Wine Trivia

Wine TRIVIA

One Barrel of Wine Contains:
985 lbs. of Grapes - 59 Gallons
24.6 Cases of Wine
295 Bottles of Wine
1180 Glasses of Wine

One Case of Wine Contains:
30 lbs. of Grapes
307.2 oz. of Wine
12 Bottles of Wine
48 Glasses of Wine

One Bottle of Wine Contains:

2.4 lbs. of Grapes

750 ml. of Wine
25.6 oz. of Wine
4 Glasses of Wine

Newspaper Media Technologies Forum

The Newspaper Media Technologies Forum is open to all media technology, operations and publishing professionals. This forum offers a newspaper operations techlink for collaboration on efficient newspaper production operations, industry innovation, implementing new technology, best practices and standards. Group discussion and development of traditional print operations and new platforms for multi-media information distribution.

Join the Forum:
http://groups.google.com/group/newspaper-technologies

Owning the Community

One of the most important assets of a newspaper is the access to the community. For years, the newspaper has been the dominate communication medium to nearly every house in the community. Unfortunately, this asset is slipping through the industry's fingers, or more appropriately vanishing into online 'air'.

Owning the market: the newspaper is still the premier product to reach the greater market - both in major metros or small markets. That is why Google and Yahoo is so anxious to partner with the newspaper industry - it isn't because we are such nice people, it's because we have a path to the people they want to reach. I recently heard someone say that if the newspaper industry could organize their customer data base and the distribution of information and content to the market, they couldn't be touched.... or something to that affect. The newspaper industry owns the market, and has for years. Step back 20 years, if the newspaper would have become the regional online ISP, they would have both print and online customer links wrapped up!

The industry has always been in the best position to define the market, but has rarely, if ever, capitalized on their knowledge and access to the market...we should own the consumer and customer database, but have never made the move to secure it,...in my opinion, we have let one of the most valuable assets we could own, slip through our fingers...

The Print and Web Strategy

Last weekend I was a speaker at the North Carolina Newspaper Operation Conference in Raleigh, NC. The topic was pretty straight forward, talk about the future of newspaper production. But the underlying message was many newspaper companies had refocused - focusing on the web first and print second.

This is a future focused idea that most companies need to consider, but there seemed to be a fundamental flaw in today's ideology. These companies are focusing the majority of their resources on web products, at the expense of the print product, rather than as a coordinated web/print strategy. The newspaper industry strategies are so focused on the Internet and wireless technology, the print product is left to blow in the wind.

Here's an idea - develop a Web/Print Strategy to cross promote products, communities, forums and delivery of content. Web and print is not an either/or proposition - the industry needs both technologies to be successful. Digital technology and advertising revenue is not established to the point of replacing print revenue. Today, online revenue accounts for 10-15% of a newspaper's total revenue, yet nearly 100% of capital and strategic initiatives are allotted to online development.

Today, both web and print need to compliment each other. A web community with a print product - where the bulk of the journalism and research is published in print with an online community to serve the people interested in the topic. Many newspapers have latched on to this formula by developing cross media platforms; containing web communities and niche print products to serve the advertisers and readers.

Until there is an all-in-one product for wireless and e-paper communication; the newspaper industry needs to leverage both web and print in new ways, which will require developing new products for both platforms to increase revenue.

Looking for cost savings?

Everyone is looking to reduce costs and expenses today. The increasing cost of gasoline, energy and consumables are eating away at profits. So where do you look for cost savings and increased efficiency?

The first place to look is the condition of your printing press and how well it prints. The condition of your press will directly affect your productivity and waste. A maintained press can get to clean sellable copies faster on start-ups, maintain consistency over the pressrun and be a safer place for employees to work.

The press maintenance should regularly check roller settings, dampening system parts and functionality, and web tension. Rollers should be set or checked once a month. A common source of web breaks are dull slitters. Many pressrooms only change a slitter when it causes a web break. Be proactive and change slitters frequently, it will improve productivity by reducing web breaks and make cleaner cuts of the web. Properly set trolleys and nips are also important to controlling the web through the press - improving registration and reducing waste. Trolleys and nips should be set on the outside edges of the web to reduce set-off and quality problems.

Printing is all about consistency - when you shop for paper and ink out of the back of a truck parked in a dark alley, you generally get what you pay for. The consistency and quality of consumables; ink, paper, chemistry, rollers, etc., will directly affect your productivity and quality. The term: Garbage in, Garbage out, applies here. If you are constantly changing your process because of changes in material characterics or conditions, you are losing money and time. It is more cost effective to buy quality products, be consistent, and measure productivity and performance; then going to the bottom of the barrel, rock bottom priced stuff. Guaranteed, inconsistency and constantly changing materials will cost you more in both real dollars and head-aches.

Also look at technology. So many companies are afraid to spend a dollar, even when they would have immediate ROI and improve operational efficiency. If you have a person manually filling ink fountains to your press, invest in ink levelers - the ROI is there.

Lastly, have productivity goals and run speeds for everything you do. Many times, the equipment is run at lower speeds to make it 'easy' on the operation. The press and other equipment is designed to run fast - so don't dog it!

Changing Economy & Changing Thinking

Yesterday I had a conversation about cars and the increasing cost to drive. The conversation got around to the last gas shortage in the 70's; with gas lines, odd and even full-up days, and how the "more efficient" cars of the 1970's were so incredability bad - unreliable and ugly. That was also when Foreign car manufacturers, like BMW, Honda and Mazda entered into the US Market with new models, like the 2002, Civic and RX2 respectively. These vehicles were more efficient and the car companies were nimble enough to manufacturer models that met the smaller car needs of the changing US market. Eventually, these foreign brands beat-up the US Manufacturers and took their lunch money. Now, to the point they are main-stream in the US; with several models manufactured in the US and competing for the rank of #1 model sold. But it took a change in thinking by the consumers and manufacturers to make this transition happen.

Fast forward to today's newspaper market and sliding print circulation. The industry is looking at a similar situation as the auto industry -- the internet products and communities are beating up the printed newspaper and tying its shoe laces together. Internet revenue for newspapers is growing rapidly, but accounts for only 10% (approx) of total newspaper revenue. It's unfortunate that most 2008 corporate initiatives include few initiatives to change the print products strategy and operations to meet the needs of the consumer. Correct, there will always be a daily print newspaper that people want on the doorstep and news rack; but need to newspapers get creative and rethink their operations! So many resources and strengths of the newspaper are under-utilized and production is tied to inefficient operations.

Take a look at a huge under utilized resource - the newspaper delivery system. Who else goes to every address in the region on a daily basis. The USPS, but they are very expensive - getting paid in the neighborhood of $1-$3 per day to deliver to each address. At .42 cents for a 1st-class letter, just add-up the postage paid when you get your mail today. The newspaper delivery system is more cost effective and can be utilized to deliver address specific materials for the local advertising market. In larger markets, centralized delivery services can further drive down the cost by delivering multiple titles -- which is already happening in several markets.

Also look at Operations. Similar to the changing auto needs in the 70's, the newspaper needs to be much more efficient about print operations - it is extremely expensive to print just 4 hours a day and have idile press equipment. Today's economy requires a newspaper press running at 80+ uptime to maintain profitibility. A 20+ year old press might also be a liability; it's not as efficient as a new newspaper or simi-commercial press running 80K imp/hr. So make a decision, are you going to grow your print business or out-source to another newspaper or commercial printer for your printed product. I can't remember the last EXTRA newspaper that hit the news stand - though I saved one from the 90's. Today, breaking news goes to the website, with an in-depth story printed in tomorrow's paper. And with more newspapers are going to a web and print business model -- it deflates the arguement to have printing equipment "ready and standing by" in the event Britney Spears shaves here head. OK, that already happened, so some other breaking news that must be reported to the world. The win-win here is oursourced print fills the presses in the market, making those operations profitable and driving down their operating cost, and in turn, the contracted cost per copy.

So in conclusion, the Pacer and Gremlin are still the uglyest cars made, foreign auto makers delivered quality to gain market share and there are several opportunities for newspaper operations to be more efficient and cost effective.

Planning for the Unexpected - Part 2

Getting back on topic....

Over the last week, the Washington, DC area got record breaking rain fall and it's share of power outages, floods and other issues that can interrupt your business operations. Continuity of Operations Planning (COOP) is designed to take affect when these problems occur - allowing your to transfer your systems, employees and resources to alternate sites following a planned and organized plan.

COOP planning for system failures, equipment breakdowns or facility issues are the first things that come to mind when planning for business interruptions - but the most common initiator of COOP is a power-failure. In that case, the fail-over plan is time critical and several resources could be unavailable. That is what happened at our building one night during the storms - the building lost all power. The fail-over battery systems will keep the servers and systems running for about an hour, which they did. But there was a breakdown in communication, and the IT Team was not notified, allowing the systems and servers to shut-down.

So what did we learn -- test your communication system and verify the chain of contacts to notify the emergency response team in the events that initiate your COOP. In addition, it is a good idea to have system alerts to notify key COOP Team members when problems occur during non-business hours. Don't just rely on human chain of communication, also look at technology solutions; such as an off-site computer pinging the on-site server or system. An automatic alarm and notification could have gone to key COOP and Systems Teamswhen the communication link broke.

The New Dog.

Now something totally off topic. Last Friday we got a new family dog; a 14-week old, female Australian Shepard to be exact. This is the cutest, softest and most energetic puppy I have ever seen. The last 3 days have seemed like 6 - and I guess they should when you are up both day and night.

For years the kids wanted a dog - asking at Christmas, birthdays, holidays and any other day that seemed good to ask for a dog. They've slowly worn away at the armor protecting our standard answer response; NO, you already have a cat who thinks it a dog. And over time, the idea has slowly brain washed us - until early this year we finally agreed to get a dog. I will say, the kids coverted my wife first, so it is fair to say I was out-numbered and out-gunned.

So the hunt was on - our original plan was to find a 2-3 year old dog; family raised, trained, house broken and energetic. We quickly realized this dog is difficult to find. You can find some of these requirements, but not all. We even had a 1-day trial run with a 5 year old Beagle. Unfortunately, the kids had more energy than the dog and I wound up carrying him home about 1/2 way though the 3rd walk of the day. A very sweet and well trained dog, but we came to the conclusion he needed a less active family.

The search continued until last week, there it was in the Washington Post classifieds, Australian Shepard Puppies........ the perfect choice. Not our original plan, but Aussies are smart and we can develop all the other attributes over time. And after waiting nearly 2-weeks to have a free day to get the dog, last Friday we picked our new puppy.

I typically think puppies are small, so I might have mis-judged our choice a little when the 14-week old Aussie was nearly too big for the small crate we bought to transport her home. There were several pointers the breeder had for us too, like, register her with AKC, feed her quality dog food and my favorite, when she does something wrong, say 'No Damn-it". So we stopped to exchange the too-small crate we purchased earlier in the day for a larger one, purchased food that was inline with suggestion #2, and head home.

All Friday afternoon, a pack of neighborhood kids ran around with the dog. Friday night was a bark and wimper fest all-night-long, as was nights 2, 3 and 4. We are still working at changing that behavior and getting more sleep at night. The training has started with "Sit" and "Come", which are working about 50%+ of the time. The rain has been turrential for days and it took two nights of taking her out in the rain at 1am to think of newspapers on the garage floor work just as well as grass. Having her give me the "now what" look as we stood in the rain got me thinking.

Now as proud Aussie owners, we are learning everyday to communicate with the dog. The suggestion has even been made to train her for field agility competitions - which might be a good activity for everyone. And I have a new use for the plastic bags around the daily newspaper - it would be really helpful if the Washington Post could start using two bags......

The Sites are Aligned!

A new website forum and LinkedIn Group have been created to communicate and discuss developing media technology, production issues within your print operations, best practices and operational issues among the newspaper industry operations and technology community.

LINKS:

Newspaper Media Technologies Forum
http://groups.google.com/group/newspaper-technologies

LinkedIn Group
http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/93001/3D9C8C1B3829


In order for these sites to be successful, they must be established as the credible source for valuable information and collaboration for the newspaper operations and technology development community. The unique benefit of a forum is that answers and information can be tracked and referenced by everyone.

Balancing Print & Digital

I remember in driver's ed class years ago, my driving instructor telling me not to look at the pot holes in the road because you'd be less likely hit them. As I see it, you're as likely to hit them if you don't look at them and better off seeing them in order to steer around them - and living in the pot-hole capital of California for several years, this seemed to work well. (Google search for yourself if you're wondering where that is)

The same principle is at work in the newspaper industry today, newspapers and media companies are focused on developing the Internet and digital media, which is essential to the future of media. Therefore, newspapers are looking only at the pot-hole -- and with nearly all corporate initiatives focusing in digital media, they will likely hit it squarely.

However, the problem as I see it, this is occuring at the detriment of the print product. Expanding or maintaining the print product isn't an initiative; though it is still the core product in the market and corner stone for the relationship the newspaper has with the community. Not to mention that 85-90% of the revenue is still from print.

Michael G. Kane, President and Publisher at the Democrat & Chronicle in Rochester, NY was the keynote speaker at RIT's School of Print Media Industry Day last week. He has a vision of the changing newspaper industry and the changing customers. He said there is a new generation of media users and shorter life cycles for media products; and newspapers need to have a media aggregation strategy to all platforms to deciminate content 24/7 to their audience. But Mr. Kane was clear that amongst all the niche products, socal networking and digital connections - the core product can't be ignored. The core product for most people is still the printed newspaper, that is on the driveway or in the news rack, that must remain a strong and healthy product with improvements. Smart improvements, like moving stock pages to the web, and strong local connection, such as investigative reporting. The newspaper markets are requiring a digital platform and an integrated reach, but must also maintain the community strength of the banner product. Mr. Kane said he doesn't have a love affair with paper and ink, but 78% of the population reads newspapers and identify with the print product. In Rochester, the Democrat and Chronicle has 33 print and digital (web, text, networking) products, and both digital and niche print products have been successfully developed and launched in the past few years.

NAA 2008 Maintenance Survey

Newspapers in North America produce millions of daily copies on large cold-set newspaper presses and require these presses to produce high quality and be mechanically reliable. Considerable resources are spent annually maintaining adn repairing press equipment in order to maintain print quality and reliability. The cost of maintenance and repair to the equipment is based on a variety of variables, including: age of the press, scheduled preventative maintenance, and overall hours the equipment runs on a daily basis.

In 2007, NAA instituted the survey to benchmark costs and key process measurements associated with operations, running costs, production performance averages and maintaining press equipment used by daily newspapers. The data collected from voluntary participants who provided production data and maintenance cost data from 2004, 2005 adn 2006. NAA analyzed the data and identified category metrics and trends for newspaper maintenance. The non-statistical report of costs associated with press maintenance, training and key production measurements is intended to be a benchmark for operational analysis within the newspaper industry.

NAA has anounced the 2008 Pressroom Maintenance Survey to collect industry cost data and continuing trends in operating maintenance cost for newspapers. Click on the link below to take the survey.

Link: www.zoomerang.com/Survey/?p=WEB226M5YZKDE8

INCQC and North American Color Quality Award

2008 INCQC Receipents at the National Press Club in Washington, DC on April 14, 2008.

Nearly 50% of the INCQC Inductees were first time members.

Congratulations to all the North American newspapers who participated in the International Newspaper Color Quality Club and those that received the NAA North America Color Quality Award.

2008 NAA North American Color Quality Award Winners

The Ann Arbor News
Chattanooga Times Free Press
The Globe and Mail, Boucherville
The Globe and Mail, Metro Edition
The Globe and Mail, Vancouver
The Grand Rapids Press
Journal Star
The Kansas City Star
La Presse
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
News Tribune
The Patriot News

Now, the question for many newspapers that participated in the 2008 INCQC evaluation is how to improve and learn from the data results in the INCQC site report. First, I'll suggest looking at the objective categories: the print targets and ROP newspaper evaluation. Those identify quantifiable quality process control issues that you can change. Most participants at INCQC level have workflow processes and control checks in place. The first step is to look at categories where points were deducted or where ISO standards were not met, and evaluate your process to meet the standards. The color gamut volume is affected by the shade (b*) of newsprint in North America. The higher b* value, the yellower the newsprint - thus affecting the volume of the color gamut. A systematic review of the process and workflow will yeald changes to improve technical and objective deductions - both target based and mechanical defects, such as plate lines and scumming.

Suggestions for improving the subjective INCQC ad and photo evaluation results. First understand the characteristics the judges were looking for; sharp images, neutral grey-balance (no color casts) with elements looking natural (not under or over saturated, or over-worked in Photoshop) and clean print quality. Looking at the top 10 newspaper samples, the characteristics that make the difference are: sharpness, both in toning as well as higher line count or stochastic screening, and use of GCR to reduce the oversaturation in the mid and shadow tones. There are many hybrid screening technologies today - so if you are still running under 110 lpi, now might be a good opportunity to test some of the new screening technologies and use of heavy GCR in your workflow. And keep in mind, also experiment with the amount of image sharpening -- balancing clean print reproduction without the affects of over sharpening.