Mantras for PrintPack 2013

1. Ink on paper is frozen music.

2. That's why the history of print is like a giant painting in which the inks of the nations have merged.

3. A printer's greatest contribution to the planet has been: words.

4. No idea could not have knocked on the door, without words.

5. Without print, words are mere sound and smoke. I believe, perfection is the measure of a true pressroom, and the wish to be perfect the measure of a printer

6. In 2013 print future is so uncertain. Which is why a printer hears only what he wants to understand.

7. When one doesn't know where one is going; one never goes too far. That's what many printers are doing. They study all the print rules meticulously, until they realise very late that they have no time left to break them.

8. As soon as printers will trust each other (and the future), they will know how to thrive with a smile.

9. Having said that, the great printers I've come across (and we've doffed our hat to them in The 1000) always pay attention to the merits of their competitors, and make that an advantage.

10. The customer is king. And every printer agrees that errors of such a customer are what make him really lovable..

11. Every MBA trained customer believes in his first month that the world really began with him, and that all merely exist for his sake.

12. Tell me with which brands you associate, and I will tell you who you are.

13. Before you decry a supplier or vendor in public: Remember the old adage, crooks calls forth crooks.

14. Proper book-keeping is one way of getting rid of bad debts. Simple, but true.

15. And a cautionary word about the customers you don't have, what a printer does not understand, he does not possess.

16. Why is it, printers can never really understand themselves. Once a day they should stand up and give themselves a standing ovation.

17. Having said that: whoever gives himself up to every technology and technology innovation, Alas! he is soon alone (and bankrupted).

18. All extraordinary printers, who have accomplished great and astonishing print jobs, have ever been decried by the world as foolish or unprofitable.

19. But we always live in the past (in our prices, in our mind-set, in our perceptions), even though that past is being systematically destroyed.

20. Technology is not an end, but a means: a means of attaining the best. Remember: When you buy a piece of kit, it is like moving a piece at chess: it may be a terrific bargain, and you may even win the game. But at the end of the day, the chessboard belongs to someone else.