, the flow is different and that means the workflow solution must be different as well, doesn’t it? In a graphic arts environment, the workflow conversation usually centers on authoring content, content management, getting images and photographs approved, creating layouts and submitting jobs for print. If you’re in a transaction print environment, the conversation is going to be more about process optimization and automation, integrity, load balancing and qualifying for postal discounts. Of course in today’s transaction environments where full color inkjet is …

Workflow is more than just the connective tissue that links people, processes and technology – it is a means of reducing costs, boosting productivity and improving quality. Sadly, many in-plant operations are saddled with inadequate workflow solutions that cause a tremendous amount of extra work for staff to manage jobs – staff that is often already overburdened. The majority of in-plant printers are faced with squeezed budgets and simultaneous pressure to grow print volumes, improve service levels, increase productivity and offer an ever-expanding suite of services like producing tabs, binding, transaction printing, fulfillment, direct mail, booklets, and security printing. If they can’t meet the corporate expectations, they don’t just have a bad year – they get lifted right out of the enterprise. Survival depends on being able to respond to changing customer needs; turn jobs around faster, reduce costs, improve quality and make it easier for internal customers to place orders and …

This morning when I woke up, I went to my "go to." No, not my coffee, but my smartphone to check email, see what's happening in the news and socialize on Facebook. It turns out, I'm not alone. More and more people start their days viewing "content marketing." It's not only how we stay connected, but also how companies engage its target markets successfully for less money. The phrase "content is king" is no stranger to the marketing community; it is simply taking a different shape than it did previously. What once was the white paper has now evolved into social media, newsletters and blogs. Companies and consumers alike can't get enough of content marketing. There's a reason why companies are investing resources in content marketing ... it drives profitable results. So profitable that 78% of CMOs think custom content is the future of marketing, according to Hanley Wood. Perhaps that's because content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing. Content in the Marketing Cycle …