I got the news last night that Steve Jobs had passed away and much like everyone else, have been reflecting on his work and the innovations he helped inspire.
I didn’t know him personally. I never had the opportunity to meet him or interview him. I just used the products his company invented. In grade school, I learned “keyboard” on one of the earliest Macintosh computers. My first home desktop computer was an Apple—as was my second. My first laptop, you guessed it: a Mac (followed by several others as the years and technology progressed. While my first mobile phone was a huge Nokia, when I finally graduated to a smartphone I turned to the iPhone (and won’t look back now). For music…an iPod of course—and I have several floating around my house. And now as tablet PCs make their way into the mainstream, an iPad2 sits beside me on my desk.
Apple has been a part of my life for close twenty-five year (if not more) and I couldn’t imagine a world without the products Jobs’ vision—and the thousands of dedicated researchers and developers—created.
For the graphic arts industry especially, the impact Jobs had on it will be everlasting. With the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984, the world of computing changed forever. At that time, the Mac ran on a 32-bit processor, had 128K of memory, and a unique graphical user interface.
“The Mac’s impact wasn’t just felt on people who bought it in the ’80s, though: in hindsight, it quite literally redefined what a computer was. Microsoft introduced its Windows program as a reaction to it; by 1995 Windows had duplicated Apple’s graphical interface. Essentially every personal computer in existence now follows most of the paradigms introduced by the original Mac more than a quarter-century ago,” as was reported in an article about Steve Job’s career by Macworld Staff.
And we all know how the personal computer progressed from that point on—up to now, where my phone has more memory and processing power than the first desktop computer I purchased in the early 1990s.
Steve Jobs was an innovator. He was “one of the crazy ones”. He was a visionary. He was also a man who was able to inspire several generations of people around the globe.
In the Stanford University Commencement address on June 12, 2005, Jobs then Apple CEO and CEO of Pixar Animation Studios, said several things we all do well to remember.
“Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.…You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle….
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
“When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960’s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
“Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
“Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.”
Steve Jobs, you will be missed.

A Storify Story Collection
Steve Jobs: A Visionary of our Times
http://storify.com/denisegustavson/steve-jobs2

by William Gindlesperger, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, e-LYNXX Corporation

The United States Government Printing Office (GPO) Strategic Plan for 2011 through 2015 has been published, and it is an eye opener for what it only tangentially acknowledges. And that is: the contribution of private sector printers that have traditionally printed the bulk of the federal government’s printing.

In his February 2011 posting on Facebook, Public Printer William Boarman did give credit where credit is due: “The majority of the firms we deal with are small businesses, many with 20 employees or fewer. We annually award contracts to more than 2,500 vendors nationwide, representing potentially 50,000 jobs. The total number of contractors registered to do business with us is around 16,600, representing potentially 332,000 jobs.”

At one time, more than three quarters of GPO’s print work was awarded to the private sector for an annual revenue flow to them that easily exceeded half a billion dollars. With the advent of digital and other technology and the online culture in which we now live, it is understandable that the printing of some documents will fall by the wayside.

Disturbingly, the flow of GPO work has been dropping steadily over the years. In 2010, the total value of GPO work awarded to private sector printers was $358 million. This year, it appears to be on a course to be less than $300 million. This is troubling because the livelihoods of the 50,000 men and women mentioned by Mr. Boarman depend on GPO work. So does our economy, if it is to rebound.

Most disturbing is the fact that federal agencies are skirting federal policy by printing some $800 million of their own printing in-house. Title 44 of the U. S. Code states that all federal printing, with a few exceptions, is to be channeled through GPO. If this work were to pass through GPO and awarded to private sector printers it would be a boon to an industry that needs a shot in the arm.

Mr. Boarman’s Facebook provides detail: “Data recently published by the Office of Management and Budget as part of the FY 2012 budget shows about $1.4 billion in direct obligations for printing and reproduction for the Federal Government for fiscal year 2010. Excluding GPO’s component of $104 million for congressional work and printing for our Superintendent of Documents, this leaves nearly $1.3 billion in direct printing obligations for the rest of the Government. GPO’s procurement revenue last year was about $500 million, or about 40% of these direct obligations, leaving a balance of about $800 million that did not come through GPO. Our sense is that it most likely represents work produced in-house by Federal agencies. That’s a significant volume of printing which, if opened up to GPO’s procurement program where costs could be reduced by as much as 50% compared with agency plants, represents a potential annual savings of up to $400 million for the taxpayers. More private sector jobs will be needed to handle that additional volume of work flowing through the procurement program, which will help our Nation’s economic recovery.”

This, however, seems to be contradicted throughout the 2011-2015 Strategic Plan with references to GPO needing to invest in employees and technology to create first-rate, system-wide solutions. The only reference to private sector printers in the five-page report is a line under “Enhance Strategic Partnerships” that reads: “Create and/or enhance current partnerships, i. e. FedEx Kinko’s, Google, independent printers.”

It would seem that if GPO is serious about channeling more federal printing to the private sector its strategic plan would place more emphasis on redirecting the $800 million being done by agencies to independent printers.

The plan does say in its “Statutory Foundation – Title 44 U.S.C.” section that the GPO will identify and pursue federal print jobs not now being done by GPO. What it does not say is whether that work will be going to private sector printers or whether it will be done at enhanced GPO facilities. Even a quarter of the $800 million now being done by federal agencies would bring GPO work for private sector printers back to the half billion dollar level.

Something isn’t adding up when Mr. Boarman’s Facebook posting is compared with the 2011-2015 GPO Strategic Plan.

Email has been the death of letter writing and contributed to the problems at the USPS.

I went to the post office today and mailed two letters. Actually, they were two belated birthday cards. I don’t recall the last time I mailed, let alone wrote, a real old-fashioned letter. I’m not sure when I last received one, either.

I get lots of direct mail touting grocery sales, pizza specials, car bargains, and the like. I also get a ton of printed catalogs featuring everything from cute garden gnomes to world-class educational courses on CD. I get more magazines than I can read. I get printed reminders from our vet about which critter is due for what shot. I get Medicare pamphlets and credit card offers. I get bills (which usually get paid online). I do not get letters.

When I was in the Army, mail call was pretty important. Getting a letter from home was a treat and broke up the monotony of cleaning rifles and peeling potatoes. Letters were almost always hand-written, although my mother typed hers on a portable Smith Corona typewriter. My old high-school girlfriend even used scented stationery when she eventually sent me that long-expected “Dear John” letter. When Dad wrote, he did so longhand, and I was never completely certain what all of the words were. I have inherited his handwriting.

Despite all the direct mail and magazines, the post office is teetering on the brink of oblivion and I can’t help but think it is because people have stopped writing letters. Today they send email. Emoticons have replaced love and kisses. It’s progress, I guess, but I still fondly recall those patchouli-scented notes of yesteryear, even the kiss-offs.

By Brandon Campbell (a “young” guy who just turned 30)

Until I started working for MyPrintResource.com as an editorial intern, I didn’t realize it.

Before my summer internship, I had no idea what something like an offset digital press does–or that one even existed.  Turns out digital offset presses are great at printing high-volume, high-quality images from a plate to a rubber blanket, and then onto just about any surface you can think of.

But now I understand that some of my favorite things, from the book I used to teach myself how to play bass guitar to the large, textured Van Goh self-portrait Scodix gave me during GRAPH EXPO earlier this month, can be traced back to a print shop.

September’s gathering of the print industry’s finest gave me a peek at how my food is packaged (flexography), how the sign directing me to the subway is made (adhesive vinyl printing), or how QR codes work (some say it’s magic, but I’ve learned it’s simply a 2D barcode).

So now everywhere I go, I can’t help but see the real magic is how ubiquitous and important the print industry is in my life. Some say print is dead, or dying. I think those folks need to take a minute and look around.

My bedroom floor is littered with printed flyers advertising concerts at the House of Blues in downtown Chicago, someone paid to copy and print them. I’ve got CDs and vinyl records everywhere, and someone had to design and print those beautiful album covers. Last week I ordered a pizza and someone had to make the sturdy box that housed my delicious and fragile meal. Like I said, printers are everywhere.

Print is dead? Really?
I’ve got a mouthful for the next person who wants to argue that print is a dying medium. But the world is changing. Digital is creating itself a comfortable niche and traditional printers must learn to survive alongside the iPad, the Kindle, and my Android phone.

Do these technological advancements spell certain doom for newspapers, books, or even toilet paper? Certainly not. But print suppliers like Agfa Graphics are thinking progressively by adapting, by finding new ways to integrate digital technology with traditional printing techniques. If you had a chance to attend GRAPH EXPO, I hope you saw their custom wallpaper and flooring designs. I want some for my apartment (but doubt I can afford them).

I hate to end on a bit of a downer, but I wish the print industry did a better job of marketing itself. I just turned 30, so I’m not a kid, but I’m not quite old yet either. If I had trouble understanding how vast and important printers are, I bet my cohorts in Generations Y and Z do too.

That’s a shame, because if you take the time to think about it, the print industry really is pretty damn cool.

By Jill Rowan

Often times at my print shop I receive calls from clients asking us to print on T-Shirts. When I respond that we cannot print to T-Shirts, the immediate question is, “Why, can’t you print to fabric?”
This is where the conversation becomes tricky.
Well, we can print to SOME fabrics, like fabric banners, and other coated materials, but not to a jersey knit fabric. Even if we were able to print to that fabric, we cannot print directly to T-Shirts, we can only print to fabric rolls, and you would then need to get the shirts physically made.
I then politely apologize and send the potential client on their way to a local screen print shop. However, I always feel badly that I can’t further explain screen printing, direct to garment printing, and textile printing more fully to the client. So, I’ve decided to write this post, to direct potential clients to, in case they have further questions.

What is Screen Printing?
Screen printing on textiles is a method of textile printing which can go directly on pre-made garments or onto rolls of textiles. Screen printing uses screens which are blocked off with non-permeable materials to form a stencil. This stencil is a negative of the image and is placed upon the media, in this case fabric. Ink is then placed on the screen and a fill or flood bar is used to press the inks into the mesh openings. Screen printing can be used anywhere traditional printing can be used in addition to other promotional items such as water bottles, balloons and even printed electronics.
More often than not, screen printing machines, unless they are industrial grade, are labor intensive and one of the reasons they are not in traditional print shops that focus on paper goods.

Why is Screen Printing Different than Direct to Garment Printing
Direct to Garment Printing does not use screens and can be done with a more traditional printer. This does cut down on costs, due to not having to set up or use screens, as well as cutting down on mess and clean up since there is no rolling inks through screens. Additionally, as digital direct to garment printing is a newer technology, darker colored garments cannot yet be printed on and will still require a traditional screen print. Screen printing can also be done on a variety of substrates whereas direct to garment can only be done on cotton and cotton blend materials. Screen printing yields only 72 DPI at it’s highest, while Direct to Garment printing has a resolution of 600 x 600 DPI, allowing for near-photographic clarity, with NO halftone dots. So depending on the size of your run, the type of garment you need printed, or the art required, screen printing vs. direct to garment printing may be a perfect fit.
For instance, since using a digital direct to garment printer is faster and less expensive than screen printing, there are often no minimums allowing for greater personalization of the garment at lower costs. Maybe you need just one HILARIOUS t-shirt as a gag gift for a friend. Another easy way to do this is with a heat transfer, which is a dye sublimation process. However, for those of you experienced with at home, or Mall Kiosk heat transfers is that they are stiff and cause the fabric to lay, wear and wash awkwardly. You may be thinking, that’s great, I get the difference between screen printing and direct to garment printing, but why cant my printer who can print to textiles not print to garments?

Why Can’t My Printer “Print” My Promotional Clothing, Too? (The Case of Dye Sub and Wide-Format Printing)
The answer is simple. The printers a traditional print shop uses for textile printing are wide-format printers which only print large scale items, like banners. The fabric for this kind of printing must be in a roll form, and thus ready made clothing cannot be printed on, whereas direct to garment printers have plates individual t-shirts can be laid on for printing. Often times these printers can work with a wider array of formats, including Word, whereas wide-format printers require InDesign, Quark, or Illustrator files.
Additionally, many traditional printers do not have dye sublimation capabilities. While they may print to heavy cotton or vinyl, which of course is a fabric, they cannot do textile printing. A standard wide-format printer with standard inks can only print to these heavier kinds of materials because not only would they soak the material with ink and anything more delicate would have ink soak through to both sides and would have an incredibly long drying time, but these heavier materials are sold by the vendor with a coating on them allowing the inks to stay on the surface of the material. As of yet, very few kinds of fabrics have this type of coating on them to allow for wide-format printing.
Of course, leaps and strides are being made every day in the world of textile printing, especially by Mimaki. For standard Mom and Pop print shops, though, garment and most textile printing remains beyond their capabilities.

We’ve all heard the expression “Time is money.” When people say that, they are most often talking about an employee wasting time while on the clock. But have you considered dedicating an hour to learning something that can help your company make lots more money?

Printers so often pay lip service to training employees or their own continued learning, but when it’s time to fish or cut bait, they find all kinds of excuses not to follow through. Considering the bounty of free webinars available lately, if you’re still making excuses it may be time to take a hard look at your motivation. Money isn’t holding you back—they’re free. Time isn’t holding you back, either. The majority of these webinars are only an hour long, and if you can’t break free or can’t spare an hour of your employee’s time while they’re being broadcast live, most of them are archived so you can access them at your convenience.

In the past week, I have probably added 15-20 webinar notices to the industry calendar on MyPrintResource.com. There are free webinars about mailing issues, financing and tax planning, multi-channel media, sales management and techniques, and digital printing strategies. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. We hosted free webinar on September 21 in which QP’s Sales Clinic columnist Dave Fellman spent an hour sharing ideas about how to prospect for new sales. More than 200 people signed up for it, but that’s a mere fraction of the number of people who could benefit from the information. If you missed it, you can still listen to the archived recording by signing up for the next two webinars in the series (click here).

While some presenters may drop in a brief marketing message, these webinars are probably as close as you’ll ever get to pure altruism in a for profit marketplace. Take advantage of them while you can. Don’t leave money on the table!

by Gale Grimmenga  |   Principal/Creative Impulse  |   www.creativeimpulseinc.com

Today, I not only need to create my marketing strategies and design them into print and websites, but also three to seven other mediums. I used to hire programmers; now I’m needing to become one. Studies say a person can become proficient at only three to four software programs in a lifetime, let alone the programming languages that create them, aaarrggg!

As a designer who works with marketing VPs and the data that market researchers produce, I heard more about marketing at Graph Expo than ever before, which shows how much things are changing and our roles are blending. We used to have very defined roles—you were a printer, I was a designer. We had a copywriter, that guy who sets type, a photographer, and don’t forget the photo retoucher; she’s a market analyst, that guy’s a video producer, and they manufacture paper.

Within those well-defined domains lived expertise, quality, craftsmanship, detail, satisfaction, and comfort. Now we are all everything. Since the computer, I not only create concepts and design—I typeset, use stock photos, or take my own (especially easy with a digital camera and low-res requirements for web applications), and I do my own photo retouching. (Talk about bringing home the bacon and frying it up in the pan!) I could have even bought one of those super-cool digital printers I saw working away on the floor of Graph Expo, and add printer to my resume. (My photo did get immortalized on the Fruit Goofies cereal box, xpedx’s unique marketing concept to pull us to the booth and see the amazing EFI Rastek UV inkjet printer work its magic. What can I say? Maybe it was that pink boa prop which caught my eye.)

Anyway, the point is we are all needing to be more than we have been before. But will expanding our skill sets deepen our ability to solve the very real problems we all face? Can we expand them enough to be good at it? Can we learn fast enough, before the next shift in technology? Can a printer change enough to provide marketing services?

Whether you feel overwhelmed or inspired or both, there was plenty of software, consultants, and new technology at Graph Expo to help the transition: web-to-print software for estimating in real time and ordering deliverables via templates with a click of the mouse; consultants already experts in providing multimedia channeling of messages to consumers (or Leo Burnett and my DC client’s word, ‘touches’); equipment that moves faster with greater quality in less space and with more sophisticated computer interfacing. (And today, you don’t have to buy the software: just access the cloud. I have an FTP site for large files, but since it requires my client having an easily downloadable Fetch or equivalent, sometimes we ‘cloud’ it. All you need is a browser.)

It’s like patting your head with one hand and doing the circles on your stomach with the other. It’s using our right and left brains simultaneously. It’s yelling at the drat equipment that’s got a glitch and talking to our client with true understanding the next. It’s being in linear programming land (with templated parameters someone else created, not me) and full tilt creative concepts that sell, and meet clients objectives the next. Wow!

Next time: more take-a-ways from GraphExpo 2011 and best next steps.

I’m going back to Las Vegas, but not for anything to do with printing.

Frankly, now and then I need a break from the printing industry. I’ve just spent more than a week at the NAQP/NAPL Owners Conference and Graph Expo 2011 and I need a change of scenery. That’s why I’m going back to the city I love to hate—Las Vegas.

Why am I doing such a thing? It is because of my dogs. You see, they both are rescue dogs and I am very interested in animal rescue. (We also have a rescue cat, but she’s not talking to me at the moment since we put her in the cat kennel for 10 days.) So, I’m going back to Las Vegas for the sixth time this year to attend the 2011 No More Homeless Pets National Conference sponsored by the Best Friends Animal Society.

I’ve been donating to Best Friends for years to help support their no-kill efforts and their animal rescue sanctuary in Moab, UT. My donations got me on the Best Friends mailing list and that’s how I found out about the conference. I probably would have dismissed the event as something worthwhile but not something I needed to attend until I saw one workshop track: “Saving Lives the New-Fashioned Way—Marketing, Media, and Communications”.

Well, I’m in the media and communications business, so that intrigued me. Maybe I could learn something that would be of value to our local animal rescue efforts. So I signed up and booked a ticket back to Sin City.
On this trip, I’ll try to ignore the fact that I’m going to Las Vegas and concentrate on how great it will be to hang around with 1,000 other people who love animals. Who knows, a few of them might also be printers, but I won’t hold that against them.

For me, and for much of the Cygnus Graphics Media staff, this is the longest week of the year. It is also one of the busiest.
Starting last Thursday, Karen, our publisher Kelley Homes, and I were attending the NAQP/NAPL Owners Conference, a two-day affair that this year attracted some 150 attendees and featured the annual vendor showcase tabletop exhibit.

I’ve been going to the Owners Conference for a couple of decades and have always enjoyed my time with the attendees. In years past, when the conference closed I was on my way home. However, since we started producing the Show Daily for GRAPH EXPO last year, the Owners Conference is just the beginning.

As I write this, we are nearly finished with putting together the guide for the third day, which needs to be at Quad/Graphics by 6:00 pm for printing and delivery to McCormick Place and attendee hotel rooms by the crack of dawn.

Several printers I know have asked how we manage to produce a 64-page 4/4 tabloid on a daily basis. Actually, we only have 16 live pages each issue. The rest of the guide is pre-printed prior to the show and is then married with the live signature. It’s still a lot of work. After the files go to the printer, the entire edition is digitized and distributed electronically to tens of thousands of printers who are not attending the show. If you are reading this, you are one of those tens of thousands.

Enjoy!

William Gindlesperger, Chief Executive Officer, e-LYNXX Corporation

Federal agencies (they spend more than $500 billion annually of your tax dollars) have been instructed to reduce their budgets by 10% in 2013 per a directive from the Office of Management and Budget, the largest office within the Executive Office of the President of the United States. This certainly comes as no surprise as a stubborn economy persists, minimal jobs are being created and very little is being invested in businesses.

Even though the Great Recession was supposed to have ended in June 2009, we have seen the largest two-year drop in “labor compensation” – wages and benefits – since the early 1960s. The foreclosure crisis continues, and for the first time, the number of “99ers” – unemployed Americans whose benefits have run out – has pushed past the two million mark. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of U.S. residents who said they had two jobs was 7.3 million in 2010, up from 4.5 million in 2007, the year the recession began.

These are just some of the indicators cited by national media to illustrate that these remain tough times for the economy – one that is supposed to be the international pillar of strength. Repeatedly our elected and appointed government officials have been admonished and told that the engine for job creation must be the private sector. The purpose of government in a democracy is not to create jobs but to support an environment in which the private sector can thrive and create employment opportunities.

With that in mind, decision makers in Washington should embrace measures that would both reduce government spending and boost private sector jobs. Here are two ways to help accomplish both:

• Enforce compliance with Title 44 of the United States Code which directs federal agencies to channel all printing through the United States Government Printing Office (GPO). For decades, GPO has had the best of all government procurement programs. Printers nationwide depend on the millions of dollars that GPO awards annually to the private sector for the production of envelopes, tags, color copying, kit folders, cut sheets, four-color process materials and promotional specialties to mention a few categories of print jobs. Most printers vying for this work are small businesses with 20 or fewer employees, and their livelihoods depend on the $2,000 to $5,000 average per GPO job. GPO has said it annually awards contracts to more than 2,500 vendors nationwide. This represents some 50,000 jobs. The total number registered to do business with GPO is around 16,600 vendors, representing potentially 332,000 jobs. The key word is potentially. If the estimated $800 million in print work now being done in agency print shops were stopped that huge volume of printing would be channeled through the GPO where costs would be reduced by as much as 50% compared with agency plants. If that were done, the potential annual savings for taxpayers would be at least $400 million, and this is an historical fact. However, the $800 million is based on government accounting which is strange and excludes many of the costs the private sector includes in its accounting. In real numbers, the government controls many billions of dollars in printing (as everyone recognizes, government runs on paper). More private sector jobs would be needed to handle the increase in work that would flow through the GPO procurement program, and this would be a welcomed boost for job seekers and the economy.
• Embrace new procurement technology that is enabling private sector organizations to reduce their cost for goods and services by 25% to 50%. Antiqued procurement programs that have not been updated in 20 or more years are as effective as typewriters in today’s computer age. One example of a private sector initiative that is lowering costs by an average of 42% on jobs awarded is the automated vendor selection (AVS) process. Driven by AVS TechnologyTM, vendors carefully screened and objectively qualified are automatically selected to compete for work and in doing so lower their prices to fill gaps in their production schedules. The buying organization benefits from lowered pricing from qualified vendors, and the winning vendor is awarded work that it otherwise would not have. The competitive bidding environment provides a level playing field for all qualified vendors. For the buyer, there are additional benefits. When the technology is used with a robust web-based workflow and communications system and best practices, the process delivers total transparency, full accountability for all participants (buyer and vendor), strengthened quality controls and significant efficiency gains. Also, an indelible and auditable task-by-task record of each project is established for future reference. This approach, already licensed by a host of private sector industries, can be used for a wide range of applications including specialty products, commercial printing, temporary staffing, direct mail, construction services, publications, packaging and transportation. Using the 42% average savings of current AVS Technology private sector licensees as the benchmark, a

Government Should Learn From Private Sector

• government program (local, state or federal) with $1 billion in procurement costs could achieve $420 million in cost reductions for procuring the same goods and services. In government parlance, that is $4.2 billion in cost savings over 10 years for each $1 billion in present costs. It is even more when considering that the savings of taking people off unemployment and putting them back to work in non-government jobs.

Before either of these cost reduction measures can be implemented to the benefit of private sector businesses, job seekers and taxpayers, government leaders have to change their ways. They must rein in government agencies that are duplicating services already provided in the private sector. It makes no more sense, for instance, for government agencies to operate printing plants than it does for them to manufacture their own vehicles. Leaders must demand that government agencies outsource work to private sector businesses that already are set up to perform a particular job. The role of government is not to compete with the private sector. Government’s role is to implement the laws of the land, working in partnership with the private sector – the only legitimate creator of jobs in the United States.

About e-LYNXX Corporation
e-LYNXX Corporation patented the technology integral to e-commerce.  Endorsed by Educational & Institutional Cooperative Purchasing (E&I) and Printing Industries of America (PIA), e-LYNXX drives results through its three divisions.

• AVS TechnologyTM licenses the patented* automated vendor selection procedure used in e-commerce and procurement systems.
• American Print Management provides web-based system, services and patented AVS TechnologyTM to reduce substantially the procured costs of direct mail, marketing, publications, packaging, labels and other procured print.
• Government Print Management offers effective U.S. GPO bid services and strategies. www.e-LYNXX.com – 888-876-5432

*U. S. Patent No. 6,397,197, Patent No. 7,451,106, post-Bilski Patent No. 7,788,143, and Continuing Application 12/855,423 (collectively, the AVS TechnologyTM) – This thicket of patents covers all custom goods and services, not just print. To inquire about licensing, contact Anthony Hawks at 888-876-5432 or Michael Cannata at 905-773-2207.

About the Author

William Gindlesperger is a nationally recognized entrepreneur, inventor, author and consultant. He founded ABC Advisors and its successor, e-LYNXX Corporation, in 1975. Profit, non-profit and government organizations alike have benefited from his strategic insight and innovation that result in measured and substantial cost reduction.

Mr. Gindlesperger’s sound advice and counsel have yielded results for those with fiduciary responsibility and the authority to take action to reduce costs. He has directed major initiatives in both the private and public sectors. He has testified before the U. S. Senate Committee on Rules and Administration regarding government print and procurement policy. He has worked directly with numerous Congressional and Senatorial members and staff and has advised Congress on the development, operations and future of government procurement.

He has been a lead fund raiser for senatorial, congressional and gubernatorial elected officials. He was a founder and chairman of Printing Industries of America’s (PIA) PrintPAC (political action committee) and has been recognized for his contributions to PIA and services to the printing industry. He was inducted into PIA’s Ben Franklin Honor Society of print industry leaders in 2009 for his lifetime contributions to the print industry. Supply & Demand Chain Executive honored Mr. Gindlesperger by including him in its 2010 listing of the most influential leaders in the supply and procurement profession in North America.

Mr. Gindlesperger invented the Automated Vendor Selection TechnologyTM — the technology that is integral to e-commerce and optimizes cost reduction in the procurement of all customized and specification-defined goods and services. He has been granted a series of Automated Vendor Selection patents, including Patent No. 6,397,197, Patent No. 7,451,106, and post-Bilski Patent No. 7,788,143 (collectively, the “AVS TechnologyTM”).

Under Mr. Gindlesperger’s leadership, e-LYNXX has grown into the leading print management and procurement licensing firm in North America. e-LYNXX has been exclusively endorsed by Printing Industries of America (PIA) and has been named one of the top 100 procurement firms in North America by Supply & Demand Chain Executive magazine.

His firm handles more than 200 on-going consulting assignments at any given time. Among its contracts is one with Educational & Institutional Cooperative Purchasing to assist colleges, universities and other institutions nationwide with procurement and spend management.

A native of Chambersburg, Pa., Mr. Gindlesperger is a graduate of Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.