I watched about 30 seconds of the World Series yesterday. The announcers were talking about one of the Managers. He puts motivational sayings around the clubhouse to teach the players. One that caught my eye was this one from John Wooden that I never heard before: "Discipline yourself and others won't need to." What I find great about Wooden is that his best sayings apply to basketball but they don't. They apply to all of life. They don't just apply to athletes. They apply to all who are facing the human condition. Check out more John Wooden quotes at the link below.
http://www.sacredhoops.com/john_wooden_quotes/index.html
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Henry’s Model T
Most of us remember reading somewhere Henry Ford’s famous line, “the consumer can have any color cover he wants, as long as it’s black.” But you probably do not know that when the car was introduced in 1908, in addition to black you could also buy it in red, green, or blue. Black only became the standard when Henry Ford realized he could save costs by eliminating the other colors.
Ford created a standard that is with us to this day. Businesses either eliminate choice from us or give us a wide variety of choice. We usually have no choice in the color of Cabinet of a new HDTV. But look at the choices we have for an iPod Nano. Businesses pick a niche in which to market.
Printers, like your humble blogger, are generally in the choice business. We don’t dictate what the customer is going to get, the customer tells us what she wants. Virtually nothing we print looks exactly like any other thing we print. Sure, the paper size may stay the same, there are only a couple thousand fonts to choose from (two or three of these make up over 90% of everything printed in the U.S.), and layout typically follows some pattern. But inside those limits, the choices are endless.
For years I’ve tried to come up with a niche product. Something that I can produce that would almost be off the shelf. So far, no luck. It is been far easier for us to market Allegra Print & Imaging of Rolling Meadows like a standard print shop.
That is beginning to change though. Customers are pushing us to offer more services to them. At the same time we are looking to expand our service choices to stay ahead of them. We are starting to test the definition of what a print shop is. So far, it’s going well.
By the way, the Model T was introduced the same year my beloved Cubs last won the World Series.
Ford created a standard that is with us to this day. Businesses either eliminate choice from us or give us a wide variety of choice. We usually have no choice in the color of Cabinet of a new HDTV. But look at the choices we have for an iPod Nano. Businesses pick a niche in which to market.
Printers, like your humble blogger, are generally in the choice business. We don’t dictate what the customer is going to get, the customer tells us what she wants. Virtually nothing we print looks exactly like any other thing we print. Sure, the paper size may stay the same, there are only a couple thousand fonts to choose from (two or three of these make up over 90% of everything printed in the U.S.), and layout typically follows some pattern. But inside those limits, the choices are endless.
For years I’ve tried to come up with a niche product. Something that I can produce that would almost be off the shelf. So far, no luck. It is been far easier for us to market Allegra Print & Imaging of Rolling Meadows like a standard print shop.
That is beginning to change though. Customers are pushing us to offer more services to them. At the same time we are looking to expand our service choices to stay ahead of them. We are starting to test the definition of what a print shop is. So far, it’s going well.
By the way, the Model T was introduced the same year my beloved Cubs last won the World Series.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Voice Recognition
As an original Mac user (1984), this is a great time to be alive. Because of the growing popularity of the Mac platform, I get to see new stuff come out for the Mac almost every day. One of my favorite new toys is voice recognition software called MacSpeech. It is based on a very popular platform but the software was made specifically for the Mac.
I bought it primarily to help one of my daughters in middle school. After testing it myself, I can see broad applications for business use.
It is much faster than typing. However, it changes the way you put information into a computer. Using a keyboard has been part of my writing process since I was in college. I often tell people that getting my Mac in college raised my grades by one full letter. So this B- student became an A- student almost overnight.
An interesting change this brings is that the stream of consciousness ideas that you can speak will be put onto a page on your computer. You get to sort them out and edit later.
By the way, this blog entry was written using MacSpeech.
I bought it primarily to help one of my daughters in middle school. After testing it myself, I can see broad applications for business use.
It is much faster than typing. However, it changes the way you put information into a computer. Using a keyboard has been part of my writing process since I was in college. I often tell people that getting my Mac in college raised my grades by one full letter. So this B- student became an A- student almost overnight.
An interesting change this brings is that the stream of consciousness ideas that you can speak will be put onto a page on your computer. You get to sort them out and edit later.
By the way, this blog entry was written using MacSpeech.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
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We have just added a new feature to our blog. You can now link to your favorite posts and share them with your friends on Facebook, StumbleUpon, de.li.cio.us, and many other social networks. Hover over the "bookmark" button at the bottom of each post to see all the options. So, return often and see what there is to share!
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