Marketing Commentary from interlinkONE
Marketing. Web-to-Print. Warehouse Management.
The Future Leaders of the Print Industry
Posted by John Foley, Jr. 
on Wednesday, March 30, 2011 
at 10:56 AM 
in Business, Marketing, Technology 
On March 29th, I had the privilege of attending and participating in the Bill Treadaway Print Leadership Forum at Clemson University. I am very thankful for having the opportunity to meet and interact with the faculty and alumni that attended.
But more than that, I am quite energized by having been able to spend time with students from the Graphics Communications department at Clemson.
Why We Need Students More than Ever Before
The print industry is changing, that is for sure. However, I truly think companies will be able to remain relevant in the future if they embrace the ideas — both creatively and in regards to communication channels — that will come from the youth of today.
The students in the Graphic Communications department at Clemson certainly have a passion for print. But they also spend a great amount of time communicating, publishing, and consuming information via channels such as social media, mobile, and more.
Will their future employers shun those activities once these students have jobs at their print facility?
How to Embrace Change in Your Organization
While it may not always be easy to implement change, service providers may find tremendous benefits if they embrace it.
- They should find ways to use the knowledge from these students to run more effective marketing campaigns that promote their business and its services.
- They should use the student’s experience to train their sales staff on how new channels can help them to find prospects and to engage with customers.
- They should use the student’s passion to effectively offer integrated marketing solutions to clients, that include interactive print and other new channels.
Yes, future generations may push to implement ideas that are different than what some in the print industry have been used to.
But in these changing worlds of marketing, communication, and education, I think that’s exactly what we need.
Tags Survival is Not Mandatory
American statistician, professor, author, lecturer, and consultant W. Edwards Deming once said, “It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.” In other words, if you are not willing to change you will not survive. This is especially true in the business world. Reality is that culture is continuously changing. Simultaneously, information technology and how we communicate is changing. Take for instance the recent popularity of social media. In order for businesses to remain competitive they are going to have to adapt to this new forms of communication. They will have to change in order to remain a lucrative business.
In a world of change you must have a willingness to make change. According to Harold Wilson, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, “He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.” People fear and reject change because they fear the unknown and being vulnerable. Take, for example, the internet. When the internet initially went mainstream it was rejected as a fad. We all know how that played out. Like the internet, social media is not going anywhere. It will persist and eventually be outplayed by a new form of communication. The world of communication will continue to change and we will have to adapt in order to keep our businesses viable. Will you keep up? Your business depends upon it!
