The new IP3 online magazine has included a revised version of my earlier text on 'Classic Publishing Moves To India'.

There is now some info on Quark. Their software development moved to India a while ago.

The main point about this is the IP3 decision to publish articles online. this is the Institute of Print, Publishing and Papermaking. There may be a hard copy version later but the move online is a definite event.

Meanwhile the newspapers have still not decided to publish numbers for digital edition circulation. Maybe they won't till the decline of print circulation is completely obvious to everyone.

NEW SONY READER PUTS A LIBRARY'S WORTH OF READING MATERIAL IN YOUR POCKET

According to Simon Eccles in Printweek, "this turkey has 'loser' written all over it".

26 Jan, page 26, £2.95 where you can find it.

To be fair, Simon Eccles mentions benefits of technology. Phillips Polymer Vision will ship something "not scifi" in 2007.

But the price of the Sony offer is thought to be too high at £350.

Sometimes I think that the creative professionals live in a special kind of world. Simon Eccles is impressed that Nikon have more or less announced the end of film cameras. For most amateurs digital photography arrived some time ago.

When it happened the switch away from film was faster than Kodak was expecting. Maybe something similar could occur with e-book readers.

Guy Kewney is now working in this area as an extension to reporting on mobile devices.
http://www.newswireless.net/index.cfm/article/2551
there are some heavy duty reports from AFAICS.

The Hunky Mouse has leaked a large extract
http://hunkymouse.livejournal.com/13997.html

By the way, someone I met in the pub the other day was of the opinion that Guy Kewney was saying something very similar about twenty years ago.

Simon Eccles uses the word "balderdash" about "the same old rubbish about the end of printed books".

Maybe he has got a point but it would also be useful to think about how hard copy evolves to complement digital devices.

As memory serves, the first Sony Walkman was rather expensive but cheaper options came along later.

In her latest letter from the US for Printweek, Cary Sherburne reports that some printers will not be coming to IPEX becuase they prefer the web. "I am more interested in a webinar custom-tailored to me than a generic trade show presentation."

There is still a point to trade shows as they are a chance to ask direct questions and ask some questions. Having tried to make out as much as I can from the web aspects of two recent events, I am aware of a lot of missing information.

Adobe promoted "Momentum in Print" with a keynote from Frank Romano. I am mostly concerned with JDF and was hoping that Adobe would say a bit more about this. There is nothing new on the web that I can find. Frank Romano spoke later on a webinar where he said a bit about JDF. He still cannot see where the ROI is going to be for a print company to update production equipment. However he is ready to look at case studies and is open to being persuaded.

There are case studies on the CIP4 site, especially detailed for the winners of awards. At IPEX it will be possible to see some working examples, including the daily newspaper. CIP4 will have a day at Xplor, alongside the PDF Forum. This may have a wider discussion. Quark will be there and presumably will include something on Job Jackets, their version of JDF creation on the desktop.

It may just be that I can't find it, but I don't think there is much detail on how Adobe expect JDF to work with Acrobat and/or Indesign. "Classic Publishing" is now a product group run from India including JDF, but I don't think there were any speakers from India in San Francisco. Not sure about this, maybe it will become clear later.

Scot Petersen wrote in an e-Week blog about the event, reporting a joke from Frank Romano-
"What do you call a group of printers at a conference? Survivors."

Petersen is convinced that "print is dying, in some forms more than others--newspapers in particular." Print could evolve with technology "if the print industry learns to adapt". But even that is going to be a challenge. "Printers are stubborn," Romano said. "We do not like to make changes. If we do change it's because we have no choice but to change."

(The Scot Petersen blog was posted Jan 23rd)

Challenging though this is, I still think the people from print companies should have been at a meeting that had a wide enough scope to include all forms of publishing and media. There is rapid change coming and it makes little sense to consider print just in itself.

Many companies and publishers can create for the web fairly easily so they expect print to be as fast and controlled. JDF is a marketing opportunity, not just a production efficiency. Print needs to be presented as if it is conscious of a place in digital communications.

I realise I am repeating myself quite a lot. IPEX seems to be shaping up much like Chicago last year. I managed to write an article for OhmyNews based on press releases and websites. Quark were interested in JDF. This year Adobe have a stand at IPEX so some more detail should appear.

The PDF forum includes a beach party. It may be warm enough in Miami. Somehow the reality of January and February in the UK is a lot to cope with by comparison.

I have now found the copy of Printweek with the 'opinion' piece by Frank Romano. It is dated 15 April 2004, ahead of Drupa. the headline is 'A premature JDF gamble is not the answer'. "JDF is a great idea but its time has not yet come". Problems include the multiplicity of vendors and the age of existing equipment. Cost savings are hard to demonstrate given other automation possibilities. Speed improvements could depend on originators integrating job information when the job is created. Maybe not a good idea as these same people mess up fonts, images and colour spaces.

Point one obviously is that they should read one of Frank Romano's books on PDF.

Point two is to ask what has changed in the last couple of years? My impression is that both Quark and Adobe have an idea about JDF workflow as part of page design. There is some form of template that can be set up similar to a file for distiller settings as required later in the process. This seems to be fairly clearly stated in the description of 'job jackets' for Quark 7. I am not as clear on what Adobe intend. Maybe it will vary with the OEM partners.

At Momentum in Print there could be some more information, even if it is to clarify the outstanding issues.

Michael Jahn joins ELAN GMK ? ELAN GMK Portal


link from browser

"Classic publishing" moves to India

The new shape of Macromedia and Adobe is beginning to appear. This post is a first attempt to describe it. There may be something different later. The main impression is that the original Adobe project around Postscript and PDF is no longer at the front of priorities. Macromedia concerns around Flash for animated web design and mobile devices have more of a future. There is now a business unit in India for 'classic publishing'. The word 'classic' is possibly like the word 'legacy' for some computer people. It sometimes means those lumps of content you might want to switch to something else.

The business units are arranged around the customer segments, as explained by Shantanu Narayan, president and chief operating officer of Adobe Systems, in an interview with Forbes. The Creative Suite will now work seamlessly with Flash and Dreamweaver for creative designers. For knowledge workers, Acrobat will now work with Breeze for collaboration and video conferencing. For enterprises and government there is a life cycle of documents. This will now inlclude Flex as well as PDF.

"Finally, there is mobility: The possibilities inherent in alternate devices excite me the most. There are a billion people in China and India who are never going to connect to the Internet using a PC. They're going to connect through a cell phone or an alternate device. We have the opportunity to also provide an environment for people to engage with that information on those devices like what Macromedia has done with Flash Lite [for cell phones] and we have done with DoCoMo by bringing Adobe Acrobat to its cell phones. There are so many opportunities."

Notice that, as far as I can make it out, there is no mention in the interview of the "classic publishing" business unit. More on this later.

The enthusiasm for mobile devices continues with a robust view on infrastructure in the USA. "....when I talk about alternate devices--our telecom structure here in the U.S. is significantly behind. Look at Korea, China, India and Eastern Europe--that's where a lot of the mobile revolution is happening. It's the people there who are going to figure out what new solutions and services are required."

As part of the presentation of quarterly results, Adobe have published a guide to products and business segment classification. Also on the website are executive profiles. These show there is Macromedia representation in the business units. The 'Creative Solutions' includes Fireworks as well as the bundles of Creative Suite and video. Brian Lamkin is the 'acting' VP for this unit. 'Knowledge Worker Solutions' includes Acrobat, Breeze and FlashCom Server. The VP for 'knowledge worker solutions' is Thomas Hale. At Macromedia, Hale was senior vice president and general manager of the Communications, Publishing and Training Division. Enterprise and Developer Solutions now includes the Live Cycle server PDF products and Flex and Coldfusion. The VP is David Mendels. At Macromedia, Mendels served as executive vice president and general manager for Macromedia's tool and server product division. The 'Mobile and Devices Solutions' only shows Flash products. The VP is Alan S. Ramadan. At Macromedia, Ramadan was the executive vice president and general manager of the Mobile and Devices Division and performed similar responsibilities to his current role.

On the Business Segments Classification for Financial Year 2006, the final section is shown as "other", otherwise known as the "Print and Classic Publishing Solutions Business Unit". The VP is Naresh Gupta, who has worked for Adobe since 1997. He is also Managing director of India Research and Development. He started the Noida research campus and is now integrating the Macromedia campus at Bangalore. The product range may reflect those being developed in India as well as a focus starting with print and "classic publishing". The scope mentions 'e-learning', probably refering to Contribute. The base product seems to be Postscript, arguably the basis of classic print and publishing as developed over the years since Charles Geschke and John Warnock left Xerox Parc. Mostly the products seem to be for desk top publishing other than InDesign. Freehand in recent years has not had much promotion from Macromedia but it has gathered up several hard copy features such as support for multiple pages. Many people still believe it has advantages over Illustrator in some circumstances. Pagemaker is definitely a classic. Framemaker has a history on UNIX platforms and is designed to work with long structured documents, often linked to data such as XML. It is unclear when InDesign will be able to cope with long documents adequately.

As reported by Hindu Business Line, Adobe will hire an additional 300 staff in India. Naresh Gupta is quoted as saying "The Print and Classic Publishing Unit in India would be responsible for profit and loss of various products from both Adobe and Macromedia."

"This is a big move for India, as it demonstrates how we are moving up the value chain. Many companies do product development in India, while others undertake functions such as maintenance and support. Adobe is not only looking at product development, but also business development from India. I believe this is the first time a global brand is bringing business unit functionality to the country," Mr Gupta said.

Up to this point, this post is more or less based on facts, some from Adobe, some from other sources. Below is speculation and opinion.

The PDF theme seems to me so scattered about that it could become obscured. The market segmentation may make some kind of sense in launching products but it makes it harder for people to have a coherent view of the technology. Creative professionals understand there is some need for forms and corporate information. The 'intelligent document' marketing stream could include the original user base for PDF. (more below on the Job Definition Format). Knowledge Workers seem to be assumed to be only interested in the desktop. Generally,they do realise that something happens on a server.

Probably Flex will get more attention as a forms front end based on Flash. As with PDF forms the aim is to collect data as XML. Many developers will concentrate on the XML aspect and not be too concerned by the design aspects.

SVG Reader is not mentioned on the list of products. Open source needs to be promoted for itself.

There is no news I can find as to the Postscript work being done in Norwich, UK. This site works with Postscript OEM partners, several based in Europe. Actual production work for publishing and pre-press is now outsourced to India to an increasing extent. Maybe there is a logic in getting technical knowledge closer to this user base. Many publishing professionals will be happy enough to continue with Framemaker. Freehand still has a lot of supporters, including creatives who have managed to find out about it. Judy Arndt recently commented "Illustrator is now based on PDF, not Postscript. It's very interesting that Adobe PostScript technology is in the 'Classic' group as well. It might not be a bad thing for FH, to be in the hands of some Postscript experts. Adobe can't wean the whole pre-press world from Postscript, overnight."

Given this apparent priority for Postscript, it seems strange that Adobe are promoting a conference in January intended for the printing industry. I can't see how it makes sense not to confront print service providers with the full picture of what is happening in publishing and media. Maybe this is part of the intention but it is far from clear. In my opinion JDF is the minimum that print companies should be offering as part of a mix of services. It is part of the agenda for Momentum in Print but there may be a view that nothing happens very quickly in print so there is no need for urgency. The views of Frank Romano will carefully considered as he has raised issues around JDF on previous occasions.

Shantanu Narayan could be right about the potential for mobile devices, but for most of the planet hard copy still has a future. Postscript and PDF-X are both open standards to practical effect so there is wider support available. Maybe this will be needed as the Adobe marketing emphasis moves more towards online animation through Flash.

There is talk of developing better connections for PDF and Flash. It is possible to capture Flash in PDF but it needs reloading. Generally PDF files have not made good use of the capability to contain movies or sound. This may be because of a lack of bandwidth or a lack of understanding. A future PDF format (2.0 for example) might be more suitable. Then again if everyone was online all the time there could just be Dreamweaver sites with occasional Flash Paper.

I have been looking for a copy of Printweek with an article by Frank Romano about JDF. As memory serves, he questions whether print customers could contribute anything useful as detailed instructions given the number of problems they cause through unskilled creation of PDF.

Now this is strange given his enthusiasm in writing various books about how to create PDF. There must have been a time he was more of an optimist.

Meanwhile I have found an article on the web making similar points. The argument seems to be that there is no sudden return to justify replacing all equipment with new JDF compliance.

Also it is pointed out that only 12% of printers have IT staff ( could be less outside the US).

Can't find anything more recent to suggest his biew has changed. This could be an issue if he says much the same as at the Momentum in Print event in January. There may be some printers who would like to hear that technology issues can be postponed for a while, but are these the people who will turn up for the event?

According to the Editor and Publisher website the circulation for the San Francisco Chronicle is down 16.58% for the six months to Sept 05. The audience for the Adobe event may be expecting an integrated presentation covering the web as well as print. ( see 'the last presses' for discussion on web as an explanation for declining print circulations)

As far as I can make it out the front end of JDF is likely to be a set of constraints for people creating pages on Quark or InDesign. Quark have described 'job jackets' in some detail though the final release is not yet out. Adobe presumably will present something as part of the Momentum event. I have a vague memory of the presentation by Jutta Koch at the London College of Communication conference during Digital Print World. The slides are not available on the web. Maybe there is more to clarify in ways Adobe is working with OEM partners.

The original idea with Acrobat 7 seemed to be that the JDF could be created from the desktop in a similar way to PDF. This is the 'intent' level of JDF. Now maybe the details of the job have already been decided before page makeup happens. So the 'print service organisation' provides some kind of format or template, possibly for the print customer.

This would not require any great cash investment by a print service organisation. Maybe a recent PC or Mac and some current software. The time investment would be to get to a point where print customers believed there was an understanding of how JDf can be used. If it is getting easier to publish a PDF document to the web then it will seem strange if setting up a print request is more complicated.

After that it might not matter. Works instructions could continue on paper. The print industry may be no closer to computer integrated manufacturing than ever it was. Though probably some companies would be cheaper and faster that others so the reality of JDF would follow.

I posted a comment on the new blog from Bill McDaniel. He has left Adobe so has a new blog at
http://worldbehindtheglass.blogspot.com

I suggested my first thought, that Adobe has finished the phase of Postscript and PDF as a way to represent flat documents on the web. He replies that he hopes "Adobe will expand the concept of PDF into something that encompasses the animated web as you call it. They have an excellent opportunity to find the correct blend of classic PDF-style documents and the new world of Flash style documenting that is emerging."

Let us call that PDF 2.0 or something like that. PDF as a container has some way to go. I still think there is a mass of stuff in the previous Adobe project that is now stable and will probably be included in offers from other companies, both for office documents and for prepress.

The Adobe Macromedia merger is now a fact. I don't think it is just an Adobe takeover although the Macromedia name has gone. My impression is that the Adobe people have more confidence in the future of the Macromedia products than in the Postscript backlog they were working with. PDF was a way to transition from the printed page to the web. Maybe this is no longer exciting in San Francisco.

I am still mostly interested in PDF and I think it has a long way to go. Bandwidth like the future is not evenly distributed. On the planet print is still the main way of communicating.

Open Office and Microsoft Office 12 will both create PDF so it will stay around even if 'design' tends towards animation.

Cary Sherburne also reports on US interest in e-paper. An announcement form E Ink and LG.Phillips.LCD was previously reported in Printweek.

The previous week Printweek's resident columnist Lawrence Wallis described as 'arrant nonsense' a reported view from Bill Gates that print "will become virtually redundant in 10 years". The forecast is partly based on the latest iteration of e-paper as a foundation for comuter tablet technology. Wallis points out that the demise of print has been predicted "on umpteen occasions" since he joined the industry in 1949. He consider that print remains dynamic as new technologies support print production itself.

He lists some features that give print an advantage

• no need for special equipment
• no need for electricity
• no need for telephony ( web access )
• referable
• comparatively cheap
• portable
• editorially disciplined
• congenial to a user

These could be looked at as factors where print and online can be compared. Many people find a screen congenial on occasions. On the planet most people do not have access to a phone, let alone a tablet PC. I'm not sure about the 'editorial discipline'. There are some web news sites that employ editors. I submit stories for OhmyNews and find they are improved by the process. Often there are more interesting stories from other people that I find while looking to see if my own are accepted.

The heading "referable" may imply that the indexing on books can be relied on. The theme of Online Information is that 'everything is miscellaneous'. This may be something that could only work on the web. Searching for "Lawrence Wallis" on Google turns up a Seybold review of Typomania from 1996. I wonder if you would find this title from browsing in a bookshop?

There seems to be a trend for Adobe to insist on events that are centred on Adobe, rather than attending general shows. Adobe Live has been well attended in London and other European cities. However, I think something is lost by the lack of context.

Printweek now features a regular letter from Cary Sherburne, senior editor for WhatTheythink.com. This week she reports on Seybold's 'abandonment' of conferences -"once the most influential trade shows in the printing and publishing industry"- and states that Adobe have 'stepped in' with a new initiative. My impression is that MediaLive made every effort to continue the conferences. The original New York dates this year turned out to be close to Adobe Live in New York. Later dates were announced. The Amsterdam dates turned out to be close to the series of Adobe Live events in Europe.

Based on downloading the presentation files after the event, my impression is that the Chicago conference made a real contribution to the discussion around print. Quark made the first public demonstration of Quark 7, including ways to create JDF files from the desktop. So far I think Adobe have not fully described what may be possible using the JDF features in Acrobat 7. The fact that both companies are working on a new phase in workflow is obviously to be welcomed. At an old-style Seybold event there could have been some comparison, plus some research based comment on general trends.

It seems unlikely that Quark will be part of 'Momentum in Print' so many people will make their minds up later.

Adobe is also part of the PDF Forum for Print Production in Miami. The 'state of the art PDF creation' session includes speakers from both Adobe and Quark. The PDF Forum will be moderated by Stephen Jaeggi from Binningen, Switzerland. On the panel at Seybold Amsterdam he was on good terms with a 'wish fairy' that conjured up a group vision of a better future. His own contribution was that Adobe PDF server software be priced at some level more people could consider, given the realities of available budgets. This is the kind of issue that may not come up at an Adobe hosted event. Adobe Live in London had limited coverage of Acrobat as part of the Creative Suite, limited mention of JDF in PDF for print production, and almost no coverage at all of 'intelligent documents' or LiveCycle. Something like Seybold did a better job in presenting an overall picture of Adobe capability.

Seybold Amsterdam in particular was a major benefit in Europe for connecting with a web discussion linked to print issues on which Europeans made a contribution. This will not be easy to replace.

I am not convinced that San Francisco is still a place where there is much interest in hard copy. Again my impression is based on browsing the web, but I found a lot of interest in Web 2 and the recent event organised by MediaLive and O'Reilley. Macromedia were involved but there did not seem to be much interest from Adobe.

Maybe MediaLive would consider bringing a version of Web 2 to Amsterdam next summer. With a corner somewhere for print.

This coming week in London there is an Online Information show. Print is there by implication. Scholar journals are moving online but Oxford University Press for example is still mostly hard copy. There will be more on this later. Not much about Adobe as they don't have a stand.

IP3 are organising a debate at the House of Commons about digital printing. Sometimes these turn out to be panel discussions. This year the issue is around the possible excess capacity for long run books given the growth in digital publishing.

I think that 'digital publishing' now includes online pages and downloads, especially PDF. a related issue is the authority assumed to be associated with different media. I think online is getting better. The Wikipedia is often updated so a stock of printed books may be losing in value, however well edited before publication.

The Online Information show will focus on wikis and blogs. After all these years it is still possible that some of the poeple attending assume that an article in a printed journal is somehow more convincing as a source of information.

The conference at the Digital Printing show last week was organised by the London College of Communication. I did an article for OhmyNews.

Some people would rather keep the name 'London College of Printing' but i think the conferrnce showed that the context of printing is changing.

Not many people turned up from the Institute of Printing, Paper and Publishing. Maybe it will be better promoted next year. The speakers were really interesting.

There is a conference in San Francisco about 'web 2,0' . Not sure what this involves but I am having a look as stuff becomes available. It has been going for a couple of years but I only found it recently.

There was a link on the Seybold site that turned up as Seybold Seminars were cancelled for New York and San Francisco. Medialive are now working with O'Reilley on this new conference.

I found an article by Tim O'Reilley explaining web 2 and this includes two coloumns of the old and the new. So 'publishing' is old and 'participation' is new. Presumably this means publishing as in chunks of knowledge as in books or static web pages.

I don't think Seybold was just fixed on that but the origins were in digital typesetting. I don't think this has gone away but there seems to be a major move in San Francisco.

One strange thing is that Adobe seem not to be there much. They came to dominate the previous world of Seybold and Adobe Live took over in soime ways. Maybe Web 2.0 works better with a wider range of companies so there is a better discussion.

Macromedia are still there. More news coming out so things could be clearer later.

OhmyNews have published my article about ABC certificates and Digital Editions.
Accountancy Age has made a move.

The OhmyNews headline picks out the evidence of falling print circulation. I think this is fair comment. OhmyNews is working well as a context in which to think more clearly about what is happening.

Media Guardian this week has nothing on ABC or Accountancy Age that I can see. One day they will write about digital editions, including their own. Maybe soon.

Adobe have plans to create some form of Acrobat User community. As I am involved in the UK Acrobat User Forum I can see some problems with this if it is true that Adobe will not support groups that include discussion of other PDF products.

See interview with Carl Young in Planet PDF
http://www.planetpdf.com/enterprise/article.asp?ContentID=7178&fa
He seems to have been not much clearer on Adobe pland after the PDF Conference and had some doubts about the '100% Adobe focus' - ''not being open to any solutions from any other, third party vendors, however valid or useful they may be". I think he has got a point. PDF has been intended as an open standard of sorts. Adobe has built up trust around this and there are ISO supported standards for pre-press and archiving. How are these to be discussed? So far the development of Acrobat has been helped by wider support for PDF.

Recently Seybold Seminars have been cancelled. Adobe Live is a great event and explains a lot about Adobe. However this is not the same as a Seybold event with editorial comparison of different choices. Once Macromedia is gone maybe there is not much to talk about. Still, something has changed.

Moving into the enterprise area is a new phase for Adobe and PDF. The established decision makers already have forms of communication. Adobe is only a part of this. Response to closed situations is likely to be limited.

OhmyNews have published my article about JDF at Print Chicago. On the Technology page.

More later. There is a demoscene event near Exeter that I need to get to first. At Budleigh Salterton in fact.

http://www.sundown2005.org/

Meanwhile CIP4 seem to have a really good presentation together. New directory on their website.

Falling asleep to the World Service one early morning I think I remember hearing that the Indian rope trick was actually invented by journalists in Chicago. Magicians in India then worked out how to do it. Maybe if there are enough reports about the potential of JDF there will later be more efforts to make it work.

Ohmynews have published the text on the use of print by themselves and WikiNews. They have added the fact that they also do a free PDF download of their print edition, something I did not realise. And they have left in the link to this blog.

Just as well as towards the end I started to write about something else that may become a suitable story for OhmyNews later but is better for a blog at the moment.

In the current Print Media Management Jonathan Levy is writing in a way that is open to interpretation. I think he might be saying that the print industry is not really offering much to the magazine production people who are becoming more technically aware. I may be reading too much into this. There is no mention of a rush towards web versions of magazines, although I think this is happening. there is reference to 'the rise of JDF and end-to-end digital workflows'. Maybe the magazine production people are aware of what this means and the print companies have not yet made the investment.

Printweek recently ran an article by Simon Eccles on the history of DTP from twenty years ago, a reassuringly safe distance. Both Chuck Geschke and John Warnock get a photograph but there is no reference to PDF or Acrobat, let alone JDF or XML. There is more going on now than is generally realised. I have suggested on the websites for Acrobat Services and WWWatford that John Cunningham from Adobe UK should be included in the Printweek Power 100. Companies like Heidelberg are represented. One of the criteria is 'influence'. The new version of InDesign has a way to create JDF. Probably before IPEX next year there will be ways to link in with this. For example Xerox Freeflow. Meanwhile Martin Bailey from Global Graphics has dropped out of the Printweek Power 100. I think this must be a mistake. Global Graphics actually concentrate on the print industry. Adobe may lose interest if they get somewhere with video. My guess is that they will not have their own stand at IPEX but maybe some small spaces c/o Xerox and others.

Printweek is published by Haymarket, who also publish Marketing. The Marketing article about the Wall Street Journal shows the print and online circulation in the same sentence. Presumably the people who work on Printweek sometimes talk to the people who work on Marketing. I think there will be some changes before IPEX in the way the print industry is positioned.

Link to article at OhmyNews

This is a version of a report from the Citizen Reporters international forum. It may be edited later. they may leave out the link to this blog.

It was surprising that OhmyNews has a printed weekly version. Apparently this is to reach the people who still rely on newspapers and encourage them towards the website. WikiNews has a PDF for download and some people are distributing short runs on campus or for a locality.

I realised I was going off topic when I got to a recent editorial by Jonathan Levy in Print Media Management. I am not really sure what he is getting at. He attended 'Vision In Print' and now fees that 'vision in print' is inadequate 'with the rise of JDF and end-to-end digital workflows' . the suggested phrase is 'vision in print media' 'to deliver the promise of a leaner and more sustainable future'. Previously I had thought of PrintMedia Management as pretty much part of the printing industry. Maybe the people in magazine production are now thinking about media in ways that include the web. Clearly there are now publishing organisations that offer something in print and online. This is something to come back to. Probably there will be more explanation in PrintMedia Management even though Jonathan Levy is no longer working as editor.

There is a recent book we were given in Korea called 'Media Big Bang'. I have started a page about this looking at the implications for ideas about quality. One term they use is morphosis, some policy on change. Maybe this applies to print and other media. 'Vision in print' seems to emphasise quality as consistency of current products. Improvement can happen within existing manufacturing processes. There may be some wider change going on. I have only started to read the book so more will follow later.

I have been invited to a forum for Citizen Reporters organised by OhmyNews in Seoul.

This blog may be updated over the next few days but more likely will be a short report at Guardian talk

http://mediatalk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?50@ohmynews@.7747ecc2

My hope is that the Guardian reports this event and makes some connections.