I took quite a few words previously from Zac Bolan in PrintAction in a previous post. This must be ok as he has sent me a link to his blog and a review of Creative Suite 5. Of course he suggests you should subscribe to the print version but there is also a link to a PDF. This concentrates on Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. What interests me is the background on what Adobe is trying to do with each release.

By September of 2008, most Adobe output issues became a thing of the past as modern RIPs conquered transparency. A meager 18 months following the birth of CS3, a primped Creative Suite 4 added productivity to its list of key features. Unfortunately the sound of banks collapsing drowned out much of the fanfare as Adobe launched CS4 into an economically challenged market.

So if a modern RIP, assuming they are widely available, can cope with the output issues, then there is nothing left for Adobe to develop and no reason to attend a print show.

If the era of Adobe Classic is over, it is easier to understand the direction since buying Macromedia.

Just as Adobe’s Quark-killer got the page layout market in a stranglehold, designers shifted away from specializing in print and towards rich media and motion. Fortunately Adobe’s considerable depth in the interactive realm meant that InDesign would not be left behind. Reflecting this market shift, InDesign

CS5 has transmogrified from page layout champ into an interactive document powerhouse! Six new Interactive panels allow the rich media designer to build basic animations, add user-responsive buttons and embed video and audio into an InDesign document. The file can then be output to interactive PDF format for distribution or exported directly to SWF (Flash Player) for viewing. The InDesign file can also be exported to Flash CS5 while maintaining all the typographic and layout parameters. 

This is great if that is what you want. But there are implications for the print industry as such.

However, in spite of delivering a strong update with Creative Suite 5, many in the print community question Adobe’s continued commitment to the analogue world. Adobe was noticeably absent from Chicago’s Print 09 last September, at a time when North America’s largest quadrennial print show could have used the

support. As if to further emphasize a new direction, Adobe’s acquisition of the Webanalytics company Omniture went public during that show. More recently, the January 2010 announcement that Adobe would discontinue its popular Partner Connection Print Service Provider Program seemed to punctuate its sentiment with an exclamation mark.

So, again I ask why Adobe would choose now to groom an already fresh Creative Suite? The answer is quite simple: Adobe’s become the de facto enabler of the current explosion in digital media. Make no mistake, while print designers and producers will reap the feature harvest of this latest incarnation of Creative Suite, Adobe is clearly targeting creators of rich media with this release – be it Web-based or application oriented.

At IPEX there is an area described as "pre-media" and it is not yet clear how this is different from "pre-press".

I met Zac Bolan at drupa when he was on the Founder stand. He showed me what is now FounderFX. This seems to be page layout for the rest of us. Not suitable for animation or video, but actually just what a lot of people want. More later in this blog.

I do have one quibble with his review of Creative Suite 5. The approach to masking in Illustrator is described as the same as "featured in Macromedia Freehand before it was absorbed by Adobe." I am not sure it was that way round. The Chief Technology Officer is Kevin Lynch.

Ghent PDF Group still on about PDF. I have found a meeting on 19th about PDF at the Knowledge Centre

Many will agree that PDF had once seemed to be the ideal format for exchanging and publishing information – and has undoubtedly been a tremendous boon to premedia workflows. In this session, Zwang will discuss its relevance in the new world of information publishing. As new electronic distribution tools continue to debut, many wonder if print is being replaced by these new technologies; such as smartphones, tablets, pads, and more.

So it could be that the PDF world accepts that other formats have a role. Reflow is an issue on small screens, also the time it takes for files to load. Adobe is still not advertising where it will be so I conclude that they don't see the show as that interesting. Postscript and PDF are not growth areas. Flash will be discovered online so there is no need to talk about it at shows.

Meanwhile Microsoft offer online versions of Office roughly similar to Google Docs. The era of desktop software may be coming to an end except for special interests such as Creative Suite.

Blogsearch finds Adobe at IPEX. Mystery continues on where there may or may not be a stand (booth) for Adobe at IPEX 2010. There is nothing on the UK Adobe website and no stand on the IPEX listing. But blogsearch has found a release from Fujifilm about the presentations each day on stand 9-CD360.

The final two demonstrations of the day that will take place in the Integrated Production area will allow visitors to understand all about “Managing personalised print” at 15.30pm, with Adobe rounding off each day with an overview of its vision for the “PDF Print Engine” at 16.15pm.

So the PDF Print Engine is a "vision". Maybe there will be more detail over the next couple of weeks.

Following up some links from drupa I also found a PDF of some pages from Print Action, published in Canada. Zac Bolan has a blog with links to selected articles, including a report from Print 09 in Chicago. The headline is "Quark Promotes, Markzware Searches and Adobe Stays Home".

I spent my last day at PRINT 09 wandering the North Hall looking for old friends in the prepress software world. I set out in search of Adobe’s booth, as this company has always been a mainstay at these printing shows. After a cursory sweep of the hall, however, Adobe was nowhere to be found. I realize that times are tough (Adobe just announced a 29 percent drop in its Q1 profits for the current fiscal year), but fact remains that Adobe is still turning a profit, and in spite of Adobe’s push in new-media directions, the bulk of its empire still rests on a foundation of print. Adobe owes a presence at these shows in respect of the community that built its business.

As if to emphasize the perception that Adobe has moved on to greener online media pastures, the news broke during PRINT 09 about its acquisition of Omniture, a well-known Web-analytics entity. The floor was buzzing with speculation about Adobe’s intentions with this unlikely accession. Most felt that it signalled Adobe’s interest in expanding its Web portfolio to include support for e-commerce and online marketing – yet another step further away from print.

Zac Bolan has got a point. The acquisition of Macromedia was shift enough. Acrobat development is now an advert for Flash. There is nothing new about PDF. Connect can work just as well outside Acrobat. Perhaps we should just accept this. Postscript and PDF are open standards with ISO documentation. Adobe are not investing much in variations. Marketing theory suggests promotion of the rising stars and forgetting about the cash cows. If only the paranoid survive, it is urgent to concentrate on the next thing and not  to lose focus on existing customers.

At IPEX there may be competing options for most Adobe products from the classic phase before Macromedia. Perhaps Adobe have just accepted this as what is going to happen.

But if anyone knows a stand number for Adobe at IPEX 2010, please add a comment.

In my story for OhmyNews I quoted a statement from the London Book Fair that the iPad has got five fonts in ePUB mode. A comment has led me to this blog where it appears there are lots more.

I still think that ePUB is intended to be mostly text and because the screens can be small the less design the better in terms of anything fancy. A paperback from the 1930s had some colour on the front but the pages are mostly continuous text in the same font. not very exciting maybe but paperbacks did get better. So I think 5 fonts would be ok. But thanks to Bob Maguire for sending the link. 

This has turned up in email. Notice the Guardian is the sample copy. What to think at IPEX? there will be a debate hosted by Frank Romano. A few years ago the Guardian spent millions on manroland kit. So somewhere near Print City there will be a related discussion.

Linked In has a topic on the IPEX 2010 group.

OhmyNews has put my story from the London Book Fair on the front screen. Also there is a transcript of a speech by Oh Yeon-ho, founder of OhmyNews, at the LIFT Conference in Switzerland. They have used the chart from IDPF on e-book sales as lead graphic. And they have included my opinions at the end. (You cannot just put your own views into reporting, but often they allow something brief for people who complete reading the whole story). The published version has been slightly changed, but I think this is an improvement for clarity.

Next month at IPEX, a print show in Birmingham UK, Frank Romano will chair a discussion on whether the new devices will kill print media. It is very unlikely that print will suffer a sudden death but it is not too soon to discuss the rise of new digital book formats in the future.

Digital Printer ahead of IPEX includes a report - "iPad conversion tools arrive" (page 7). This features Woodwing and Express KCS. I do not know if they will be at IPEX. They might have been at the Digital Zone of the London Book Fair. so far as I know the companies at the Digital Zone will not be at IPEX. But I don't see why not. There is a workflow that might go to print or some format for screen.

Previously I have imagined things a bit out of time and space so that there is a print show in the bit of Earl's Court left over from the bookfair. This is obviously fiction and not the sort of thing to put in reports for Ohmynews. But the tag #totalEC2 may find this and also link back to this post.

More later from actual IPEX.

Another post on what I don't know. There will be more of these. I have now got a press badge for IPEX 2010 as a Citizen Reporter for OhmyNews. So what is a Citizen Reporter? I think I am getting to be more concerned with finding out things. But the reporting is about things I am involved with anyway. I have worked around printing in various ways so the writing about it is not my main task. Maybe that is where citizen journalism is distinct. The journalism comes about with the editing. So I hope there will be a flow of stories around IPEX. If they are not in OhmyNews try Twitter and #IPEX2010 plus something else to search on.

The editors in Seoul switched my headlines for a report from Digital Print World / Total Print Expo. I thought the news was that Heidelberg turned up and demonstrated litho for short runs. the chosen headline was a sub story about the London College of Communication conference about e-books.

Back to things I don't know, or the main one at the moment. Apparently Adobe will have a stand at IPEX but there is no info about this. The UK site on events is mostly about Flash and video. In Digital Printer Simon Eccles suggests there will be something about APPE so maybe there will just be a map on where else to go. At least there may be a real person to talk to. In the UK we sometimes get an email and an invite to a Connect session. But at IPEX there may be a chance to ask a question. For example, why is there nothing new about PDF in CS5? Has Mars been terminated? Meanwhile carry on blogging and see what turns up.

This IPEX blog will be mostly about the UK. Some posts about IPEX will be in the drupa blog, for example social media and PODi.

In the UK I am interested in the Guardian as I read it most days. On the weekend the Guide appears with a central section listing events in the south of England. The page numbers are a bit confusing as there are two sequences. i suppose the middle section can be a different number of pages for different regions. Why do they not do more versions and just have one sequence of pages. I think digital printing should make this easy enough.

A couple of years ago the Guardian bought new printing kit from manroland. they spent about £500 million as memory serves. manroland will not be displaying much kit at IPEX this month, maybe because UK newspapers already have enough. But at Print City of which manroland is a major part surely they could offer some way to print inserts? They showed variable data on a page last time. I don't really have much interest in Swindon local times for films as I don't get there. Something more detailed for the Exeter side of Bristol would suit.

By the way the Exeter local newspaper is now printed in Didcot.

I have started a channel to combine video ahead of IPEX 2010. It is called "Printshow", hosted by Magnify. It includes several from drupa and there may well be others. It uploads on a search every three days and then I will delete the errors. Amazing what turns up so apologies if this wastes your time. It is not an open site but please add a comment with link suggestions. It could be extended to other admin logins during IPEX.

This will be the "mobile video IPEX". You heard it here first.

I came across some Apple thoughts about Flash while using blogsearch for something else. The bit that stands out

Apple has a long relationship with Adobe. In fact, we met Adobe’s founders when they were in their proverbial garage. Apple was their first big customer, adopting their Postscript language for our new Laserwriter printer. Apple invested in Adobe and owned around 20% of the company for many years. The two companies worked closely together to pioneer desktop publishing and there were many good times. Since that golden era, the companies have grown apart.

As far as I know neither Apple nor Adobe will be at IPEX. So desktop publishing only continues with Canon and Hewlett Packard. Mobile video? Do we really need this? HTML5 sounds interesting though.

Hewlett Packard have the most space at IPEX 2010. Maybe they will show something from Palm. The press release has no detail about future mobile devices. The slate expected later this year uses Windows. Will there be something with webOS that could read ePUB for example?

HP is still into print. Communications can cover a lot. This sort of development widens the scope of what the IPEX event is about.

I am trying out Tales of Things, a social media site linking online and real things through barcodes. Can you travel in time and space? Next week I don't think I will get to Internet World although I would like to. There will be a keynote theatre featuring Meg Pickard from the Guardian and also a stand for Brand Republic, the online aspect of Haymarket. I read Printweek and the Guardian in print. My guess is that both organisations actually think more about online than they write about in the print versions. So the barcodes may link to a space where this is discussed. Not in real time obviously.

Brand Republic Booth

Guardian Keynote

The Digital Zone at the London Book Fair was very impressive I thought. The ePUB standard is capable of the design impact of a 1930s paperback. the iPad can do video etc. but continuous text is what a lot of people want. I am still thinking about "pre-media" as used to describe part of IPEX. surely this eBook aspect should be included?

More video later.

The Digital Zone at the London Book Fair looks stronger than last year. More on this next week.

Meanwhile Printweek have published a guide to "pre-media" at IPEX. I think the scope should expand to e-books and even the video etc for whatever a book is to be called on an iPad etc. there is a shift going on and even on a small scale the Book event is now including technology.

I have found out a bit more about Media Week. The logo includes the web address. Previously i thought Brand Republic was the most web sensitive aspect of Haymarket. But it is Media week that blogger Jo Francis links to when looking for a report on the iPad.

Just possibly there may be less demand for print if the iPad works out. That is the view from Media Week. Previously doubts were raised about the future of a paperless UK government. Gordon Brown is not always convincing, especially when there is no obvious policy on how broadband will reach the whole of the UK. But if Media Week takes a view then Printweek cannot be too dissenting. You might think.

I have put a comment on the Jo Francis blog linking to Alan Rusbridger in the Observer. He too has been thinking about the iPad and appears to consider 30% cost savings for the Guardian if every reader would accept digital delivery.

Will it transform newspaper finances? The Knight Ridder team worked on the assumption that it would – but only if you switched off the printing presses. Around 30% of the cost of a newspaper operation is tied up in the faintly Victorian industrial process of print, paper, trains, lorries, shops and – where they still exist — paperboys/girls.

The Knight Rider reference is back to Roger Fiddler and work from fifteen years ago. I came across this through the book Media Big Bang, published in Korea. It was given away for review during the first OhmyNews conference on citizen journalism. UK broadband is now just about where Korea was when Tackwhan Kim and Sangbok Lee were writing. It will be interesting to see how Haymarket works out a balance on print and Web ( OhmyNews house style by the way for the Web to start with a capital letter). I have started to follow both Printweek and Media Week on Twitter.

There is more detail now about CS5. Can't find anything much on Acrobat but there is something on EPUB from InDesign on InDesign Secrets-

Improved Export to ePub and XHTML. Did you use local formatting instead of styles anywhere? Don’t worry, local formatting can be maintained when you export to ePub or XHTML in InDesign CS5. Also, you can tell InDesign to use Page Order or XML Structure to determine the order of exported content. That means if you specify XML Structure, you get a chance to reorder, add, or remove content from the XML structure panel before exporting, giving you more control. We still think that’s a pretty clunky way to handle the export, but it’s far better than nothing.

So this is still clunky though it appears people like me who still use "local formatting" will not be totally confounded when it all vanishes. Still, the impression is still that this release is to move flat pages towards animation. Export to EPUB is not a priority. There may be something else that works well enough and could be cheaper. The prices for CS5 are an issue in Europe.

Meanwhile there is good news about Buzzword-

Buzzword integration. Are you a fan of Buzzword, the collaborative word processor program that’s part of Acrobat.com? We are. In InDesign CS5, Buzzword gets its own File > Place from Buzzword command. You can even choose to link to the Buzzword document, so that as colleagues update the shared file “in the cloud,” you can update your local file in InDesign. (Alas, any formatting you applied to the text in InDesign is lost, just like linking to Word files.) You can also export to Buzzword to create new Buzzword documents in your Acrobat.com account from the contents of InDesign text frames. Neat. Unfortunately, until Buzzword supports paragraph and character styles, this feature will have only limited appeal.

Buzzword, free online, has pretty good EPUB creation. The contents structure gets a bit complicated. But for a lot of people it may be good enough for shorter texts. Then some InDesign professional could rapidly render it all into a proper book.

It seems to me that CS5 is the end of Adobe Classic. More or less Macromedia in the case of CS5. Flash distribution assumed almost all of the time. I checked with the product timeline and it was the case that for the two previous Creative Suites there was a version of Acrobat just before the CS release. This time around the print production is not the issue. Acobat 10 looks as if it will coincide with web services of some kind towards the end of the year.

More surprising for me was the lack of mention of EPUB or the Reader for eBooks in the launch. Buzzword is pretty good as a way to create EPUB. My guess is that InDesign may not be really suited to the text structures required. Previous versions seemed not to be very prioritised on this. It may be possible but I guess InDesign is now intended for moving pages to Flash, showing off video etc.

There is a cost to CS5, rather high in Europe. Perhaps there will be some energy for looking at cheaper ways to cope with XML, PDF, EPUB, plain text and all the stuff Adobe is no longer interested in. CS5 will still be there when the Apple crowd have worked out what to do with Flash.

At IPEX on 19th May the Ghent PDF Group will sponsor a meeting on "Is PDF still relevant? How and Why?"

Seems a strange question for a print show. PDF is pretty central I would guess. One reason it seems less relevant is that Adobe have more or less stopped promoting it. It seems very unlikely that MARS will reach a release. There are enough rough and ready ways to go from XML to PDF. Acrobat 10 will probably be another plug for Connect and Flash.

It could be the case that after ten years or so PDF is not suitable for margins on software so is not promoted. But apparently Acrobat is still contributing to Adobe income. There may be attention for other options in creating PDF. Acrobat.com is putting PDF in the cloud. Google docs is another way of doing this and there are several others.

Apart from Flash there is also interest in ePUB as a format. This is based on XML and reflows on mobile devices. The PDFXML Inspector available from MARS / Adobe Labs works well with ePUB. Maybe this will be part of the discussion.

"Pre-Media" could have a wide scope, there could even be IPEX time for workflows including Flash.

The IPEX list of companies now shows Adobe and a "wish list" button. Usually this allows you to add to places to visit. Is it in this case a sort of promotion for IPEX? Several people have said they would like Adobe to be there, that sort of thing. There is no "wish list" option for Apple or Quark that I can find. But I would sign a petition if it would help.

My guess is that Adobe will be in background mode. Apple are too busy packing up mobile devices. This kind of context should concentrate minds.

Reading the Observer on Sunday I was reminded of Chris Linford's claim that technology innovation takes about fourty years. The news is that the asperand has become a curated object for the New York Museum of Modern Art. Jemima Kiss reports that electronic messaging was developed in 1965 but Ray Tomlinson needed the asperand in 1971 to indicate different computers.

So 40 years from 1965 has already happened. 2011 is getting closer. Chris Linford talks about innovation during the LCC Futures conferences held at Total Print in Earl's Court until 2009 at LCC in Elephant and Castle. When issues come up such as the potential for the ebook I sometimes think that is called a "Futures" conference to suggest that these are issues the print industry will only have to face at some vague point in the future. Email is still mostly just text, almost no design. So pretty basic but the public acceptance could be a sign of things to come.

Meanwhile Matt Whipp on the Printweek blogs is doubting whether Gordon Brown's ideas for government websites will work out. The idea is to move a load of form filling online ansd save money. Matt Whip points out that his granny cannot type, let alone move a mouse. I have left a comment suggesting the print community should take this a bit more urgently. So far the UK government concern with bandwidth has been a bit low energy. At least they realise there are savings to be made for government as such. There could be a time when the percentage of citizens who cannot use a mouse is so low that the tax authorities will give away voice recognition.

OK that last idea was imagined, not a prediction. I sometimes wander into fiction. this is only a blog, like the time I met a unicorn walking to Paris in time for the next LCC Futures. Assuming there may not be a Total Print this year so soon after IPEX then the conference could be at any time. Speculation online could do little harm.

At IPEX the Knowledge Centre Seminar Theatre will feature the LCC on 24th May at 1400. This is definite fact.

I am trying to think forward to Learning Technologies 2011. A bit of time travel is sometimes useful. From the recent earnings meeting it seems Adobe will concentrate on Flash for CS5 but Acrobat will be updated later in the year, maybe mostly in the cloud. My guess is that Learning Technologies will still be mostly Flash but PDF and flat pages will be in there somewhere. Many people will consider Google docs and other lower cost options, also online document networks such as Scribd and Slideshare. Both have a design that seems to be interested in documents even though Flash is in there to display the pages. Adobe design is always pushing us somewhere else I find. So this sort of situation exists now even though some products are not launched or widely available.

I have put more about this in the Sandbox board for Networked Learning.

Blogger Jo Francis has returned to Blackwell's on Charing Cross Road to check out the Espresso book machine. The main news is that the machine is not working, waiting on a part. In the extended online version of her blog she mentions the quality of the samples displayed, finding them "pretty ropey". Earlier comment in Printweek had been critical of the binding.

I visited Charing Cross Road a couple of weeks ago and it is true the machine has been waiting on a part. But there are over 200 back orders. Someone has been happy with the result at some point. Last Year Victor Keegan tweeted about the four day wait when the Espresso was working ok.

I think the print industry media should be more positive about this. I think it was in Printweek I read that a Xerox version is expected. The current one is based on Konica Minolta kit. Probably it is the binding that will break down but surely Xerox will have a look at this? Long ago the print operation had a bookshop alongside. Why not a print device in the bookshop? Charing Cross Road still has some empty spaces at the moment. (Let me know if this is changing, easier to report from Hammersmith than from Exeter) . Suppose there was another Espresso in Foyles and maybe a couple in Dillons. Some competition but some sort of arrangement if one broke down.

So this blog is wandering into fantasy,far away from the evidence based traditions of print journalism. But why not? I still think there could be a print show in Earl's Court Two alongside the London Book Fair. Just a bit of time travel is involved. I guess the Espresso will be at Earl's Court again next month. if not, at least it will be remembered. The legitimate print industry can offer short runs of books. Just needs to follow up the public imagination.

On the learn9 blog I am trying out the idea of A3 learning from Steve Wheeler. Anytime, anywhere, any place where place is a choice of space not just a location. there might have to be an "any device" aspect as well but I mostly assume a desktop. Mobile can come later.

I think the web as a source for learning input is fine but it almost always shifts time and place. You have to look for the common factors in the current situation and whatever you are connecting with. Other than that, things work out fine. There may be a common script or a process. Not sure about this, but a theory will clarify sometime.

So this is a bit better than just going into science fiction every so often. It is some sort of explanation for how the web seems to work. So I am going back to the idea of a print show at Earl's Court alongside the bookfair. Totally Earls Court Two or #totalEC2 is to fill out the rest of the space. I think the LCC Futures Conference is a part of this. The last time there was a Total Print Expo you had to walk all the way round to the other entrance, then up to the LCC conference. Previously you had to walk most of the way back again. Oh dear I am going back to an issue that makes no sense at all as #totalEC2 is just an online concept. But a staircase near the kit directly up to the conference is no bad thing. The LCC Futures Conference has consistently covered the issues that the printing industry needs to address. For example the name has changed so that print is part of communication. Further, the school of print and publishing has gone into either design or media. Thing is I could make out what "print and publishing" covered but both "media" and "design" seem a bit vague and not that different. Are they just aspects of any activity? there is a trend once university status is involved for subject titles to become more abstract and limited in scope. Just my opinion, this is only a blog. Also vocational topics get lost. The list of courses to be dropped includes marketing, public relations and advertising. It could be that any form of management or commercial skill is regarded as better taught somewhere else. The government pressure seems to be for specialisation in topics where a university can be in the top tier. So maybe marketing is something other than design or media. Whatever happened to the commercial artist? Dropping floral design is another thing, how can this be an academic subject?

Anyway, #totalEC2 will have a wider scope later. Starting with "what is communication as in LCC" seems enough for the next week or so.

Nothing against unicorns of course. I met one last year in Newquay on my way to a mind and body event. "You're up early" I said. "Yes, I have got to get to Paris in time for the LCC futures event."

No news yet and I don't know how fast a unicorn can travel. But maybe sometime this year. There won't be a Total Print occasion so dates hard to predict.

DRM discussion at the London Book Fair may follow the views at TOC New York. This clip starts with Apple and unicorn fantasy but stay with it for some good sense in my opinion.

Adobe Relaunches Acrobat as Stealth Flash
eLearning Maturity Emerges From Middle Management

--------
This is a draft story for OhmyNews. Same text in both the learn9 and IPEX2002 blogs. May need to split later. When the editors add "in a related story" to one of the paragraphs you know you may have to start again.
--------

Towards Maturity presented new research last month at Learning Technologies which showed that a surprising proportion of people working on training and development are unaware of how much senior management realise the benefits of introducing e-learning. The model on offer is to demonstrate value rather than complete a project that management understands and supports. One explanation for this could be that the technology introduced is changing faster than is generally known. Adobe concentrated on Flash and video with much less time for corporate documents such as flat PDF files.

The recent survey shows that e-learning results in 11% cost saving, 28% time saving and that the volume of use has gone up by 48%. In the area of business agility, 82% believed they could deliver learning interventions faster and 59% reported improvements in ability to implement changes in products and procedures. However the survey also showed that 38% do not know if line managers agree productivity has increased (36% are unsure) and 28% don't know if new solutions are now focused on business performance (33% are unsure). This is a perception from people working on e-learning and not a direct form of research on management. There is still the implication that about a quarter of line mamgers both know that e-learning has contributed to productivity and communicate this to the people involved. Similarly it appears that about 40% of line managers communicate about business objectives.

However this survey raises questions about models of business where there is supposed to be feedback to policy making or clarity of vision from leadership. Towards Maturity offer a model that starts with learner and work context and defining a need, then moves towards a demonstration of value. This could be a loop that gradually maintains a flow of resources for the projects. But it is not similar to assumptions about management systems in ISO standards where a policy statement has been agreed as strategy. As e-learning contibutes to the capability for changes in products and procedures there is a clear overlap with quality functions.

Perhaps the clarity of feedback has been overestimated in much of the business theory. Areas such as training and quality are assumed to contribute to existing operations but rarely contribute to changes in policy. The recent acceptance of e-learning may have happened through a gradual process that has avoided opposition rather than gaining much support.

Adobe presented mostly about Flash and online conferencing. They appear to have moved away from Postscript related products such as books or paper. Many senior managers would have found the selection of media surprising. PDF files started to be accepted because the design followed the look of a printed page. At Information Technologies there was emphasis on the feature that Connect can be launched from the Acrobat menu. Connect is entirely in Flash. It is rare to see a PDF file even if transformed into Flash paper. There is no way to save the comments or other content as PDF. The feature most promoted was that PDF can now contain Flash for video or sound. So Flash is a native format within PDF. It was mentioned that this could be a way to distribute Flash content even if the Flash player is not allowed within some organisations. The implication is that Flash design is sometimes reaching corporate desktops indirectly, not as the result of any plan.

Edvantage showed a PDF book with video, created in CourseBuilder for a schools in Sweden and Norway. This is still quite rare even though Adobe have promoted the option for a while. The link to schools confirmed my view that a show about adult learning should be held at the same time as BETT, a technology show for schools. They are both in January and BETT now reaches part of Olympia 2. There are different organisers at the moment.

Printweek recently reported that Adobe has closed the Print Service Provider partner programme in the UK due to declining membership. John Cunningham from Adobe UK said "Maybe it looks like Adobe isn't interested in the traditional print side anymore - of course we are, it's still a huge part of our business." However there is no sign yet of an Adobe stand on the floorplan for IPEX, a print show in Birmingham this May. My guess is that the Flash presence at Learning Technologies is a reasonable guide to Adobe marketing energy.

This year there was also a show for Learning and Skills on the floor below. It was not very clear what the difference was. Some stands such as the Virtual College apparently booked too late for the upper floor. Media Training were part of the Technology show last year but they offer day courses so fitted better with Skills. The skills include XML and Flex though they still offer courses on Quark and InDesign. Print design and publishing are still an interest. It struck me that had a sudden flow of mud arrived at Olympia, a future archaeologist might have assumed that there were two levels of mud for different time zones of technology. Media Training represent a balance of media as currently supported ; Adobe on the next level may be seen as normal some time in the future. Enough fiction, I wonder if that will get past the fact checkers.

The Learning and Skills floor also included some training companies that had nothing to do with technology but offered personal development for managers and support for policy development. There was no obvious presence from business schools or universities except for conference facilities. The University for Industry had a large stand as LearnDirect, the trading name they are allowed to use. The word "university" is strongly protected in the UK. From some Twitter remarks I gather there were several people from the Open University at the conference but there was no stand at the show.

The guide to Learning Technologies had an introduction from Lord Puttnam that made a strong case for e-learning and was a solid launch for the event. However there was one theme that I would like to question. He claimed that while educational organisations have a concern to sustain the "moral" position of learning within society, there are also the commercial ambitions of the Murdochs, the Microsofts or the Googles. As Chancellor of the Open University he has a proper concern with this but I think things could be more complicated. Commercial organisations make different claims for their knowledge offers. James Murdoch somehow connects media for democracy and a free market. Google claims a role in organisaing information and scanning content for public benefit. Both claims are contested but there is some sort of moral position.

Also there could be a downside for educational organisations to behave as if morality always demands a distance from commerce. I am interested in "mode two" knowledge, combining academic disciplines in practical situations. Most e-learning research could be seen as like this. I have heard tell of views on the "dark side" of mode two though I cannot find any detail or references.

Two events are coming up that may shed some light on this.

A Higher Education Leadership Summit will have a technology showcase during lunch. Not the scale of Learning Technologies but the issues may be similar. If universities have a different moral basis to most organisations, how will this show up in the conclusions? In Lancaster there will be a workshop on innovation as part of a conversation about experimentality. The description of a future conference includes the claim that the idea of the experiment has helped to "shape the contemporary world of evidence-based policy, clinical trials and audits".

Driven by pervasive informationalisation, we can observe a number of interlinked trends, including: the acceleration and proliferation of feedback loops between action and reaction; the displacement of fixed structures by networks and dissipative structures; the abandonment of fixed goals for continuous repositioning; and the carrying out of knowledge-work in the context of application.

My concern is that the moral case for universities may be seen as depending on distance from application. There are claims for the value of funding for research. In the case of e-learning contributions come from various sources.

Trade Show in Web Context (part two)

On my blog about reading the Guardian I have concluded that the Media page has it about right for last week. The Microsoft keynote at the Consumer Electronics show was not the main event. Google phone captured mindshare perhaps because the cloud apps that already exist make it easier to understand. Apple speculation continues.

Meanwhile the printed version of Printweek has not got the website news about Positive Focus. If the web story about liquidation is true I think this is alarming for the UK print industry so close to IPEX. If there is not an effective demand for workflow and web software what else is going to happen? Another comment by Kelvin Bell from vpress suggests that web software companies do not need to be there. The point is they can explain the offer online. Apple were not at drupa. No sign of Adobe on the floorplan so far. There is an online context for trade shows, however large they are.

Also time travel seems to be in order. The next CES exists as Twitter. IPEX has effectively started.

I have done a post on the drupa blog about the Google Launch of the Nexus One phone and the Flash support for this. Seems very impressive.

Problem for IPEX is the range of phases of technology to consider. I think most print organisations are interested in Postscript. Adobe see this as a static market, not worth much promotion at all. There will be some PDF based workflow but no Adobe stand as far as I can tell from the floorplan. The PDF / XML phase relates to screens as well as hard copy. People in print organisations can relate to this and Adobe on e-books is reported in Printweek. But the Flash phase is still a bit strange. The thing is that print needs to present workflow as convenient for customers as publishing online through XML. Also print to complement the Flash options on mobiles. This requires more engagement with technology as a context. The layout of IPEX suggests that some print buyers may start at the HP end of the arc and maybe not get much further.

While checking the Printweek link I discover that Positive Focus has ceased trading. This is very disturbing. They were at the centre of pre-press technology. What is meant by "pre-media"? There must be some development somewhere but it may need a wide scope to find the current positives.

The floorplan shows a "knowledge area" near the pre-media, drupa 2012 near Heidelberg and Xerox, Printweek near Komori, and Print City near manroland. There are probably some online tags for these as well as the spread in real space. I think the show may as well start now for comments. BETT is next week and the same issues will come up. There may well be book publishers there still thinking about mobile devices and actually concentrating on contracts with libraries. The learners are the ones who but phones, whatever the age is.

I still plan to do stories for OhmyNews based on the actual event but meanwhile there may be events that offer a lead item to raise some issues. Adobe will be at BETT so what is their offer? Clues may appear even if they do rave on about Flash in a way mysterious for most of us in the UK. Maybe this is just me and I do try to keep an open mind. Adobe again at the Learning Technology part of Olympia. why not hold this alongside BETT?

The London Bookfair will probably have a tech zone for e-books etc. This could indicate what "pre-media" means. The XML space at Online Information was about publishing workflow for organisations. There was a brief Adobe presence but the approach to e-books is rarely explained.

manroland / Print City and Heidelberg will open the event with statements about how litho compares with digital. Xerox seem very close to Heidelberg, maybe there is a joint workflow possibility as mentioned previously. The Guardian and Haymarket are both covering UK media news and both moving online. The Technology section from the Guardian and also Direct Marketing both went from print in 2009. What will happen before May?

Events and blog posts will be examined in the future by archivists and media archaeologists. Apparently chronology and what makes an event are open for discussion. So blog posts in random order over 2010 may be as good a way as any to cover IPEX. No plan to change the name of the blog from 2002.

No Guardian Technology in print today so checked the website finding a story already in print - the UK librarians are getting worried about legislation on archiving the UK web. Written by Scotland Correspondent so the pressure may be from National Libary of Scotland.

Includes a statement

The internet is fast becoming the dominant form of publication in the UK: about a third of all works currently published are only in digital form and that number is increasing dramatically.

So this is the context for IPEX. The librarians have a view on communications and print in the mix.

I am at the Online Information show today and tomorrow. Olympia with IMS tech aspects at the back. There is an XML zone claiming to offer support for an integrated publishing workflow. But nothing on JDF. Trust me I am a blogger. No names but I have checked a couple of likely stands. "There is no customer demand." "Never been asked for that."

I think this is a great danger for the printing industry. There are a large number of content providers here. They will get the idea that XML relates to digital workflow but print has gone from the scene.

FT for example. No plans to discontinue print at this time.

I am gradually finding out about Adobe at Online Information. Mekon tell me about the XML Theatre and at first it seems there is no Adobe presentation. But looking closer i was puzzled by the firm "Creative Solutions" on Wednesday. Is this someting new? Checking Johnathan Ferman on LinkedIn it turns out he actually works for Creative Solutions, Adobe Systems. So that is clear enough but it confirms to me that the Adobe promotion energy is not exactly concentrated on this one.

14:00 - 14:30 - XML Pavilion
Discover how the Adobe eBook platform makes reading an immersive experience-everywhere and across devices. Join us to explore how the Adobe eBook platform enables reader engagement through a streamlined workflow for authoring, protecting and delivering digital books. Hosted by Adobe product expert Jonathan Ferman, this seminar shows how to enable a seamless reading experience across multiple screen types and why an open, interoperable eBook platform serves your readers best.

Just the sort of thing we need to know.

Now back in Exeter. Can access Adobe sites by getting past the Flash intro. I did not make it up about the problems over the last couple of weeks. It really was the case that most sites were ok but Adobe impossible to access. Deep in the Lake District the caravan site had enough wifi to access Gmail. Crows in Lancaster was fine for Twitter. But in both cases the wonderful video on the Adobe front page is just a chance to freeze and fall over. Close application, start again.

Obviously this is my fault. We should all get enough bandwidth for the Adobe future of video and animated pages. Or maybe not. Maybe Adobe should have some way of communicating with a range of devices.

So back to the e-book. Cannot find much more as it happens. Once you get to the list of Adobe press releases it is mostly about Google support for video standards, things like that. Searching on Google blogsearch finds the Read Write Web linking to an Adobe blog.

Adobe Expanding Investment in Digital Publishing

As part of a restructuring announced yesterday, Adobe has made the decision to expand its investment in digital publishing, creating a new organization focused on delivering products to increase digital revenue opportunities for book, newspaper and magazine publishers. This organization will combine the efforts of Adobe's eBook business responsible for the Adobe Reader Mobile SDK, Adobe Content Server, Adobe Digital Editions, and PDF and EPUB authoring support in Adobe InDesign with Adobe's digital newspaper and magazine efforts responsible for, among other products, the collaboration with the New York Times to create the AIR-based Times Reader 2.0.

The decision to increase investment in this area underscores the importance that Adobe has always given to digital publishing as well as the bright future it sees in helping publishers to deliver compelling digital publications that support a variety of business models: subscription, advertising, retail and other emerging models. We are particularly excited about what we have in store for 2010. We plan to further our reach to emerging mobile reading platforms to allow readers to read anywhere, on any device. With Adobe's acquisition of Omniture, we will help publishers measure and understand how their readership interacts with and uses their content. But, most of all, we will continue to deliver products that make digital books, newspapers and magazines a terrific experience for readers.

We look forward to working with our existing customers and business partners and welcome any new inquiries as we continue our progress in digital publishing.

So what I now think is that the statements in the Teleread blog were based on another blog. Now obviously I have great respect for blogs as a source but I also notice that there is nothing about the e-book in the official Adobe messaging machine. The MARS project for XML in PDF has been largely based on a blog and where is that going?

I also got to the Events page on the UK Adobe site and find there is nothing yet about Online Information although it appears there will be an Adobe stand or booth. notice this is not called the Online Video and Animation Show though information takes many forms. Don't get me wrong. I am open to being told about Flash. But I start with an interest in Adobe Classic, defined flat pages including text. So that will be my starting point. Any link suggestions welcome to find some info.

I did find some wifi in the remote spot I was hiding last week. News seems to be that Adobe are sacking a significant number of people but are more interested in e-books etc. Through Teleread found a blog from one of the people leaving. The official Adobe site fell over. Now this week I am in a cafe middle of Lancaster. Most sites ok but Adobe still falls over. Blank space where the Flash video may be. No chance to click on news before it freezes. So if I was just interested in Flash and video I would just blame the bandwidth and wait till nect week. But I think this may be a problem for Adobe. The Scribd site works fine. My conclusion is that they are actually interested in documents as I am used to. More on this later when I have more idea on what Adobe states as what they are doing.

Story for OhmyNews about e-books and the LCC Futures Conference. Running a bit late but links into social networking so counters the idea that only printed books help make new friends.

There are now some clips on YouTube from the LCC Futures Conference. I have started with the eBook as this seems to be a crunch issue for the current situation for print. There is a playlist that includes some presentations from the London Book Fair.



1.Why the eBook will never happen- Chris Linford on barriers around electronics.
2.Ian Lacey explains how the structure in a book supports education.
3.James Fraser celebrates book design but recognises that digital devices are coping with large amounts of text.
From London Book Fair,
5. Sony
7.advice for publishers and
8.some detail on the ePUB format.

It might be better to start with the London Book Fair ones and then look at the problems identified at LCC Futures but this depends on what you have seen already.

Thinking about the LCC Futures conference and the information that the internet is now fourty years old. Chris Linford spoke about personal computers as being not quite fourty years old and claimed that technology innovation usually takes about that long. For example electricity in the home or the motor car. But this cannot be exact. The internet did not seem to be happening much until the early nineties so appearances are not much of a guide.

This would help in my take on IPEX. If it is the Web To Print IPEX, following the Web To Print drupa, then the background of being roughly fourty years into the internet is relevant. Give or take say three percent either way. I may still experiment with fiction and time travel but there is the basis of a theory that may get past the fact checkers.

Yesterday at LCC Futures the Microsoft demo of server streaming used Big Buck Bunny for content. Attribution is all that is asked on creative commons terms. Surely they should mention that Blender is available and that many open source graphics options are on the scene.

Other than that the Silverlight aspects seem to work ok. No sign of Adobe so far but the story is much the same. Convergance of phones and TV sets sometime soon. Video everywhere.

Meanwhile the LCC is being reorganized around "design" and "media" though i don't understand this so far or where "print and publishing" fits in.

More later.

Yesterday Ian Lacey's keynote for the LCC Futures Conference included a showing of this from YouTube-



Is there a continuous community around the LCC / London college of Printing as was? The recent graduates are starting to turn up and describe what they find. Seems a bit different to the classic machine minder. More later. I am in the Elephant shopping centre and have half an hour to find the way out.

Found web access at the elephant. Upstairs ina cash exchamge place.

Adobe still doing press on e-books occasionally http://bit.ly/bnepub

Barnes and Noble promoting ePub and PDF. seems very sensible not to use some strange format that only Barnes and Noble would understand.

I am not expecting anyone from Adobe to be at the LCC Futures Conference. They seem to rely increasingly on web presence and impact in the USA.

The LCC Futures conference is later this week, Wednesday to Friday at the LCC, Elephant and Castle. I have made some notes from previous stories for OhmyNews. It may help to have a bit of perspective. Then a few notes from recently.

Print Morphs Into Communication 2005

John Birkenshaw (PIRA) welcomed print companies who chose descriptions such as "a full service communications consultancy" and saw the future of print as "a software based process."

Marcus Kirby from Vertis PRS mentioned "those horrible spam emails" as the part he liked least.

Adobe, Jutta Koch on what became the PDF Print Engine

Filipa de Chassey from Antenna Audio, wireless Tate Modern

Alan Sekers paid £30,000 in 1984 for a Quantel Paintbox

Adobe Skews Away From Print 2006
Adobe launch Acrobat 8, not much about JDF

Andy Pieroux suggested during the conference that Xerox would no longer use the slogan "The New Business of Printing" but switch to "The News Business of Communication."

Positive Focus promote Jaws PDF Server for knowledge workers

"One take on the Adobe marketing priorities is that print as a prospect has more or less disappeared."

London College Mixes Communication and Print 2007
Ian Lacey claims that e-learning has not been a success as hoped for.

Chris Linford spoke on problems of web copyright for creatives

Colleen Murrell from Deakin University on video journalism and iTunes University also Alan Greenberg from Apple

Martin Brown from Asset TV on a web channel

Web features in presentations from recent graduates

Show daily printed short run by Canon

LCC Conference Considers the Inevitability of the E-Book 2008

Ian Lacey claimed that the printed book is "the last bastion of defence against hyperlinking."

Heidelberg demonstrate Anicolor

OhmyNews editors reverse my headline and sub headline-

"Heidelberg presents offset litho as digital workflow"

Background on ePUB

"Litho has improved, but these are marginal and incremental gains. In digital printing there are going to be step changes. " Robert Stabler, HP UK

Recently Adobe MAX had very little I noticed that was not about Flash, but I found one presentation about ePUB through a blog.

e-learning is still doing ok, I think. Almost not mentioned as a web aspect for learning is normal.

ipex5 lcc shows print as part of communication

sometime around 2010 it will become clear why the LCC is not called the LC Print.

IPEX could be a time to write about this again

to be amended

IPEX4 inkjet targets runs of 2000

Will wait on guidance from other blogs such as Andy Tribute

There will be a result out of actual working machines. My guess is that 2000 will be the run claimed by inkjet so the litho response will be interesting.

to be amended

ipex3 premedia redefined by journalists

Checking out premedia section to study what the word means. Can text be published directly to web and devices as well as a print workflow?

Could start with looking at Haymarket and Guardian group as publishers. There is a mismatch sometimes between what they write and what they are doing. Guardian writes not much on print technology, as if it has always been there and nothing much happens. But they did spend £500m on manroland kit. Not many UK orders in 2010?

to be amended

ipex2-Adobe not really there

Guess is that #Adobe will not have a stand/booth but will just show through PDF Print Engine OEMs. Implication that Adobe Classic is over as a marketing message. Based on impression of Print09Chicago.

To be amended.

IPEX#1 Heidelberg litho for short runs

Draft first story from IPEX 2010, also a test of time travel.

Early press conference will cover comparison with digital, such as inkjet.

See previous story from Total Print Expo 2008

To be amended later.

Here is a link to a video from What They Think.

Fuji was close to the Heidelberg stand at Total Print Expo last year in London.

Main points

The official launch is still intended for IPEX. That is an actual device, not a "cyber joke".

Runlength up to 2,500 . Litho will have to show some comparison.

Impression of Print09 in Chicago continues to suggest that time travel is unavoidable. Reality of Chicago now compared to claims for IPEX 2010 suggests much scope for disruption. Sometime soon.

Through Neil Stratton on LinkedIn comes this quote from an editorial in Deutscher Drucker ( not sure where the translation happened)

These days when trade shows are held all those taking part are looking for clues about the future economic situation—and the printing industry is no exception. One of our industry’s largest shows of the year, Print 09 in Chicago, has therefore come under sharpened scrutiny.
That the stands sizes and the once over-elaborate structures were substantially cut back one might take as a positive sign of a return to normality; but the fact that many companies completely reinterpreted the term ‘exhibitor’ and simply didn’t show products at all is something that the visitors can hardly welcome. To some extent these exhibits were replaced by little ‘cyber jokes’ to be viewed on oversized touchscreens. But is that enough to make a print manager get in his or her car and drive several hundred kilometres to a show?

One thing is clear, when firms such as Manroland or Kodak no longer show systems, it forces not just the show organizers but also all the other exhibitors to rethink. Or, in other words, how little can one present on the stand without disappointing the visitors and customers? After all, it was a survey by the Print 09 organizers themselves that revealed before the show that visitors were very keen to see machines and systems. At the same time, they also expected to use it as an opportunity to discuss innovative applications and lucrative areas of business

So far as visitor figures go, there were unfortunately no positive signals from Print 09. Whilst the largest Chinese print show, China Print in Beijing a few months back, left one in no doubt that the Chinese print industry had pulled itself together, the empty halls in Chicago made it clear that the US market continues to be in deep crisis.

Thing is, the "cyber jokes" can be done online. They have already started. Actual kit working in real time still crucial for a decent loop of online and Birmingham UK.

Found this through Twitter from MarkzwareTV. I thought my own videos were shaky. Someone should give away external microphones on the way in to IPEX.....

Is print now part of communication?

This note is intended for the IP3 website (Institute of Paper, Printing and Publishing) . It may be an article or more like a blog post if other people add to it. It is mostly opinion but starts from some facts.

The London College of Communication will host a Futures Conference on October Wednesday 21st - Friday 23rd. Previously this was located in Earls Court as part of Total Print Expo but this show has been cancelled for 2009. The change of scope to include litho in Digital Print World was not enough to expand a base. The Futures Conference has had a different direction, taking digital to include the Web and new media.

I have written reports on previous conferences for OhmyNews, a news website in Korea. Last year they switched my headlines so the talk at the conference about e-books became the main story and the subheading was about Heidelberg demonstrating litho for runs under 50. It turns out the editors may have had a case for doing this. Including the content on mobile phones there has been increasing interest in e-books and devices. I usually include opinion from people I meet about the name change from London College of Printing to LC Communication. Hardly anyone supports this as LCP is still widely known and the Communication word has not really been promoted or explored.

IPEX recently announced that John Warnock and Chuck Geschke from Adobe are to be Champions of Print for IPEX 2010. IPEX has effectively already started in terms of presence on Twitter and general promotion. However as far as I can make out there was not much Adobe presence at Print09 in Chicago. They definitely did not attend Total Print Expo in 2008 and Apple decided not to buy space at drupa. Computer companies have a radical view on the speed of change and what is worth advertising. The recent Adobe press releases are mostly about Flash and video.

My guess is that the products regarded as Adobe Classic - Postscript and PDF - are regarded as mature and Macromedia is effectively repositioned as Adobe(FLSH). This may be just some strange behaviour that the UK can ignore or it may anticipate some disruption that will be evident fairly soon. By next May there could be some significant changes. At IPEX there is a category of "pre-media" but not much clarity on what this means.

Many e-books are in the EPUB format, based on XML. The speed and flexibility of the Web means that publishing can be interactive. So far the Job Definition Format (JDF) has not been promoted as a way for print customers to specify requirements. Web to Print appears to be just another browser screen but XML for hard copy is a topic to explore if print continues as part of a publishing mix.

IPEX will continue on a large scale, partly because of the global audience. Annual events such as Total Print Expo may give a better indication of what is happening in the UK, even when postponed. The Futures Conference will discuss most related issues and it may soon be time for acceptance of the word "communication", something print is part of. It will be also be interesting if details are public on how the courses are arranged around media, design and publishing.

The Elephant and Castle is not a hard place to find, but for people who cannot be there some online social networking could start soon and then continue through October. My own Twitter tag is #will789gb.

Found this looking for PDF-A ahead of the meeting at Print09 tomorrow. Seems to be the main event for PDF.

My sense of time is getting more vague. IPEX have announced that John Warnock and Chuck Geschke are the latest Champions in Print. Will they be there in May? If not at least there can be some blog links. Can't remember anyone from Adobe being in the Printweek 100 ever. But can remember loads of stories about various issues that would result in PDf never being implemented quite as claimed. So this blog is right to continue as being in 2002, a time when a bit of cred for PDF would have been an extra.

Continues on the blog for drupa 2008, just a bit closer to real time.

Please add comment if you remember Adobe UK in the Printweek 100. Rough dates would also be interesting.

This is another time travel post. Subject to revision obviously. But as of today I am working on the assumption that Adobe Classic , Postscript and PDF, has more or less gone, traded in for Macromedia or Adobe(FLSH). Print 09 has started and a Google News search finds that What They Think reports that Kodak include the PDF Print Engine in Prinergy Workflow 5.1. So it is for the equipment stands to show what PDF offers. I cannot find that there is an Adobe stand.

Meanwhile there is a press release for Adobe Story, a new script support launched at IBC in Amsterdam. More like the Flash future.

As suggested previously, if Adobe Classic is not worth promoting then the margins may be about to find a new level.

If someone reading this is in Chicago and finds an Adobe stand please add a comment. Obviously I am just guessing from a distance.

Stories intended for OhmyNews about Technology events mostly in the UK

Previous stories for OhmyNews have covered trade fairs etc in the UK with some reference through web links to other events. IPEX 2010 has already started as promoted so this list covers other events ahead of this. Most of the technology seems fairly stable now. I do not expect many surprises in the next nine months. The issues are about how the potential is implemented.

Print 09 Chicago

11-16 Sept

Stories could be similar to those expected for IPEX-

Heidelberg claims short runs for litho (see Total Print Expo last year)

Adobe lost in Macromedia (Postscript has vanished, concentrate on Flash)

Pre-media to scope e-books, video

"This is a web-to-print event" - Zipper


IP Expo
7-8 Oct

Includes cloud and mobile

XML possible, ahead of Online Informationm / IMS, see below


Adobe MAX

4-7 Oct

Adobe event, USA only in real time. Mostly Flash, I guess.

The Frankfurt Book Fair now includes a tech aspect

14-18 Oct

Tools of Change one day version

13th

Also White Space from Bernd Zipper so could relate to drupa

The white space / weiss-raum blog

Expect more tech developments around e-books

Scribd ok? London publishers could still ignore it but they would be wrong

Inkjet for short run books. (could be at a print show)
-------------------

London College of Communication Futures Conference

Total Print Expo has folded this year butsomething will happen at LCC

some time in October

Can i write another story for Ohmynews about the change from Print to communications? needs some better info on the changes in LCC structure.


---------------------------
Online Information / IMS
1-3 Dec

XML at the back as IMS. EPUB format for e-books, JDF for hard copy.
No sign of PDFXML or Adobe.
-------------------------
BETT

13 -18 Jan 2010

Netbooks, compare with phones. Operating Systems.
----------------------

Learning technologies

27-28 Jan

Adobe appearance at an adult show
----------------------

Book Fair arrives in London

19-21 Apr

Scribd ok? Yes, i think by then it should be possible to sell from UK.
If not, special lobby if they have a stand.

-----------------

IPEX

www.ipex.org

18-25 May

Stories see above, Chicago.

Couple of things have happened that make me think a substantial shift in the position of print is already happening. Personal Computer World has stopped publishing as hard copy. Printweek has started to Twitter and also published a story about social networks online. So the summer drift is over as I try to make sense of this.

There is a couple of month delay in any case on the cover date but I think the last one was August. As September looms I was finding it hard to locate anything more recent in a newsagent. Sure enough a search on Google finds a story by Guy Kewney in the Register. This was back in June so I am way behind. Apparently the Golden Age was long ago. I did notice they started to repeat reviews of Sinclair and Compaq kit so the audience profile could have been getting older. My Google search also found the Jordan Times with a consideration on whether personal computers face extinction. Jean-Claude Elias concludes this is not the case though mobile devices such as phones are a bit different. Not many people will take a screwdriver to them and plug in a few extra chips. Or buy a print guide on where they went wrong in the attempt. Current devices are part of consumer electronics. Most of the time they just work. So this is part of the reason for declining magazine sales, linked to the fact that most devices have some way to read text. Both trends are getting stronger. It may just be that I personally have studied Personal Computer World for twenty years or so, but the fact this ceases suggests to me that other print publications will also switch online.

Meanwhile Printweek is not only involved in Twitter but prepared to publish an article by Matt Whip that explains what social networks are about. Several examples are reported where print service providers have used online promotion. Quite often stories about an e-book development include some sections on why the book itself will always be better or why some internet technology is unlikely to be widely accepted. In this case the story is uniformly positive and encouraging. There is no reason why Twitter and print cannot coexist. But this story seems to me to mark a new stage in what print journalists are prepared to write about. The idea of print as just one part of communications takes a while to accept. In 2004 the London College of Printing was renamed as the London College of Communications. Many people in print think this was a mistake, including some LCC staff. Next step, continue this blog on Twitter in short sentences, my tag will789gb where gb means the book is going. Note gone, but just a bit shaken at the moment.

Is print dead or is there a new basis for print? If so, when did this happen? Maybe it takes a while for something to be realised. The timescale to reflect on this could be over this summer when the print version of Digital Printer is planned not to appear. Apparently the eight issues a year have already appeared to some extent and will be concentrated in the autumn. So informed and current discussion will resume just ahead of Total Print Expo in October.

The May print version has an editorial by Simon Eccles assuring us that "Kindle2 won't be the end of print". I have already given away the news as i see it. "if you don't see Digital Printer for a few weeks, never fear. We will be updating the website and writing the weekly email newsletter." Still, the piece starts off with how various devices have failed over two decades because "printed books cost peanuts, don't need batteries and it won't break the bank if you leave them on the bus by mistake." However, the development seems to be the announcement of the Kindle DX, the larger screen and the involvement of newspapers. "This time newspapers are treating it with a bit more thought. Something that replaces printed editions is a bit close to home."

So expect more from print journalists on this sort of topic. On the drupa blog I have mentioned the White Space / "weiss-raum.com" at the Frankfurt Book Fair and the Bernd Zipper view that print has already died but is coming back on a web platform. Something like that. At this point there is copy that could be associated with the vent although maybe not all the stands are booked. The test will come with the actual event and what sort of claims can be backed up. Fortunately Digital Printer will be back in hard copy sometime later. Will they send a technology reporter to a book fair? Why not, the London one had a digital zone that made a lot of sense.

Searching on Google often finds stuff from long abo such as this from Guy Kewney in 2007

Print isn't dead. It just needs re-inventing to live with the Internet age.

Not sure if this started in NewsWireless but it is archived by The Register.

The scenario for 2012 is that an A3 colour print version is produced rapidly with the combination of stories required for each person. Can be picked up on the way to work.

At the London Book Fair there was the Espresso book machine that claims to deliver a book in about five minutes. Scribd could deliver texts but how to combine them for input to Espresso is not yet obvious. Still, the idea is worth looking at that print has died as we knew it but is ok a something else.

Journalism as rambling might make sense. Chances of interviews decrease all the time. I did phone Heidelberg about Total Print Expo and the answer is they don't know yet. Long ago I sent some questions to the Guardian for Alan Rusbridger. No reply though he has replied to comments on his blog so this is the sort of thing that is more likely. At the time I followed ABC numbers but it became clear that there is no model for how news organisations move online and no integrated ABC figures to show how titles do as print and Web.

Recently I notice that the print Guardian seems to carry on in a print sort of way. Attacks on bloggers are quite frequent. News about digital developments sometimes missing. The new Amazon Kindle has not turned up in my print Guardian. Announced Wednesday, this is Friday. However online there was a blog from Bobbie Johnson on Tuesday and a story updated yesterday though I only found it through Google.

Kindle DX heralded as "saviour of newspapers" apparently. So what do they mean? Can't be paper as such, it must be about news organisations. So far New York Times, Washington Post and Boston Globe are signed up for the new device with possible cheap hardware with a subscription. So would the Guardian do something similar in the UK? PDF can display on the larger screen without reflow. The PDF version of the Guardian is more or less a secret in the UK but could do with a relaunch.

Maybe it is just that different people make different decisions but the effect is that the print version of the Guardian seems to ignore a lot of actual news. Do they think the print audience is just going to stay loyal as a source of income and has no idea what they do online? If they have a coherent plan, why not tell people about it? I could be wrong about the lack of Kindle stories but this blog is one way of checking. Chances of the book aspects turning up on Saturday? Quite low I would think.

Also today Printweek hard copy version has a story about magazines that makes no mention of the Web either as a cause of declining advertising revenues or as a publishing option. Yet Haymarket as such seems to be moving online quite rapidly. Marketing Direct is now mostly a website. Print organisations can offer web design and digital communication. Printweek could do more to report what other magazines are thinking about and new devices such as the Amazon Kindle.

I will try a few emails but my guess is that new information will come about mostly through search and blog comments.

This IPEX blog is mostly about the UK. Meanwhile new developments may be included in the drupa blog where the memory of the innovation parc is still fresh.

Thinking about imagining IPEX is already happening. Not much will happen in the meantime as far as I can tell. The Printweek printed report on Northprint includes a statement that Total Print Expo is still "on the cards" following a significant drop in numbers for Northprint. So my guess is that there is a 70% chance of it happening and a 50% chance of Heidelberg being there. But this still may not be a very useful test on what is possible for book production. Jo Francis from Printweek has made a note to check out the Espresso in about six months time. This could be as significant an event. A lot of these tests are mostly spin, or culture. If digital book production is gaining attention, some way could be found for Blackwell to appear positive.

Printing and bookselling could fit together in various ways. For a long time there ahave been bookshops as an extension of a print operation. Cambridge University Press has a shop mostly with stock from their own titles. Most printers have had to get in stock from other sources if they wanted a shop to continue. So far there has not been much of a welcome for the Espresso and the development that Blackwell offer instant print on Charing Cross Road. I think printers could look at this again and use the publicity to investigate other possible combinations of online content and digital printing. Recent blog post by Jo Francis on the Printweek community site refers to reports that the Espresso binding may fall apart. She plans to visit Charing Cross Road within six months and check whether interest continues. I saw the final products at the London Book Fair and briefly at the Blackwell shop and I think the binding problem can be solved if it exists on any scale. Several people seemed well pleased with the result.

Looking at the detail on the reports of binding problems, it was only the first effort that fell apart on the visit by Valentine Low reported in the Times. The second one was ok so the process took 13 minutes. Paul Manning lists several problems in comment on anearlier Printweek report, but he also states that the problems could be resolved in a year or so.

The print industry has better binding equipment and suitable kit for short runs. It is still unclear what the Espresso runs will be like, especially for the originals people are asking for. There may be opportunities for print organisations to work with bookshops. Maybe there is space for more instant print on Charing Cross Road.

Redtie will talk about Web2Print at Northprint.

At the drupa Innovation Parc it was said that 2008 was the Web To Print drupa.

Perhaps this was not noticed enough at the time, given the interest in machinery.

But at Northprint there is no Heidelberg.

Could there be a Total Print Expo without Heidelberg?

An interesting interview in Printweek included (content quoted in full for purposes of review and comment)

Daniel Danielli, Editor, Printweek - On a different topic, Heidelberg UK is not exhibiting at Northprint and you didn’t exhibit at Grafitalia – have you reviewed your exhibitions strategy?

Jürgen Rautert, Heidelberg Sales - Yes. To put it bluntly, I hate the amount of money we have been spending at exhibitions, it is too much. Drupa is something very special, so it’s hard to reduce our spend there, but we have drastically cut back on shows in the US and we will reduce at Ipex, but we will be there. We will reduce the number of minor shows we attend around the world, as we would rather use our showrooms to demonstrate our products. I don’t think it’s fair any more to spend the kind of money we were spending 10 years ago, because in the end the customer pays. It is the same for exhibitions as it is in every other field of business – the minor players in the niches will continue and a few of the bigger ones will continue, but the medium-sized fairs will disappear from the industry. That’s my prediction.

So if Heidelberg is not at Northprint, will they be at Total Print Expo in October? This is not supposed to be "Southprint" but a continuation of Digital Print World with added litho or whatever meets the requirement. In 2008 Heidelberg showed how Anicolor coped with short runs. I thought this was exactly what a trade show is supposed to be about. Nearby Fuji showed a video about inkjet. Whatever run length you had in mind the Heidelberg stand showed actual production. See my story for OhmyNews. (The editors switched the headline to e-books, I thought the Heidelberg arrival at a digital show was the main news.)

Unless they see Total Print World as a niche show they may value, it will probably revert back to appearing to be a digital show. So what would that mean? It could mean that this was a show about "short runs" and only digital is still worth promoting. I used to think that Heidelberg would continue to attend as the comparison with inkjet would make more sense. the kit announced at drupa is expected to be better known later this year and leading up to IPEX 2010. What is a "short run"? 2,000 would cover quite a lot of print. People I spoke to in 2008 could not make much sense of the Heidelberg claims that Anicolor was suitable for runs less than 50. Just my impression, this is just a blog. But in future the case for litho comparisons will be more compelling as a topic.

Debate will wait for IPEX or even drupa but things change meanwhile. The London Bookfair will include a digital area with a stand for Easypress Technologies. The current interest is in ePUB but the Atomik Dynamic Publisher also supplies print ready PDF. So this relates to the drupa Innovation Parc and web-to-print. Life would be easier if the bookfair used all of the upstairs at Earl's Court and left some space in Earl's Court 2 for a print show such as Total Print Expo. The software companies could all be upstairs whatever they suggested as output. A major gain could be that the London College of Communications Futures Conference would still be upstairs but with a direct link to Total Print Expo. The arrangement where you have to walk round the whole building to find the stairs makes no sense at all. Easy to imagine on a blog. Expect more travel in time and space.

This blog will continue as IPEX 2002 even though 2010 is not far away. It is mostly about the UK, including the world of books and newspapers. The drupa2008 blog is more about global technology developments. This may turn out to be confusing but I have decided to avoid starting another blog when possible. More cross reference may help. There may be shifting opinions and quite a lot off topic, but coherence may appear in a later version.

This is a blog so it seems ok to borrow material from other sources and then add a comment. This week in Printweek Andrew Tribute has suggested that print companies may switch to Open Source Software and avoid the upgrade costs from Adobe and Microsoft. He mentions Scribus, as well as Xclamation and Passeportout. It is a significant event that Printweek can publish such an opinion. Perhaps Adobe is not seen as being central to the print industry as was once the case. I cannot find a stand booked at IPEX for example. Since buying Macromedia the promotion energy has been around Flash, what I call Adobe (FLSH). this move away from Adobe Classic could suggest that the products around Postscript and PDF are becoming commoditised or easily replicated. So Andrew Tribute is probably right to claim that most of page layout and PDF workflow could be managed with Open Source Software.

However, what I also think is that there is an implication for publishing that may be less comforting for the printing industry. Andrew Tribute wrote for WhatTheyThink in November 2008 about the E-Reader such as from Amazon or Sony - "I’m afraid at this time I am hardly impressed with these e-readers. I think the success they are having is more for the computer geek area where people want the latest technology." A PDF is available from Attributes download page. The Sony Reader has support for the ePUB format, also supported by many publishers and the Adobe Digital Editions Reader. A surprising development has been the scale of downloads of the Stanza Reader for i-Phone and i-Pod, much larger numbers than sales of the Kindle. So the ePUB format is already easy to access for a fairly large audience. It is based on open standards, starting with XHTML. Andrew Tribute observes that "Today there is awide availability of expert low-cost programmers who have skills to customise OSS and build it into an integrated network. (By the way, "low-cost" programmers relates to the total cost of the project compared to some license fees, open source supporters do charge a reasonable rate for a day's work) Main point, starting with an Open Document in Open Office, a print ready PDF is not the only option.

I think the print industry should also be more public in support for the Job Definition Format (JDF) another XML-friendly set of standards. Sean Smyth earlier reported in Printweek on Hunkeler Innovation that "I did not hear the word JDF in two days". JDF is not too technical to explain in general terms. Perhaps "web-to-print" is more exciting and the JDF version can come later in the flow. But there are going to be some fast publishing methods online. Print needs a workflow that compares, and ways to present it.

Giving up now.

Disappointing to say the least. There should be something later if only slides.

I may have not done something I should have done. Refreshed a few times and logged on again once. My information at the moment is that nothing happened after the welcome screen.

My basic take remains the same. It is interesting that Printweek are prepared to try this. The Web is part of the mix, according to UK print journalists. That is a development.

So this is about half an hour into the advertised time. I can ask a question and provide feedback. But there is no record of either I can access. I have no idea who else is in the audience or what they might be thinking.

Would you like to talk to each other?

I think we should have the option.

no posts because nothing is happening

Twitter, what is that about?

Surely people have more to do than a moment by moment update on things that don't matter much for other people?

Still no change on the Printweek webcast but the opening slide is interesting.

Liveblogging from the Printweek webcast.

I think it should have started about five minutes ago. If nothing is posted here for the next hour, that could mean something is happening.