Greg Walters Kicked Out of Sushi Restaurant for Stance on Paper: "No Paper, No Peace!"

"We serve paper users, only."

It was a calm and enjoyable evening as the chant of "no paper, no peace...no paper, no peace..." drifted over the swank dining area.  I knew before my guest that tonight was not going to be typical print/copier discussion over adult beverages.

That uncanny ability to discern the HP hum from the Lexmark rattle - an amusing parlor trick - was a curse "...no paper, no peace...no paper, no peace..." seeping into everyone's dinner conversation.

I knew what was coming.

"Chicken in the Coop!"

Nowadays, getting kicked out of a restaurant is a simple task. A contrarian view or disagreeable word, phrase, color, or micro-thought can trigger expulsion. Everybody is offended.

Print is Dead.

Say what you want about wedding invitations,  corrugated boxes, and meat-labels saving print - if companies are printing like it's 1999,  Xerox wouldn't be fighting for her life and Lexmark would still be an American company.

The chorus, "no paper...no peace..." grew in volume.  Spotting a nervous manager huddled up with her team, I was sure they were not discussing the future of sushi, or saki.

Origami & Haiku -

The gaggle stared at me in unison as the matron of the dining room floated over to my table.

"Hello..." I said.

"Good evening, Mr. Walters, " the standard retort, "I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you and your guest to leave our establishment. It has come to the attention of me and my staff, that you are a strong proponent of a paperless society. Indeed, you call for a violent end to copiers. This contrarian position is an affront to our collective morals. You must leave now."

I wasn't shocked. I was amused.

Best future use of paper.

"I'm sorry to hear this and hope our presence hasn't disturbed your other guests," I respond.

"My sister is in the paper business, she sells to the big carmakers and advertising companies. So you can understand how I cannot serve somebody with your moral standing. Please go." was the terse reply.

The short walk to the car was jeering, "You call for the death of copiers! NO PAPER, NO PEACE!", screamed a librarian-looking lady.

I expected a barrage of empty waste-toner bottles, instead,

"You can't hide! Wherever you go, we'll be there, with paper, in your face!  Napkins, shipping containers, meat labels, PAPER EVERYWHERE!"

Not a CNN reporter anywhere.

We left, without a Tweet, Snap, InstaGlam or Yelp!

No bother, Sushi can be found just about anywhere; even in Milwaukee.

There’s no paper

In the company future

Trees are digital!

###

Satire.

When a restaurant asks a person to leave because of who they work for, their political proclivity, or business model - isn't it THE SAME as enforcing "whites only" bubblers?

The world is upside down.  False prophets claim to support diversity as long as they define diversity.  They demand open discussions and viewpoints, as long as the viewpoint is theirs.

I've seen this first hand, from California to North Carolina.  Detroit to Oconomowoc.

The Auto Unions feigned defense of the working man, yet betrayed the companies employing members.

The open borders, sanctuary cities of SoCali, pose as immigrant advocates unknowingly promoting human trafficking, the drug trade, and child exploitation.  How many illegal immigrants, mothers, fathers, and children, perished in the desert chasing the hypnotic tone, "Come to America.  Land of opportunity.  Vote Democrat."  Sanctuary Cities equal Terminus.

Meanwhile, erudite, "non-violent" academics, sip wine, listen to Hungarian Christmas music, and scream, "I wish Bush was dead!" I saw it, I was there.

Nice haircut. Can he shave, yet?

Today, we walk among the entitled, frail, offended, sissified,  Generation of Whine.  There is no such thing as mental toughness.  There is no such thing as playing fair; it's a risk.

Everybody has the plan, everybody is an expert - kids with less than 20 trips around the sun are considered 'wise'.  But they are tools; being a victim does not an expert make.

So what is a (copier) salesperson to do in this crazy, mixed-up world?

I don't know how to say this, so I just will...you, the salesperson, the technology provider, we who reach out every day, experience loss, failure, and defeat yet get up each morning without a gripe are this century's greatest hope.

You know mental toughness, don't you?  Mom isn't asking prospects why they "didn't buy".  You're not blaming the NRA for your position in life.

We survived a childhood filled with treehouses, BB guns, riding in the back of pickups, bicycles without helmets, scraped knees, mud, dirt, germs and band-aids.

We stand alone.

The generational tsunami hitting our cultural shores have never been shown the destruction socialism leaves in its wake.  They've never reviewed eugenics and too easily cast their political rivals as "Hitler".  They grew up without conflict or competition. Coddled in mom's bosom past the age of 18 they are still scared of everything from peanuts to full-contact, youth football.

Politically, their mantra is "make everybody equal by making everybody poor".  Except them.

So it is up to you, up to Us.  Soak everything up.  Ask your clients real questions about business.  Do they feel confident in the economy?  How are they planning to grow the business over the next decade?

Distill these stories into your personal wisdom.  Invest more in this type of discussion over speeds and feeds - learn to have a proactive, business conversation around your prospect, not your OEM or dealership.

Tell people how you feel, what you've seen.

And when you finally get kicked out of a fancy restaurant, you'll know you've made it.

Xerox & FX: A Good Old Fashion, American Scandal

Scandalous.

Hold me baby, hold me like you ain’t mine to hold

Oh kiss me baby kiss me, like you don’t care who knows

Oh love me baby love me like Kennedy and Monroe

Hushed smiles across the table, clandestine meetings.  There's something exhilarating about sharing a secret in front of the entire world.  Just the two of you. Food's better, the Sun warmer, nights longer.

But affairs have no future.

In the tightly bound world of third-party toner manufacturers, evaporating equipment placements, Monday morning sales meetings, earnings reports, tumbling clicks, and Sunday afternoon barbecues, the copier life is almost too much to bear.

Scandal and intrigue.

"I'd sell Xerox. That's a house of pain." - Cramer

The Xerox affair is a reflection of the industry; Mixed up, ruled by The house of Boys; Desperate.

"As Xerox goes, so goes the industry" or is it "As the industry goes, so go we all."?

• Remember when Ricoh bought Ikon?  Remember when Panasonic exited?
• How about when HP split?
• The assimilation of Muratec or the bifurcation of Xerox?
• Don't forget the Chinese purchase of Lexmark.
• And now, the Xerox, Fuji-Xerox, six billion dollar escapade.

X will fade.  The moniker might remain (Lanier, anyone?) but the greatness that was, will be no more.

"The new board - the majority now consisting of directors backed by Icahn and Deason - will begin evaluating strategic alternatives; Icahn and Deason have said XRX could be sold to a competitor or private-equity firm."

"Sold to a competitor..."  HP?
"...or private-equity firm..." Blue Horseshoe loves Anacott Steel?

So what will be the next shoe to drop? Will Ricoh succumb?

Will Sharp or Toshiba bail?  Can K/M survive? Canon?  Truly, everyone(except one) is circling the drain.

Those are negative operating profit figures.

For now, sit back and enjoy yet another, delicious scandal.

From one of many articles:

 -‘Sleepless Nights’ and 'Project Juice'

"... Dec. 7, 2017, letter written by Xerox director Cheryl Krongard to the company’s chairman Robert Keegan, titled “4 sleepless nights”. In that letter, Krongard called Jacobson a “rogue executive” who disobeyed the board to secretly negotiate a deal with Fujifilm.

In the letter -- purportedly sent less than two months before Xerox agreed to the deal -- Krongard also writes: “This board exhausted every ounce of patience and coaching to make our current CEO a success. We then decided, unanimously, for a variety of reasons, he was not the leader we need.” Krongard adds that the company had identified a CEO replacement who, she says, Keegan had said was “head and shoulders better than Jeff”.

The letter continues: “Jeff was told by you, as directed and supported by the board, that the board was disappointed by his performance and would likely look at outside talent. Additionally, you told him in no uncertain terms, that he was to discontinue any and all conversations with FX and F regarding Juice. He blatantly violated a clear directive”.

Project Juice was the code name given to deal discussions, while F and FX refer to Fujifilm and the Fuji-Xerox joint venture, respectively.

Latest Update, 5/13 -

Xerox (NYSE:XRX) says it has reached a settlement agreement with investors Carl Icahn and Darwin Deason and will end its merger deal with Fujifilm (OTCPK:FUJIF, OTCPK:FUJIY).

XRX says CEO Jeff Jacobson has resigned and John Visentin, a former tech executive who had been working with the activists, will become the new CEO.

XRX appointed five new members to the board, including Icahn Enterprises (NYSE:IEP) CEO Keith Cozza as Chairman, and five existing members resigned in addition to Jacobson.

The new board - the majority now consisting of directors backed by Icahn and Deason - will begin evaluating strategic alternatives; Icahn and Deason have said XRX could be sold to a competitor or private-equity firm.

A Decade of #TheDeathofTheCopier: Really?

Long ago, a decade seemed like forever; "1999" was a far-off party, and 2001 was so distant, that it was science fiction.

When I was young, I couldn't imagine where'd I be beyond 2008.  Today, decades fade away, "like tears in the rain..."

Ten revolutions around the Sun
120 Months
521.4 Weeks
3,650 Days
87,000 Hours

At its peak, The Death of the Copier was coveted; worth stealing. Not for the plain talk, but for the audience.

In 2008, we were busy back-slapping and congratulating ourselves for selling machines like popcorn.  The future was bright; it was never going to end.

• Ikon was a huge channel of 'independent' dealers.
• Xerox was like Kleenex.
• Ricoh and Canon punched it out for the second and third position.
• HP was on the edge with Edgeline.
• The rest of the pack was just that, a pack.

Back then, few were 'blogging' about copiers. Out here on the inter-webs, nobody was talking about workflow, managed print services, IT, or business acumen.  Newsletters, magazines, and trade shows were the vehicles of delivery.

On this 10th year anniversary, I've traveled back to the future, re-visiting stories of the love, toner, blood, and tragedy that is DOTC.

I've dug up a few nuggets:

From a DOTC post, "Top 12 of 2008":

"5. LinkedIn - MySpace is all grown up. Much more mature than Facebook with real contacts and real business and NO high school moms pretending to be CEOs...well, maybe. Quite by chance, I fell into LinkedIn. Early, I joined MySpace, Facebook, Plaxo, etc. - but LinkedIn, for some reason has held my attention and gets most of my input when it comes to "social networking"."-  2008.

I talked about Managed Print Services, how copier reps won't naturally progress into the niche, how real MpS requires IT and copier knowledge, and something called Business Acumen.  It was like speaking Latin.

The second post, February 2008: Managed Print Services - That "Hot, New, Thing..."


"A copier salesperson does not directly translate into an MPS specialist.

Nor does an IT Services salesperson translate into an MPS Specialist. It takes both IT experience and copier experience and a great deal of general, C-level, business experience. 

That holy grail of Professional Selling, "Business Acumen". Someone with the "Big Picture" insight and manage the details of a solution."

Honestly, the more things change, the more they stay the same. It's been ten years and we're still struggling to find managed print nirvana.


We still sell copiers.

 How about this one from 2011?  Inspired by the movie Jerry McGuire -

"MPS isn't the end-all, it isn't the only reason to exist - it never has been. Still, with everybody getting in and as many as 50% failing, what now?

With all the OEMs defining MPS ... and reclassifying direct accounts, how can we continue?

Touch More.

More Human Touch. Less PowerPoint. No WebEx meetings, toss the 50 slide business summaries. Instead, press the flesh. Draw on a napkin.

Do that thing we do as sales professionals, look him in the eye and say "thank you, what more can we do, today?"

"Oddest, most unexpected thing..."

Success and change aren't always a result of design. Innovation encroaches from another direction; from the left as we look right, from behind as we look ahead.  Few ever see it coming.

So it is today. As some deny the paperless revolution is near, companies like Alaska Air outfit their 1,400 pilots with iPads.  Apple is making the textbook obsolete and banks accept pictures of checks for deposits. Your kids, don't call each other anymore, they use their thumbs.

From social media to MpS, everything is new and unpredicted - there are no experts - the world moves faster than ever before. No benchmarks, no 'metrics', no comparison, no rules.

Waiting for the revolution? It's already here.

"The Me I always wanted to be" - Trust

Trust. It is a big word and one of the first MPS Conference keynote speaker attempted to rally behind stating, 

"..Trust is something this industry has got to reclaim."

He is new. He doesn't understand to reclaim something, one must have first possessed it.

"I had lost the ability to bullshit, ..."

Our journey continues.

The path is less bumpy when we build partnerships. Partnerships are easier to forge over a foundation of truth. Can you be true?

Can you lose the ability to bullshit? If not to your prospects, at least with yourself. Or are you just another shark in a suit?

Can you see the entire ecosystem?

How about instead of optimizing a smidgen of hardware and some toner, you envision Optimizing Everything?

That's right, everything. Managed Optimization Services.

"That's how you become great, man. Hang your balls out there."

Good Stuff.

What have WE, learned over the past ten years?

1. The Copier is nearly gone
2. Old ways die-hard
3. Situations rarely change, people do

My nostalgic jaunt inspired me to seek out memories from the pioneers of the copier-industry social media world.

Before Twitter.  Before Instaglam. Before LI took off...there was Ken Stewart, Nathan Dube, Jim Lyons, and Art Post.

I asked them for a tidbit of reflection:

From Ken Stewart -

Wow, it's been that long?!?  What I've learned:

1. Trust God more
2. Forgive mankind often
3. Relish the little things
4. Let people be accountable for their actions
5. Just because the folks in the hot tub look like they're having a blast, their secrets are hiding under the bubbles!

Nathan Dube -

Things I have learned:

1. Don’t trust the hype
2. Disruptive technologies sometimes aren’t and those that are, often take time to produce real change
3. If the paperless office is coming, I am not seeing it much/at all in New England across most verticals
4. Storytelling is the best way to market
5. Everybody hates their printer eventually
6. The future of marketing IMO lies in gamification and interactive content that is more about entertainment than the product you are trying to sell.

Jim Lyons -

Can't remember EXACTLY how Greg and I became friends, but as what seemed like the only two bloggers in the industry back then it was inevitable we'd become friends as well as colleagues. 

A particular fond memory is when Greg had accepted an invitation to the Lyra Conference (Symposium) - where I'd gone from client to contributor. 

Greg and I had been in touch quite a bit but had never met face-to-face and several of the team (including Photizo folks in attendance, though this was before the merger) were excited to meet Mr. Death of the Copier. As we anticipated his arrival I remember enthusing that this was a very much-needed "young guy" we were welcomed into the fold!!!

Art Post

Nothing stays the same, change is constant.
There is nothing new in sales even though there are thousands of sales gurus on LinkedIn promoting their success when they haven't sold shit in years.

There are many stubborn copier manufacturers that refuse to exit the channel. No one copies anymore.

I've learned that life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer you get to the end of the roll, the faster it goes.

Thanks, guys, for reading DOTC and staying true.

Personally:

1. 2008, I was married and living in the mountains of Southern California.  5,000 feet above sea level, an hour from the beach - "...things that have comforted me, I drive away..."
2. Since 2008, I've moved from SoCali to Charlotte to Oconomowoc, Wisconsin - "...this place that is my home, I cannot stay..."
3. Over 10 years, I've seen small businesses grow and flourish.  I've met the best of the best and the worst of the worst - "...I come and stand at every door..."
4. I've Failed - "...If you've ever seen a one-legged dog then you've seen me..."
5. I've Succeeded - "...I always leave with less than I had before..."
6. I've become an expert at Starting Over - "...tell me, can you ask for anything more..."

Over the long haul, I've seen the extinction of the typewriter, witnessed the evaporation of the mini and mainframe, and bobbed along the turbulent manual-to-PC-to-network-to-internet-to-cloud waters.

I am fortunate to have a place to express myself.  I'm blessed to be able to write what I would read and humbled others to find something, interesting and possibly entertaining.

10 Years. How about you?

On what field did you stand?  Today, do you still stand?  

Where will you be in 2028?

Two, three, four

Have you ever seen a one trick pony in the field so happy and free?
If you've ever seen a one trick pony then you've seen me
Have you ever seen a one-legged dog making his way down the street?
If you've ever seen a one-legged dog then you've seen me
Then you've seen me, I come and stand at every door

Then you've seen me, I always leave with less than I had before
Then you've seen me, bet I can make you smile when the blood, it hits the floor
Tell me, friend, can you ask for anything more?
Tell me can you ask for anything more?

Have you ever seen a scarecrow filled with nothing but dust and wheat?
If you've ever seen that scarecrow then you've seen me
Have you ever seen a one-armed man punching at nothing but the breeze?
If you've ever seen a one-armed man then you've seen me

Then you've seen me, I come and stand at every door
Then you've seen me, I always leave with less than I had before
Then you've seen me, bet I can make you smile when the blood, it hits the floor
Tell me, friend, can you ask for anything more?
Tell me can you ask for anything more?

These things that have comforted me, I drive away
This place that is my home I cannot stay
My only faith's in the broken bones and bruises I display
Have you ever seen a one-legged man trying to dance his way free?
If you've ever seen a one-legged man then you've seen me