Celebrating Yes Print Day!

In celebration of Yes Print Day!, which was originally called National No-Print Day, we offer a collection of Dead Tree Edition articles about the print medium. Here's information about what makes print special, how printing stacks up environmentally against electronic communications, and how to make print greener:

• 10 Questions About Toshiba's No-Print Day  
• Going Paperless Doesn't Mean Going Green, The New York Times Proves   
• Printed Magazines or Digital Magazines: Do We Have To Choose?  
• 34 Tricks Print Mags Can Do That Apps Can’t
• Smackdown: Printed Editions vs. Digital Editions  
• Google Using Blatant Greenwash To Promote New Catalog App 
• Newspapers Are Greener Than Web News, Says Environmental Expert
• Cutting some trees but saving the forest   
• Three, or Maybe Four, Green Magazine Pioneers
• Green Publishing Quiz

And, finally, for some print-related fun: Phone-Sex Service Gets Boost from Lands' End, International Paper. As of earlier today, eHow and Green City Times were among the web sites still touting (800) 879-9777 as the number to call for information about how to recycle cardboard.

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Without Vision Systems, the Printers Perish

In honor of Oct. 23, which was originally scheduled to be National No-Print Day but turned into Yes Print Day!, Dead Tree Edition offers this update on printing-related technology and what it means for print buyers. (If you’re not familiar with Toshiba’s ill-fated National No-Print Day gimmick, see Toshiba's No-Print Day As Popular As a Turd in the Punchbowl):

Recent developments in postpress technology underscore the importance of looking beyond price when choosing a printer. After all, when an organization buys printing, it isn't just paying to put ink on paper; it's paying to have the right message delivered to the right person on time.

The recent Graph Expo 2012 printing-industry trade show included an impressive array of machine-vision systems on binders, stitchers, and other finishing equipment, reports Don Piontek for Printing Impressions. In the bindery, “vision systems have become more common over the years ... to verify that the correct signature has been loaded into the feeder by the operator,” he notes.

“On co-mailing machines, cameras will verify that the correct mailing address has been applied to the right publication for that recipient.”

To understand the significance of these advances in cameras, processors, and software, let me relate a couple of war stories:

You're screwed
I worked at a publishing company where an advertiser asked about including a personalized insert in magazine copies going to certain VIP subscribers. So I checked with our printer’s customer service rep whether the printer could ensure that, for example, the insert targeted to Dr. Emily Williams went into the copy addressed to Dr. Emily Williams.

“Sure,” said the CSR. “We just print the inserts so that they are delivered to the bindery in the same sequence as the address file.”

“What happens if someone in the bindery drops a stack of inserts or picks up a bundle out of sequence?” I asked.

“Then you’re screwed,” came the reply.

Digital fail 
Another printer tried to show off its new digital-printing capabilities but ended up demonstrating how badly it needed to invest in machine vision. The printer sent a fancy mailing to its clients with lots of personalized messages.

Unfortunately, the brochure I received began with “Dear Alice.” The pre-personalized pieces fell out of synch with the address file, resulting in many other clients getting a similarly mis-addressed message.

Cameras mounted on production equipment, calipers that check each piece’s thickness, and other automated inspection systems can ensure that the correct piece is bound into each publication or inserted into each envelope. But the level of investment in such quality control varies from printer to printer.

If you selectively (AKA demographically) bind your publication at a printing plant that skimps on postpress quality-control systems, that expensive perfume insert targeted to young women may end up going only to your male customers.

A direct-mail printer may keep its capital-investment costs -- and its prices -- low by not buying vision systems. But will unseen errors at the plant depress your response rates?

Is printing a commodity? 
Printing is not purely a commodity, especially when “printing” includes such other activities as binding, presort, co-mail, packaging, and shipping. Low printing prices can’t save enough to cover the costs of losing a major customer, significantly depressed response rates, or even mailing the printed piece inefficiently.

A print buyer’s goal should not be to get the lowest price but to figure out how to meet a set of specifications most efficiently.

Final thought: Even the best printing plant can’t overcome a flawed database. To promote a printing trade show, beautiful four-color postcards of a sports car were mailed to print enthusiasts, with the recipient’s name “painted” on the sports car. Unfortunately, my name appeared in the mailer’s database as “Mr. Publishing Company”.

Final note: The headline is a play on the Hebrew proverb, “Where there is no vision, the people perish” (Proverbs 29:18), which an urban legend says was translated into one language as, “Put on your glasses before you get killed.”

Other articles about printing and print buying include:

• The Changing World of Print Buyers: An Interview with Margie Dana  
• 12 Telltale Signs That You Are A Printing Geek  
• Here's Why We Avoid Four-Color Body Type  
• The 10 Most Common Paper-Purchasing Mistakes

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8 Questions About Newsweek's Future

Google News indicates that more than 1,000 articles were published Thursday about Newsweek magazine abandoning print but continuing as the digital Newsweek Global. Still, many questions remain unanswered, including: 

Recent Newsweek cover -- and a parody

1. Will some of the millions of dollars no longer being forked over to the U.S. Postal Service, paper mills, and printers be reinvested in more and better content? 
2. Will Newsweek Global’s covers still inspire hilarious parodies? Or will lack of visibility at airports, grocery stores, and dentists’ offices mean its covers will no longer matter, regardless how hard Tina Brown tries?
3. What will happen to current subscribers who don’t have internet or computer access or just don’t want a digital publication? Will they get their money back? 
4. How will advertisers respond to Newsweek Global and its lack of ratebase (guaranteed minimum circulation)? 
5. What does this mean for TIME magazine? Will it benefit from its archrival’s loss of visibility, or will it get sucked down the same toilet? 
6. Will Newsweek Global be only a digital magazine – for example, with numbered pages and a regular publication schedule? Or will some subscribers view its content on an unpaginated, paywall-protected web site that is continuously updated? 
7. Is Newsweek truly abandoning print, or will it become a zombie on newsstands like Life and U.S. News & World Report, living on in “bookazines” (special issues)? 
8. Will Newsweek Global survive? 

Added thought: It turns out the Mayans weren't quite right: 2012 isn't the end of Time, it's the end of Newsweek.

Related articles:

• Newsweek Takes a Stand: Profits Are for Wimps
• What Exactly Did Barry Diller Say About Newsweek's Future?  
• Tina Brown Follows Husband's Footsteps -- Sort Of

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Confusion, Misinformation Could Hinder USPS's Early-Retirement Push

Confusion reigns among the 115,000 postal workers who received notices in the past few days about a buyout offer. The confusion could limit the number of APWU-represented career employees who accept the U.S. Postal Service’s $15,000 incentive to retire or quit.

”The Postal Service's voluntary early retirement annuity estimates are as bad as before,” says Don Cheney, a long-time critic of the U.S. Postal Service’s communications with its employees regarding retirement benefits.

As usual, the errors tend to understate what employees’ benefits will be upon retirement, says Cheney, an APWU member who for the last nine years has been advising postal workers and writing about errors in retirement estimates the U.S. Postal Service provides its employees.

(See How Does the Postal Service Discourage Early Retirement? Let Me Count the Ways, Why Does USPS Make Retiring Difficult When It Has So Many Excess Employees?, and The Postal Service's Early-Retirement Snafu for more on how the Postal Service’s poor communications have undercut its previous efforts to downsize by offering early-retirement incentives.)

“I am receiving numerous inquiries about the retirement incentive,” former APWU president Bill Burrus wrote a few days ago. He urged the union’s current leadership to designate a knowledgeable officer or staff member to help members who have questions about the early-out incentive.

“This is an important time in their lives and they are in need of timely answers to their questions,” Burrus wrote. And they won’t get those answers from the Postal Service. As Cheney notes, USPS offers no retirement counseling to employees taking early retirement until after the decision to retire is irrevocable, which postal unions claim is contrary to federal regulations (not to mention common sense).

Referring to a recent estimate one employee received, Cheney says, “This 51-year-old individual in the FERS retirement system was not told whether they are eligible for the SS [Social Security] annuity supplement, how much it would be or when it would start.”  He adds, “If VERA [Voluntary Early Retirement] eligibles in FERS knew they would get about $800/month more in their FERS annuities at Minimum Retirement Age (MRA), more would take it,” he adds.

"There is still the misconception among FERS employees of an age penalty in a Voluntary Early Retirement,” Cheney says. “The opposite is true in most cases.”

Also tending to discourage early retirements is the mistaken belief that the IRS charges a 10% early-withdrawal penalty for money taken out of a Thrift Savings Plan by early retirees, he says.

 “Congress made an exception for federal and postal employees that retire or separate at age 55 or later. For them, there is no 10% IRS early withdrawal penalty,” Cheney says. “Younger retirees can avoid the IRS penalty by withdrawing their money as an annuity.”

Slow processing of retirees’ paperwork and payments has also tended to discourage early retirements, but this time around at least some postal workers may benefit from the backlogs at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). The 21st Century Postal Worker, a web site serving APWU members, passes along this message:

“For all that put their retirement paperwork in prior to the [incentive] announcement, call OPM ASAP and ask if your paperwork has been processed. If it has not been processed (there is a 6-8 week wait), the effective date of retirement can be changed to reflect the incentive memo. Do NOT DELAY! Do not hang up until you actually reach a representative from OPM. Do NOT leave a call back. Stay on the phone until you make sure the paperwork is reprocessed and you fax in a copy to change the date of retirement.”

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Chances of Postal Reform This Year: Slim and None

The chances for meaningful postal reform this year are slim if neither political party gets a mandate from Congressional elections – and none if one party wins control of both houses.

That’s the consensus of several postal experts who have spoken or written recently about the status of postal legislation.

“If the Republicans get a majority in the Senate and hold their majority in the House, nothing will happen until 2013,” Jim O’Brien, Vice President, Distribution & Postal Affairs for Time Inc., told a mailers' focus group meeting last week. “If the Democrats hold the Senate majority and the Republicans hold the House, MAYBE something could happen in the lame duck session. If the Dems win the House and Senate, nothing will happen until 2013.”

During the post-election lame-duck session, the House is likely to approve postal legislation “that moves closer to the Senate version,” Ken Garner and Benjamin Cooper predicted a few days ago at the huge GraphExpo trade show for the printing industry. (If you’re wondering why postal issues are being discussed at a printing event, Garner, President/CEO, Mailing & Fulfillment Service Association, and Cooper, a prominent postal lobbyist, offered this factoid,: “Over one half of all print [in the U.S.] is created for mail distribution.”)

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-CA, has indicated he will introduce a “lite” version of the postal bill he guided through his committee early this year. Some have likened the original Issa plan to a Chapter 11-style restructuring of the U.S. Postal Service.

Gene Del Polito, President of the Association for Postal Commerce, agrees with Garner and Cooper that Issa’s revised proposal is likely to include some kind of relief on prepayment of retiree health benefits, as well as elimination of Saturday delivery. But “heaven only knows” whether the House and Senate will agree to any postal legislation this year.

“And if your business really depends on the provision of cost-efficient and reliable postal services, you'd better let heaven know what you need. Maybe somebody there will be listening.”

“The odds point to a 2013 bill,” O’Brien said. “Remember, Congress will not act in the absence of a crisis. The crisis SHOULD arrive in the fall of 2013 when the USPS runs out of cash.”

Garner and Cooper agree, and they fear that such a cash crisis would erode customers’ confidence in the Postal Service. It will be no easier for Congress to pass a long-term solution in 2013 than it is in 2012, they said. And no one seems to be betting that Congress will come up with a real solution next year.

“I believe if a postal bill is enacted that fails to address the imbalance between postal costs and revenues, the bill may provide a respite for some of the Postal Service's woes but there won't be a cure,” Del Polito wrote. “Within two years after enactment, there will be a postal reform redux. We'll get the same unsatisfying outcome we've gotten from the 2006 act.”

Related articles:

• 7 More Reasons the GOP Might Be Starving USPS of Cash   
• Is the Postal Service Really Broke?  
• USPS' 'Safeguards' Have Been Running Amok For 3 Decades

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Take the Money and Run, Burrus Tells Postal Workers

The U.S. Postal Service's proposal to downsize its workforce with an employee buyout received support Saturday from a long-time adversary.

William Burrus, former president of the agency's largest labor union and long a vocal critic of USPS management, urged fellow APWU members not to hold out for a better offer than the $15,000 incentive announced this week.

"If you intend to retire my advice is to 'take the money and run,' there is zero possibility that the amount will be increased," Burrus wrote in his blog today. "And for those who hope that a similar offer will be made in the future, I suggest that the odds are heavily against another incentive any time soon."

For the Postal Service, the time has never been better to offer clerks, mechanics, drivers and other APWU-represented employees an early-out bonus, the retired labor leader wrote, because "consolidations and service standard changes will make it possible to process a changing mix of mail with fewer employees."

And even if some retirees have to be replaced by new hires, he said, "postal costs are reduced by 50% when a retiree with 35 years of service is replaced by a new employee." Such a wide pay gap between new and veteran employees will not occur again, Burrus added, which means USPS will never have more incentive to downsize than it does today.

How about 35,000?
Postal officials expect 15,000 to 20,000 APWU-represented employees to take the buyout. Not Burrus:

"My best estimate is that of the 115,000 APWU represented eligibles there will be somewhere in the range of 35,000 who will take the money and run. If I am in the ball park, this will be the last and final retirement incentive in the next 50 years."

That may be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Knowing that Burrus is wily in the ways of Washington and not averse to speaking out against USPS management or current APWU leadership, many eligible employees may be swayed by his words.

Related articles: 

• Burrus Responds: Not Giving Up on 6-Day Delivery   
• The Reinterpretation of William Burrus  
• Mathematically Challenged: Burrus Proposal Doesn’t Add Up for USPS

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Five-Day Delivery and Reduced USPS Service Standards Could Face Legal Barrier

The U.S. Postal Service’s plans to eliminate Saturday delivery and to lower its delivery standards could face a significant legal obstacle, according to the Postal Regulatory Commission.

In its advisory opinion last week on USPS’s plan to close nearly half of its mail-processing centers, the commission seemed to side with witnesses who said reducing service standards could run afoul of the Congressionally-imposed price cap on postal rates.

“Two expert witnesses . . . presented persuasive testimony that a relationship exists between price and quality, and that lowering quality is equivalent to raising the price,” wrote Chairman Ruth Goldway in an addendum to the PRC’s document.

Under USPS’s Network Rationalization plan, “Eighty percent of all First-Class Mail . . . will be delayed by at least one day,” Goldway wrote. “Much of 2-day mail will become 3-day mail. Rural and remote communities that already receive slower delivery may be impacted even further when weekend and holiday delays are factored in.”

“If the Postal Service eliminates Saturday delivery, actual days to delivery would increase even more,” Goldway added. Her comment suggests that eliminating Saturday delivery would require Congress to change the price-cap law rather than merely excluding the usual ban on five-day delivery from annual appropriations bills.

Service standards and the price cap are two sides of the same coin. In the words of the PRC, “the price cap sets the ceiling on prices, whereas service standards set a floor on quality of service.”

“The Postal Service addresses the price/quality issue by contending that mailers place little value on speed of delivery,” the PRC wrote. [Tell that to publishers who send daily newspapers through the mail.] “The Postal Service asserts that customers value reliability in terms of predictability and consistency of delivery, and other attributes such as ease of use, convenience, and affordability.” But the commission didn’t seem to buy that argument.

The advisory opinion makes no definitive statement on the legal implications of reducing service because, as Goldway stated, the law governing USPS’s rates “does not provide the Commission explicit guidance to link the price cap directly to service quality.” But the PRC seems inclined to explore the issue further. 

Related articles:

• Has USPS Targeted the Wrong Plants for Closure?  
• How USPS Could Bypass Congress on Saturday Delivery 
• Divided PRC Presents Its Opinion on Saturday Delivery

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