@kendallPress The Blog

Neither Xerox, nor HP Indigo, nor Canon could hold a candle to what Kodak just did at Drupa 2012.

Labels: business communications, Frank Romano, Indigo Digital Press, Kodak

This month’s Third Thursday Event in Kendall Square gave us a chance to explore the Cambridge Innovation Center and the Venture Café. CIC is home to some 450 startup companies and contributes to Kendall Square being “the most innovative mile on the planet“ TM

Our tour host was none other than Geoff Mamlet, the Managing Director of the CIC. While the group was the usual number of 30-40 attendees, most of the faces were different and evenly split between first timers (at the Venture Café) and fast trackers.
Through the KSA's Community Outreach Program, we met

The Possible Project, a Cambridge-based non-profit serving high school students who have untapped potential but face multiple barriers to success. TPP offers a year-long program for students to learn the basics of business and entrepreneurship; conceive, launch, and run their own businesses; work for one of TPP's in-house businesses; and take part in workshops, events and job shadowing to learn crucial 21st century skills. What better place to learn about them than in the one building on Planet Earth with the greatest number of startups and entrepreneurs.

I don’t’ have a kitchen like this at home but Geoff talked about the power of food to nurture conversation and creativity both of which are in great supply 24/7. He could not disclose the actual numbers of bananas consumed (failure to track not failure to disclose) but he told us they do get replenished every two days.

I split off from the tour so I could take in the KICKSTARTER panel discussion

MC’d by Scott Kirsner and came away with my own box of environmentally and gastronomically friendly popcorn from the good folks at Quinn popcorn



Room reserved for 26 people
Photo shows many more than that




Here’s how Chris, the survey bouncer increased the response rate to better than 80% (come on folks, it’s only a one question survey).


All groups converged at the Venture Café, the regular Thursday night gathering for the creative and entrepreneurial community.

Here’s this Day in Photos by KeithSpiroPhotography courtesy of Kendall PRess.

Keith
an active member of the Kendall Square Association outreach committee

Labels: #CIC10, day in photos, kendall square, Venture Cafe

We attended the book launch and a house filled book signing party for one of our clients a few weeks back. Margot Bloomstein published a definitive storytelling guide to understanding the power of Content. I call it storytelling because nearly everyone has come to realize that the best lessons transfer via good stories.


The Content Strategy book release party was hosted by iSite Design at the Back Bay Social Club. There were speakers, acknowledgements, loving comments from the crowd of family, friends and business supporters and partners. This was a truly wonderful moment. The book, through major book label Morgan Kaufmann is available on Amazon.
It’s timely and has anecdotal stories about putting quality work on line to help business get found by search engines while providing quality content to readers. While we had no connection to the production of the book, we have done printing and business cards and created tools for Margot for her various business engagements, the most notable one (meaning she said, “you heard about this place and know I’m speaking there?”) being as a speaker at SXSW in Austin, Texas, and long before most Bostonian’s heard of it. Our whole company wished her great success at the book signing and from the size of the crowd and the reviews, we expect that the book will be a great success. Congrats, Margot!

Publish my book – it’s a thought that tugs at the back of my mind. Why not me? And, what would I want to write about. Then again, more importantly, what would others want to read about? This thought of publishing a book has stayed with me for a while now – so I started doing some research….

Do you have any idea how many people want to publish a book right now?
A USA Today survey noted that 82% of American adults are thinking about publishing a book. If you are one of this majority, then we’re happy to tell you it’s easier than you think, but also, the degree of “ease” depends on what you want for results.
Did you know that, on average, only 150 copies of any book are sold? With these kinds of odds, consider whether you can afford to seek out a publisher or if you are suited to self publishing.

Either way, If you want a bigger distribution, you’ll want a well planned out campaign, you'll need a large following of readers or cheerleaders and you need a topic you know will be of interest to others.

Advantages of a publisher: printing and distribution are all taken care of. An editor or staff is available to help you finish, suggest edits, covers and look and feel.

Disadvantages: Unless you are a well known writer or a person with celebrity status, you may not be able to get a publisher very easily or you may be putting your money up front to get published.

Self publishing shifts responsibility to you, but you have so many more options these days. You might want to explore eBook publishing, short run print publishing or some combination. Here at Kendall PRess, we co-sponsor The Boston Internet Marketing Meetup, which is a self motivated group of individuals who meet regularly to explore online marketing and publishing. A specific subgroup within BIMM is focused on Rapid eBook Publishing.

How do architects and students of design prepare that one-off publication for presentation. Many of them use our services as we can turnaround a single copy of a professionally finished book in just a couple of days, depending on the bindery process chosen.

Want one book? Consider the following binding options that Kendall PRess can provide on-demand:

Double Loop Wire Bound:
Classic metal with punch holes can accommodate heavy front and back covers with size and weight of your choosing.

Spiral Bound: Easy plastic spiral with punch gives a contemporary look with a quick result

Perfect Binding: This is the look of “paperback” books and can be done inexpensively and in just a couple of days and yes, we can print and bind just one copy if that is all you need.

Planning on medium or large quantities? Give your print partner enough time to get the work done and ready for distribution.

Two final considerations:
Distribution: Have you got a meeting or house event? This is one way to get your books out there. Amazon has a program to support online distribution but your ranking as an author will play a role in how much support or visibility you can expect.

When you publish a book, you'll want an ISBN: International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a unique numeric commercial book identifier that is necessary to get a book into bookstores and libraries.

Has this stimulated more questions? Give us a call. We'd be glad to discuss your various options. Also check out the resources on the Meetup website. And, stay tuned. My goal is to publish a book of my own this year! How about you?

Keith

Labels: book publishing, double loop wire bind, getting published, wire bind

"We no longer go on line, we are always online in this hyper connected new world" said Paul Sagan, Akamai CEO, at the Kendall Square Association Annual Meeting just last week.
The communication revolution spurred by the internet is much like the beginning of the industrial revolution and heeding the advice of Hubspot is much akin to keeping pace with Henry Ford when the auto disrupted travel and time expectations.

Much of technology's rapid pace of change emanates from right here in Kendall Square. What better place to take risk than where the future does live and thrive and grow? It is here that Akamai went from an idea to a $2B business. It is here that Hubspot has become the second fastest growing software company and has recognized the disruption that the internet's efficiency has created in changing the need for sales reps to Inbound Marketers and solutions guide.

And what of Gutenberg's legacy output? A print shop can remain just a print outlet or, like Kendall PRess, become a change agent in the new world of paperNpixels and Business Communications.

After learning from David Meerman Scott and utilizing Hubspot's Grader tools, we have created the position of Entrepreneur in Residence at Kendall PRess to spearhead the transition to a real time business communications support organization. Our clients depend on us to help them deliver their message - only now- that message is often in pixels as well as in print.

Why an entrepreneur in residence? Mark and Cheryl are keen on encouraging this journey into the seismic shift of how companies are marketing themselves and help us take Kendall PRess and our customers to where they need to be right now.

Sure, people know of Kendall PRess as a place to go for letterhead and business card printing, but we have a much bigger story to tell..

Hubspot's Grader tool ranks us as #15 in the Twitter Elite of Cambridge.

We printed the invitations to the Royal Wedding (NECN direct link to Boston) but we also

traveled to New York City for the Venture Emergence event.

We even Beta Tested Guy Kawasaki's new book What the Plus prior to its public launch at SXSW on March 9, 2012.

What is going on here? We all believe that we can best help our clients by taking the very same steps along the journey of the Business Communications revolution. We are living what we preach. We have created the role of Entrepreneur in Residence because our clients who are creating marketing and advertising pieces need the latest news in this communications revolution. Not talking about it but actually doing it and passing along the lessons learned.

Fastest shrinking job title: Sales Associate
Largest dream for better than 82% of all Americans? Getting published.

We've co-sponsored the Boston Internet Marketing Meetup because, indeed, we no longer 'go on line,' we are always on line; listening, finding and curating the best content to provide our clients with what they need to continue to thrive in this fast paced business climate.

Tim Rowe, president of the Kendall Square Association and Founder of the Cambridge Innovation Center pointed out that Most New Jobs are created by Startups - nimble businesses with fewer than 20 employees that can catch the wave and bring others through the changes or create the disruptions that force change and create new jobs.

At Kendall PRess, The Entrepreneur in Residence is in the house. How can we help you with your critical tasks?

Keith

Labels: #paperNpixels, Akamai, enterprenuer in residence, Hubspot, inbound marketing, kendall press, Paul Sagan

The business communications model has changed dramatically and with it, sales and marketing tasks and positions are not, and should not be, what they once were.

Cold calling, long the bane of business is dead. No receptionists. No building access. No phone numbers beyond a phone tree. No rude pushing past the ‘gatekeeper’ to get to your “target decision maker.” Dead, gone and rightly so. In today’s real time communications world, even a phone call without a previously texted request can often be considered rude.

Over the last two years we have studied David Meerman Scott’s New Rules of Marketing and PR (it was a job prerequisite), read Seth Godin’s Linchpin, met and followed (in a nice way) Chris Brogan and have become a big fan of Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah, founders of Hubspot and co-authors of Inbound Marketing. Business is fun again. People respond to people, not apps or bots.

We’ve religiously used Hubspot’s Grader tools and soaked up every bit of knowledge gleaned from their webinars. We’ve used Google’s adwords and Analytics and chose to deploy Jungle Torch to deep dive into our data. Owner Mark Lemley and I were both trained in the worlds of science and industry. The data is very, very clear.

Mass marketing is dead. Shutter your factories that crank out millions of the same “stock” items, images, photos, obnoxiously intrusive banner ads, cookies and other sticky intruders. How special can your business be when you use the same email template, stock photography, and sales director deployment as everyone else. Don’t your customers just feel your love when they accidently get that DEAR email blast, and we have all received at least one of those. “Oopps.”
Guy Kawasaki talks about Enchantment and I am a proud beta reader of his new eBook about Google+ to be released at SXSW.

I’m one of Jeff Pulver’s CHARACTERS

and we tested the change from print shop to Business Communications company in a presentation at the State of Now Conference in Boston. Each month our Boston Internet Marketing Meetup group of six hundred members talks about non-paper, non traditional ways of being found by our niche markets. All markets are now niche markets. Some are just bigger than others.

Sales Directors are dinosaurs. We have officially retired our title this morning.
There is nothing to direct, nothing to manage. If we are to successfully assist the transition taking place in Business Communications, we need to lead, use and help each other with the myriad of new tools coming out every day.

These tools are available to each of us, in every business sector, to listen, understand and deliver on the needs of the marketplace. Any marketplace. This is the exciting new world of Business Communications, Analytics and Inbound Marketing.

Welcome.

Keith for Kendall Press

Labels: business communications, Chris Brogan, Hubspot, inbound marketing, new rules of marketing, Seth Godin

Last Night was the "not quite snow deep in winter" Ice Skating event sponsored by BioMedRealty with co-sponsors Evoo/Za; Kendall Square Community Ice Skating and introducing a local non-profit, City Sprouts.


We spotted Mark Milone from BMR with Kurt Douty from Bosse City Club just itching to get out onto the ice.


BMR Event Host Ashley Myslinski with City Sprouts Executive Director Jane Hirschi and colleagues posed for the camera just before the arrival of food, drink and ice skating time.

Another local KSA Celeb, Justin Martin from Community Charter School of Cambridge found a new friend in Sylvan Quallo of Bank of America.


T'was an intimate and friendly evening in the Square. photos by KeithSpiroPhotography.com
courtesy of Kendall PRess.

Labels: Kendall Square Association, third thursday's

is breaking all barriers and was last seen driving his way past the 30 - 20- 10 yard line of information overloads in what he aptly named the exponential economy. Bob Buderi sat on the edge of his seat cheering on presenters at Xconomy's New York's Venture Emergence. Sometimes it was hard to tell who was more excited, presenters like Barry Silbert (Second Market) not discussing Facebook and Fred Wilson (Union Square Ventures) talking Twitter or Bob whose edge of seat excitement was palpable throughout the event. Bob, Bob, this is the only non-blury photo I could find of the offsides charge
of Fred Wilson all worked up discussing Twitter's censorship policies.



Mr. Eli Manning, Mr. Tom Brady, please take a back seat to Xconomy where, the daily play by play on technology emergence and big money, play out on the field of chutzpah and genius. The New York City forum brought together a standing room only crowd at the most gorgeous Apella Event Center of Alexandria Real Estate on the East Side of Manhattan.

Amidst the field of the offensive dark suited, white shirted New York line, Bob removed his jacket to reveal a Tom Brady jersey and Patriots cap. I worried for his safety, having grown up in NYC, knowing what New Yorkers are capable of doing. But I think Bob's strong defense of Gilt, and Simulmedia snapshots proved HackNY, a mere BarkBox with less bite than I imagined. A bold move with the outfit,Bob. An even bolder move launching Xconomy’s Business Communications revolution at a time when accurate, timely and precise are the keywords disrupting the old news distribution world.
Regardless of who wins the Superbowl this weekend, Bob Buderi and his Xconomy team is the one to watch. And their Cambridge base insures finding more of what Cambridge does best; Innovation and technology teamwork.

Do you really want to know which Superbowl team stacks up best? Get more analytics! And, probably the best place to do that will be in Cambridge MA, at the upcoming MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference Just imagine the possible insights into improved performance across all sports...and a chance to meet Mark Cuban.

Keith
(with due apologies to any offended by my mixup of emotions and names of emerging ventures in this pre-SuperBowl moment)


full disclosure: I'm a big fan of Xconomy and provide photos that capture their events in all their glory. Kendall PRess provides Business Communications support to members of the exponential economy in Boston and on occasion - New York; and I'll bet on Mark Cuban any day over Brady or Manning. Take it away Superbowl XLVI.

Labels: business communications, eli manning, Mark Cuban, NY venture emergence, superbowl, SuperBowl XLVI, Tom Brady, Xconomy day in photos