Darkness was my first album. I bought it thinking it contained the song "Born to Run". I was wrong and it was so very right.
Today it Bruce's birthday. He turns 74.
I've listened to him since 1978.
Darkness on the Edge of Town, to a kid living just outside Detroit, witness to the fall of the big V8 and the rise the Japanese automotive industry.
Jimmy Carter, Oil Embargo, and the "Great Blizzard of '78". Yeah, there were blizzards back then and we didn't have ABS, or all wheel drive and somehow we made it out alive.
Regardless, time changes everything especially the view.
Bruce is 74. His political beliefs are typically skewed left, because of the entertainment commands it so.
It doesn't matter.
Travel with me and Wendy as she bemoans the parallel paths of Office Technology and Bruce Springsteen from 1978 to today.
_________
In the dimly lit corner of a New York bar, Wendy sat, a glass of whiskey in hand, reflecting on the ever-evolving world of music and technology. The raspy voice of Bruce Springsteen echoed in the background, singing tales of blue-collar struggles and the American dream.
Wendy, always one to appreciate the art of storytelling, couldn't help but draw parallels between Springsteen's musical journey and the technological transformation of the modern office.
For decades, we in the copier industry have been telling prospects our hardware "increases productivity and reduces costs". We lied. Well, we defined the narrative to fit our mission of selling 10 copiers a month. (or whatever)
The world is increasing productivity and reducing costs through more efficient workflows - and if you are simply selling copiers, printers, or MpS, they are doing it without you and viewing your relationship as a target for cost reduction.
AI eats workflows 24/7 and will decimate everything from middle management to the C-Suite.
More than how the internet shook things up, bigger than that gift from Prometheus, and vastly more liberating than the invention of the Wheel, Generative AI is shifting our world, changing how we work, chit-chat, learn, and more.
Hold onto your linen, because the speed of this tech revolution is faster than light. These jaw-dropping tools we're ogling at today? They'll be old news by year's end since they're leveling up like crazy and getting mixed into other gizmos and services at breakneck speed.
Buckle up, buttercups, 'cause we're in for a wild one...
Key highlights:
Companies like AT&T and Meta Platforms are focusing on efficiency and productivity improvements in response to economic challenges.
AT&T's Project Raindrops initiative aims to simplify and eliminate unnecessary business processes, saving employees nearly 3 million hours a year.
While the impact of small improvements on the bottom line is difficult to quantify, research suggests that saved time is often reinvested in the company as additional work.
In a city where darkness and despair cling to weary souls like a perpetual fog, there lived a man named Jack. Jack was a salesman, but not just any salesman. He was a purveyor of IT services, a guardian of technological marvels that could breathe new life into the rusted arteries of struggling businesses. This city, much like the one Bruce Springsteen had immortalized in his haunting ballad "Jungleland," was a place where dreams often went to die, only to be resurrected through the sheer force of human determination and the power of connection.
In the March 22, 2023 edition of the Wall Street Journal(paywall), Simone Gao expresses his opinion on the latest moves in China like the newly enacted Law on Reservists which delays the retirement age for reserve officers to 60 from 55.
The region will play a key role in the next technological wave and has relevance for Office Technology providers because of the number of FABs in Taiwan. A FAB (or fabrication plant) is a facility where integrated circuits (ICs) or microchips are manufactured.
FABs require a high level of precision and cleanliness, as even tiny contamination can affect the quality and functionality of the chips produced. FABs are typically very expensive to build and maintain and are a crucial component of the semiconductor supply chain.
We've used the opinion piece to generate the following.
Enjoy.
__________
Guarding Global Tech: Navigating the Taiwan Strait Tensions for Office Technology's Future
I answer the same questions asked of Mira Murati, the top tech chief at OpenAI.
John Simons at Time interviewed Mira Murati, chief technology officer at OpenAI, leading the teams behind DALL-E, which uses AI to create artwork based on prompts, and ChatGPT, the wildly popular AI chatbot that can answer complex questions with eerily humanlike skill.
“As with other revolutions that we’ve gone through, there will be new jobs and some jobs will be lost…” Murati told Trevor Noah last fall about the impact of AI, “but I’m optimistic.”
The writer had a prepared list of questions for the founder of the Creator of ChatGPT. I figured it would be interesting for me to answer the questions as though John were interviewing me, an average user of AI.
I like big, loud, powerful American muscle cars - but - that war is lost. This administration has enticed or threatened American auto companies and old Springsteen songs into the historic abyss.
Every shift in technology has collateral damage; from the Luddites of the 19th century to paint booth operators of the 80s - when new tech evolves, labor shifts into other areas.
Railroads, looms, computers, typewriters, newspapers, department stores, shopping malls, Beanie Babies, Saturday Morning cartoons, - gone. Next, the V8, filling stations, and auto dealerships.
That's right, the American staple of automotive nirvana, that one place nobody likes to go, but everyone does, the car dealership follows the internal combustion engine into oblivion.
When you hear people say things like, "We've been promoting managed print services since the very beginning..." or "Our web-services are the best because we come out of your industry..." or even "We've been there, we've sold MPS and know what you need in lead generation, keyword utilization, and PPC programs. We've been in social media from the very beginning..." remember this video.
That's Ken Stuart and me on the banks of the San Antonio, right after a thrill-packed day of MPS pioneers at Photizo II. The attendees were a collection of "cutting edge" MPS'rs and a great time was had by all.
"I blog because I like to read what I blog..." - GW
Ken and I were there, guess who wasn't. The crusty old guys who today consider themselves oracles of marketing. The self-proclaimed experts of all things "managed" - from printers, users, workflow to IT services (nobody but the uninitiated refer to managed services as "managed network services") are those who mocked MPS back in 2009.
Are you transforming your business away from copiers?
Are you that bold?
Then why is your presence the same as everybody else?
I've put together a constellation of luminaries primarily focused on your success. We've sold toner, copiers, paper, printers, MPS, MS, service, EDM, and fax servers.
Just like you, we've struggled with EAutomate, incorrect meter readings, and billing, OEM quotas, and tardy service technicians. We understand you don't have the time to understand or worry if your web team can translate your value proposition into a solid web presence.
I like shows. I like to visit with like-minded folks and I like to see the latest, greatest toys.
Lately, at least for the past four years, the tone at some of these shows seems to have ranged anywhere between desperation and bliss.
There is one constant- the show is busy and there is rarely enough time to get quality time.
Some of the topics I am looking forward to discussing this year at Transform are:
The Future of MpS - It ain't what it used to be...
Tablets or Toner- Take a guess...
The Cloud - Will it make rain...
Mobile Business Intelligence- huh?
Business Workflow- MpS has ALWAYS been about BPO...
New MpS technology- What more can we do...
The funny thing is, as good as the speaker content is this year, the offline conversations can be even more interesting.
So, in that vein, I want to see and talk with as many folks as I can.
If you are interested in meeting with me and talking about anything from self-replicating nano-bots, MpS compensation plans, M2M communications, the Cloud and its impact on business processes, or who has the best MpS infrastructure program, let's schedule something.
I will be in Orlando from Monday evening to Saturday. I have a presentation and some hard meetings set up, but send me an invite at greg@thedeathofthecopier.com and maybe we can get together for a few minutes.
Wide open, no charge, possibly over an adult beverage.
"...Barefoot girl sitting on the hood of a Dodge Drinking warm beer in the soft summer rain The rat pulls into town rolls up his pants Together they take a stab at romance and disappear down Flamingo Lane...
...And in the quick of the night they reach for their moment And try to make an honest stand but they wind up wounded, not even dead Tonight in Jungleland..."
I first saw Clarence October of 1980, during The River tour. My back was against the wall of Cobo Arena, Detroit, - I was in the very last seat.
I did not matter.
What seemed miles away, the Big Man in a white tuxedo atop two stories of speakers blaring out from what appeared to be an impossibly big golden saxophone, the sax solo to end all others was, dare I say, religious. If you've seen, you know.
Hundreds of concerts later, I still remember that Michigan autumn night. The band started just after 8PM and rocked to just before 1AM. For the last set, which I believe was the 3rd or 4th encore, all the house lights remained on. It seemed everybody in the joint was up, dancing in the isles and sweating.
That night, those few hours together, was about as human as you could get.
"Clarence lived a wonderful life," states Springsteen. "He carried within him a love of people that made them love him. He created a wondrous and extended family. He loved the saxophone, loved our fans and gave everything he had every night he stepped on stage.
His loss is immeasurable and we are honored and thankful to have known him and had the opportunity to stand beside him for nearly forty years.
He was my great friend, my partner, and with Clarence at my side, my band and I were able to tell a story far deeper than those simply contained in our music. His life, his memory, and his love will live on in that story and in our band."
HP retail publishing footprint set to grow 300 percent in 2010
PALO ALTO, Calif., May 20, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- HP (HPQ 45.22, -0.02, -0.04%) today announced that Walmart is rolling out the HP "Prints in Minutes" retail publishing service in 3,600 of its stores across the United States.
By the end of the summer, U.S. customers of the world's largest retailer will be able to take advantage of a fast, high-quality photo print service as well as a broad array of personalized printed merchandise, such as calendars and greetings cards, and access to images from brands such as Nickelodeon, Warner Bros. and Live Nation.
This rollout in Walmart stores, along with incremental growth in other retailers' stores, marks a more than 300 percent growth of HP's global retail publishing presence in 2010. Over the last year, HP has expanded its customer portfolio through agreements with leading retailers such as Tesco, Rossmann, Duane Reade and Kmart Australia.
"Our agreement with Walmart is another milestone in HP's drive to help retailers transition from traditional photo services to dynamic publishing centers," said Vyomesh Joshi, executive vice president, Imaging and Printing Group, HP. "With new customer agreements with many major global retailers, including Tesco, Kmart Australia and now Walmart, we're bringing consumers new opportunities to conveniently print both personal and branded digital content that is meaningful to them."
"...in 1974, 25-year-old Bruce Springsteen played at the Harvard Square Theater in Cambridge.
Although popular with the college crowd in the Northeast, Springsteen was not yet a star.
That night, he and the E Street Band opened for Bonnie Raitt.
The influential music critic Jon Landau was in the audience. Overwhelmed by what he heard, Landau wrote,
"I saw my rock and roll past flash before my eyes. I saw something else: I saw rock and roll's future and its name is Bruce Springsteen."
In the years since that momentous spring night in Cambridge, the Boss has had 14 albums go platinum, has won 11 Grammies and an Oscar and has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame..."
Back in those days, stars were truly discovered. Crowds were organic, not Twitter-induced - the "buzz" was real.
This is way before MTV, before "57 Channels", email, the internet, Facebook, blow dryers and teeth whitening. The music was real.
To know Bruce back then was to either hate him or love him. And the Bruce fans were nuts, unique, outside of the norm - to the right of the bell curve.
His shows today are intense, but back then, the 4-hour sessions skyrocketed up and over the religious. Not because he demanded so much from his band, all of them willing accomplices, but Bruce did more - he demanded more from his audience.
From everyone within hear shot. Those of us in the very last seat, to the fans behind the stage, to the high rollers in the front row - if you didn't believe in Rock n Roll after one of his concerts, you didn't have a pulse.
One of the most interesting things I remember from those glory days - well, not back in 1974 - I consider myself a "second-gen" Bruce fan, from the Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town era - I think back to how we fans stuck together. How while standing in line to get into a show, we all had that "cat who ate the mouse" look.
The nod, the smile from fan to fan - we were in for something special, something not everybody "got" and that was fine with us. Actually, we preferred it this way. Bruce was ours. Not everyone's. And as much as we wanted to keep this a secret, we all knew that someday, Bruce would be moving out of the smaller venues into the mega-shows, the real world, mainstream.
And so it is with Managed Print Services - our Secret Garden, we lucky few who shared a wink and a nod, over a year ago in San Antonio, we are about to lose to the rest of the world, this special, undefinable "thing".
It's been a year, another turn of the globe, and MPS has just about come full circle.
The "big guys" have now gotten it right.
I rail against the titans, the over publicized global MPS takedowns less than 5% of us will ever see. The over-exposed CPC to MPS conversions straight out of MIF, touted as examples of MPS.
And yes, I protest the lack of human touch extolled by heartless MPS programs.
I challenge, I poke, I prod, I mock. Yet, deep down, I know the exercise is tragic if not futile. One step up, and two steps down.
You see, there is a part of me fighting to keep MPS bottled up, pure. Sure, me, the dark skeptic, exposed as an eternal optimist, even as the genie evaporates out for all to see.
The lack of MPS purity, I feel, has led to the detriment of so many MPS programs; Konica Minolta OPS, Samsung MPS Platform, the Lexmark thing, HP MPS redefining the size of an enterprise account down to SMB, from PagePack 1.0 to PagePack 3.0(there never was a 2.0) on and on.
And all those failed BTA/MPS programs, doomed from the very beginning, taking with them, bright-eyed and hopeful copier salespeople or service managers christened as MPS experts. Such a waste.
To be sure there are many, many bright spots - Great America offering leasing and MPS training, not to mention advice on how to hire MPS people.
Synnex, delivering just in time, HP OEM, and utilizing Stephen Power - the only old skool mentor who gets it.
And the Photizo Group, how frustrating it must be to see your work, copied and regurgitated as new; complete trade shows themed on your descriptive: The Hybrid Dealer. I mean, flattery can only go so far.
So, after a year, where are we now? Indeed, after three, where do you stand now?
For me, it's a realization that this has finally gotten bigger than us.
MPS is hitting the mainstream, the time for defining is passed, those of us who may have felt at one time in control of destiny, need to simply hang on, and make the best of it.
Those intimate Springsteen shows were special, a point in time that can never be duplicated, except in memory.
But the sheer, awesome, spectacle that is a Springsteen arena show, even if mainstream, is glorious.
As I consider the past 12 months, "I saw my printer and copier past flash before my eyes. I saw something else: I saw MPS's future and its name is (fill in the blank)."
All is not lost - there are more windmills for us to charge on this MPS landscape - all it takes is a Leap of Faith, I think we should keep taking those tickets from the fat man, living the runaway American Dream.
Because, ultimately, I still haven't found, what I'm looking for...
I first saw Bruce in 1980, in Joe Louis Arena, Detroit Michigan.
My seats?
I could lean back against the wall - I was in the very last row, on the highest level, the furthest anyone could be.
Didn't make a difference. He came on at 8:15 and the show ended at 1:07AM...incredible. The Big Man studded out in a white tux, and yes, that was Mighty Max on the drums - you know, he's on Conan now.
Mitch Ryder sang and the last 45 minutes all the house lights came on and stayed on.
Nobody was sitting - good lord, it was magic.
Enjoy, it's a 6 minute, 42 second break...start the week strong.
Yet, by senior year, I was wearing and selling "Nuke The Whales" T-shirts.
Proceeds going to the floor "beverage fund".
I'd like to think I've grown up. It's clear, Greenpeace hasn't. In a remarkable display if ingenuity - an act of "Mission Impossible" proportions - Greenpeace operatives breached security, scaled the walls to HP's roof and vandalized the technology producers property.
Judging from the large, all capitalized, block font and the lack of South LA-like hieroglyphics, the roof graffiti was most likely produced by young, suburbanite, some-what educated hooligans with excellent penmanship and way too much time on their hands.
We assume the colorant used is water soluble and non-toxic.
All this over PVC and BFR's; elements that HP will remove by 2011 instead of 2009.
"Earlier this year, HP postponed its 2007 commitment to phase out dangerous substances such as brominated flame retardants (BFRs) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic from its computer products (excluding their server and printer lines, (GoIPG!)) from 2009 to 2011,"
Not only did G-Peace scratch out their display for the benefit of everyone above the altitude of 400 feet or so, in a cunning application of high-technology, they also dispatched automated phone calls to HP from non-other than Captain James Tiberius Kirk!
Bill is urging HP to phase out toxic chemicals in its products.
There is a place I hear of, seven to eight thousand miles West of Palo Alto. A land of great growth and pollution and many, many corporate HQ's with roofs - Communist Red China.
The double-dog-dare is simple: go there and tag any one of their roofs - hell, tag a wall or corporate driveway.
And then, if you can, come back home and tell us all your great tale. Like Beowulf and the Grendle.
Most likely, you will be sharing space with Tank Man and his family in a dark, musty cell.
Locked up and forgotten.
Interesting footnote. HP has been "Green" since before it was "hip"(1957), before the word "Green" applied to anything anti-human and well before G-Peace even existed,1971.
- A Game of Six Inches – And by “Six Inches” I mean the space between your ears.
Anyone can take a set of pre-written interview questions, read them out, and write down the response. Anybody can get meter reads and divide by total months in the field and get an average monthly volume. And anybody can attend one of a plethora of newly created “How to sell/implement/create/invest in/market/make a profit in Managed Print Services” courses.
And I recommend every single course. As a matter of fact, I recommend that all my competitors take continuous courses, read thousands of articles, plan, strategize, forge partnerships with vendors and distributors, test all the meter reading tools, attend all the manufacturers’ “How To” seminars, develop hundred-page spreadsheets to determine CPC – please, by all means, you can never learn too much. You study, I'll "do".
It isn’t all about facts and numbers, it’s about people. It’s not about first copy out time or the fact that duplexing can save trees and the Chewbaccas , it’s about the CEO’s assistant not needing to babysit the color copier on a Saturday afternoon, missing her kid’s ballet recital.
The sad news is this – I am talking about wisdom and true wisdom comes over time, not on slide 82 of 150. And fortunately for some, we’ve been in the business long enough to remember the look on people’s faces when they saw the very first letter printed on a laser printer – and we were witness to all the changes in business due to technology.
And if you have always been selling with high intent, doing what is best for your customers and yourself, learning about each business you have been fortunate to visit - taking all that in over the years then you are in a very fortunate position. Celebrating the successes and learning from the failures.
If you are one of those, you know this Wisdom is Platinum, and it is the acumen that corporate leaders will pay greatly to be in the company of. All that needs to be done is effectively communicate the results of your study through the prism of your wisdom. (I hope somebody is writing this down, these are priceless drops of gold)
If you are new to MPS or to sales or to helping customers solve problems, let not your heart be troubled, start today. Start engaging your prospects to learn more about their business, their personal challenges, their ups, and their downs - talk and learn more than just CPC, FCOT, fuser, toner, supplies, and jams.
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