Graphic Arts Online reports that Visant Corporation will close its Lehigh Press plant in Pennsauken, New Jersey. American print shops close at the rate of about three a day, but every one was a place where real people did real work, and every one has stories to tell. Here's one about Lehigh Press.
When I was head of a textbook design team at D.C. Heath, a favorite part of my job was to go on press OKs. I loved the noise and smell of the presses (I still do), and the urgency and finality of knowing that, after months of planning and revising, in a few days I'd hold a real live book in my hand.
Lehigh Press's specialty was book covers and jackets. They catered to publishers' demand for bells and whistles: Glossy and matte coatings (or both together), embossing, foil stamping, even holographic effects. The man who represented them to D.C. Heath, Bruce Kissell, wasn't a traditional salesman, he was a consultant. He spent as much time with the designers as he did with the print buyers, collaborating on innovative visual effects.
For press OKs at Lehigh, I used to catch an early flight from Boston to Philadelphia, and return the same day. They would send a driver to pick me up at the airport, always the same guy: An old man in a high-mileage stretched-out Lincoln. I would sit in the cavernous passenger area, surrounded by the empty champagne glasses, dried-out corsages, and cigarette butts left by his last night's fare. I'd roll down the glass partition that separated me from the driver's seat, and he'd tell me his troubles, mostly about his family: This one's in jail, that one's husband left her, another one's an alcoholic.
I took that ride one morning in February 1996, and I had my own troubles to tell the limo guy. D.C. Heath had been sold, and about half of us were getting laid off. I had not quite two weeks left.
By the time we got to Pennsauken, it was starting to snow. As usual, the Lehigh folks didn't take long to get the color right where I wanted it, and I called for the limo, hoping I wouldn't miss my return flight. Drivers in the Mid-Atlantic turn helpless with fear when it snows, so even minor storms can cause gridlock. But I underestimated the storm. It wasn't a gridlock-causing storm, it was an airport-closing storm. After a couple of hours on the runway, they took us back to the terminal, no flights 'til tomorrow morning.
I had come down for the day, didn't even have a toothbrush, and all the hotels near the airport were sold out already. Pre-Internet, pre-cell-phone, I was screwed. Grasping at straws, I called a Boston colleague who took frequent business trips to Philly, and he recommended a downtown B&B. I found a shuttle van from the airport, and hoped for the best.
I got more than I hoped for. Despite being a Society Hill landmark dating to 1769, the Thomas Bond House was much cheaper than the airport hotels. I got there in time for the free wine and cheese they serve every evening, and as I prepared to drown my sorrows, another guest offered me her ticket for that night's concert at the Academy of Music, a dozen blocks away. The seat was in a remote balcony, but the snow had kept most of the audience home, so at the first break in the program I parked myself in a cushy orchestra seat to enjoy the rest of the show.
Next morning, the sun came out and I flew home, a happy accidental tourist. Goodbye, Lehigh Press, and thank you for luring me into that bit of serendipity.
Showing posts with label Bookbuilders of Boston. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bookbuilders of Boston. Show all posts
25 May 2008
Demotivational speaker
Harris DeWese stepped up to the lectern and took off his sport coat. He pointed to his gaudy suspenders and grinned, "You can see I'm in investment banking."
The scene was the Colonnade Hotel in Boston, the annual meeting of Bookbuilders of Boston (on whose Board of Directors I serve). We had finished the evening's business, and were settling back with our dessert and coffee to enjoy DeWese's presentation. He writes an irreverent column called "DeWese on Sales" that has appeared monthly in Printing Impressions magazine for over 20 years, and which he has anthologized in a popular book called Now Get Out There and Sell Something! Printers have often hired him as a sales coach and trainer.
I hadn't read his column or books, so I was prepared for anything, except what we got. DeWese's shtick is that he's the Mañana Man, the sales guy who beats his quota before lunch and spends the afternoon at the track. He shuns PowerPoint polish and bullet points, and instead digresses about baseball, cooking, and parallel parking before he gets down to business.
When he got down to business, it was a splash of cold water. He doesn't sell printing anymore, he sells printing companies, and as his suspenders attest, business is booming. As Chairman and CEO of Compass Capital Partners, he's put 135 of them on the block. "Printing companies rarely emerge from Chapter 11 or Chapter 7," he observed.
The folks in the room who work for small-to-medium companies made mental notes to check Monster.com first thing in the morning. But I wasn't worried, I work for an $11 billion company. We buy other printers, they don't buy us.
Then DeWese sharpened his focus from printing in general to his audience's specialty, book manufacturing. He displayed his knowledge of the turf by mentioning the "Michigan Mafia," the cluster of book printers in the Ann Arbor area. He talked about selling to specific segments of the book market (long-run, short-run, etc.), and then, almost as an afterthought, he delivered the showstopper: "If print buyers are directed by their managers to buy only on price, there's not much the salesperson can do."
Doesn't he know that most book manufacturing buyers haven't looked at anything but price for the last decade? In the US, technology has pretty much leveled the playing field as far as quality and turn times, so publishers see price as the only variable. And overseas competition has so skewed the price variable that publishers often concede quality and turn time just to drive down unit cost.
It's no better for commercial printers. Their work has become a commodity because supply dwarfs demand as many printed documents, such as catalogs and annual reports, migrate to the Internet.
According to DeWese, in a reverse auction the salesperson gets screwed. That's not a radical idea, but it's a mighty demotivating thing to say to people whose customers believe devoutly in reverse auctions. Unless you're trying to motivate them to sell their businesses.
The scene was the Colonnade Hotel in Boston, the annual meeting of Bookbuilders of Boston (on whose Board of Directors I serve). We had finished the evening's business, and were settling back with our dessert and coffee to enjoy DeWese's presentation. He writes an irreverent column called "DeWese on Sales" that has appeared monthly in Printing Impressions magazine for over 20 years, and which he has anthologized in a popular book called Now Get Out There and Sell Something! Printers have often hired him as a sales coach and trainer.
I hadn't read his column or books, so I was prepared for anything, except what we got. DeWese's shtick is that he's the Mañana Man, the sales guy who beats his quota before lunch and spends the afternoon at the track. He shuns PowerPoint polish and bullet points, and instead digresses about baseball, cooking, and parallel parking before he gets down to business.
When he got down to business, it was a splash of cold water. He doesn't sell printing anymore, he sells printing companies, and as his suspenders attest, business is booming. As Chairman and CEO of Compass Capital Partners, he's put 135 of them on the block. "Printing companies rarely emerge from Chapter 11 or Chapter 7," he observed.
The folks in the room who work for small-to-medium companies made mental notes to check Monster.com first thing in the morning. But I wasn't worried, I work for an $11 billion company. We buy other printers, they don't buy us.
Then DeWese sharpened his focus from printing in general to his audience's specialty, book manufacturing. He displayed his knowledge of the turf by mentioning the "Michigan Mafia," the cluster of book printers in the Ann Arbor area. He talked about selling to specific segments of the book market (long-run, short-run, etc.), and then, almost as an afterthought, he delivered the showstopper: "If print buyers are directed by their managers to buy only on price, there's not much the salesperson can do."
Doesn't he know that most book manufacturing buyers haven't looked at anything but price for the last decade? In the US, technology has pretty much leveled the playing field as far as quality and turn times, so publishers see price as the only variable. And overseas competition has so skewed the price variable that publishers often concede quality and turn time just to drive down unit cost.
It's no better for commercial printers. Their work has become a commodity because supply dwarfs demand as many printed documents, such as catalogs and annual reports, migrate to the Internet.
According to DeWese, in a reverse auction the salesperson gets screwed. That's not a radical idea, but it's a mighty demotivating thing to say to people whose customers believe devoutly in reverse auctions. Unless you're trying to motivate them to sell their businesses.
17 May 2008
Students and silos: Thoughts on graphic-arts education
Over on the Print CEO Blog last week, Brian Regan and I traded comments on Adam Dewitz's post about educating the next generation of printing industry leaders. The elephant in the (virtual) room was the fear that there won't be any printing industry for the next generation to lead.
As President of the Society of Printers from 1995-1997 and of Bookbuilders of Boston from 2004-2007, I was an ex-officio member of the Printing and Publishing Council of New England. The PPCNE was once an influential group, promoting the interests of a dozen graphic-arts organizations in the Boston area. Mergers and acquisitions, overseas competition, and the growth of other media have diminished the printing and publishing industries, so now PPCNE's primary role is the stewardship of a substantial scholarship endowment (in the low seven figures). The Council, as its members call it, administers its own scholarship program: They review students' applications and decide which ones will receive scholarships.
When I attended Council meetings, the constant refrain was the shrinking pool of qualified applicants. "Qualified" in this case means students from New England enrolled in degree-granting programs leading to careers in printing or publishing (not just graphic design, and certainly not web design).
This line of conversation drove me nuts. What college kid would get on a vocational track dedicated to an industry where each year, a thousand US companies either are swallowed up by bigger companies or simply sell their presses for scrap and close down?
No amount of scholarship money will motivate kids to learn skills that fewer and fewer employers need. Yes, we still need printers, and we always will, but it's no longer useful to think of putting ink on paper as an isolated activity. 21st Century printing is one part of an industrial matrix that includes all the ways we distribute and display words, sounds, and images. This matrix includes book and magazine publishing, music, television, movies, games, telecom, Internet, direct mail marketing, packaging, and signage.
Industry and colleges must embrace this change together. Both must break down the silos that impede the formation of this media matrix. Industry must create career paths that cross obsolete boundaries, and colleges must create curricula to prepare graduates to thrive in a world where ideas matter more than the channels they flow through.
And organizations like the Print and Graphics Scholarship Foundation and the Printing and Publishing Council of New England must use their scholarship money to enable this evolution, not to resist it.
As President of the Society of Printers from 1995-1997 and of Bookbuilders of Boston from 2004-2007, I was an ex-officio member of the Printing and Publishing Council of New England. The PPCNE was once an influential group, promoting the interests of a dozen graphic-arts organizations in the Boston area. Mergers and acquisitions, overseas competition, and the growth of other media have diminished the printing and publishing industries, so now PPCNE's primary role is the stewardship of a substantial scholarship endowment (in the low seven figures). The Council, as its members call it, administers its own scholarship program: They review students' applications and decide which ones will receive scholarships.
When I attended Council meetings, the constant refrain was the shrinking pool of qualified applicants. "Qualified" in this case means students from New England enrolled in degree-granting programs leading to careers in printing or publishing (not just graphic design, and certainly not web design).
This line of conversation drove me nuts. What college kid would get on a vocational track dedicated to an industry where each year, a thousand US companies either are swallowed up by bigger companies or simply sell their presses for scrap and close down?
No amount of scholarship money will motivate kids to learn skills that fewer and fewer employers need. Yes, we still need printers, and we always will, but it's no longer useful to think of putting ink on paper as an isolated activity. 21st Century printing is one part of an industrial matrix that includes all the ways we distribute and display words, sounds, and images. This matrix includes book and magazine publishing, music, television, movies, games, telecom, Internet, direct mail marketing, packaging, and signage.
Industry and colleges must embrace this change together. Both must break down the silos that impede the formation of this media matrix. Industry must create career paths that cross obsolete boundaries, and colleges must create curricula to prepare graduates to thrive in a world where ideas matter more than the channels they flow through.
And organizations like the Print and Graphics Scholarship Foundation and the Printing and Publishing Council of New England must use their scholarship money to enable this evolution, not to resist it.
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