Wow! Does 4K Ever Pop!

I’ve been on the road a lot since the beginning of the year and those of you whom I have visited or spoken with on the phone in the past few weeks know that I have been super excited about our announcement this week about 4K Printing Technology. You have heard me give visual descriptions of what this new tech print looks like and what that can mean for our customers—gorgeous flesh tones; rich, bold and vibrant reds and blacks; and beautifully smooth gradations to name just a few great attributes.

Happy Thanksgiving

Optima and SEG, What’s NEXT!?

I am about to have an anniversary. On January 2, I will be starting my 10^th year with Optima. What a wonderful and fulfilling journey it has been. I have had the opportunity to travel the country and meet thousands of people in the trade show and event industry…many I consider close friends. But most of all, I have had the opportunity to tell the Optima story where quality and service is front and center and top of mind with everyone in the company.

Pillows… really???

When I’m meeting with customers who haven’t known Optima very long it can be difficult to convey all the things we offer and their perception is sometimes, “you guys are digital printers, right?” This is fair, we have multiple print processes under roof and most of what we produce has an element of print involved. However, if you dig a bit deeper you come to realize that a better way of describing Optima is that we have a lot of great options (aka solutions) for branding environments and a couple of recent projects really illustrate what I’m talking about.

Oldie but a Goodie

A band named Shellac played here in STL last night (for the first time ever). I’ll admit, I’ve never been a huge fan – they rock a little too hard for my taste sometimes. But based on the videos and the fact that Steve Albini (famed producer of Nirvana) is the lead singer/guitarist, I thought it might be a good show so I bought tix.

Glad I did. It was remarkable to see such a legend in action. If anything was to be taken away from the show, it’s that Steve and his gang truly embodied the punk/math rock spirit. They rocked my face off!

Steve is 54 years old. Shellac was formed in 1992. Yet, they are still very relevant and cool.

Seeing Is Believing – The Power of a DEMO!

When was the last time you received something you bought on the internet and it wasn’t exactly what you were looking for? It’s happened to us all – say you bought a shirt online that seemed to be the right size, right style – but when you receive it, it doesn’t fit and you have to return it.

Well, in the tradeshow industry, we don’t usually have the luxury of returns at all, let alone free ones, since almost everything we sell is custom and made-to-order.

You’re Not Supposed To Do That!

A funny thing happened to me at an outdoor event I attended a couple weekends ago. This event was completely recreational, nothing work related in any way but I suffer from this affliction which causes me to be drawn to graphics and displays whereupon I will dissect the materials they used, the hardware type, etc. So as I was leisurely sampling wares from various craft brewers and bourbon distillers (as I said, this was completely recreational) I noticed a phenomenon that I like to call “they just don’t know any better”.

Bloom or Bust! A Tale for Deadheads.

I was outside the other evening doing my normal thing: watering and deadheading (i.e. removing spent blooms from) my flowers. This is usually a meditative time and I do my best to think about anything except work. But on this particular evening, I had a work-related thought creep in that was actually kind of cool – it occurred to me that gardening duties have a lot in common with generating and maintaining sales. 

This Isn’t Your Father’s Target Market

Is your current marketing strategy age appropriate?? Do you worry that the content the spews from your marketing department is ineffective to the younger generation?? Do we really want young ears, by this I mean Millennials, exposed to boomer-age material about what exactly a product means to them and how can it catapult them into the upper stratosphere of Prestige, Sales or even the highly sought after Corner Office!? 

Transcendent Purpose

Your friend and mine, Dave Brown is off galavanting around various time zones.
Gary is occupied with wrapping the globe in an SEG dye-sub.
With my two go-to guys out of the picture, I’m turning to my trusty Whiteboard Animations to fill the gap.

The truth is, I love watching these. I’m jealous because I wish I could illustrate so well. But they also happen to have interesting discussions and offer new perspectives, realizations and insights. Fascinating stuff, indeed!