The Fountain of Youth in Print

By Matt Swain

The emergence of Web 2.0, social networking, and blogging are just a few of the many things changing the very foundation of human interaction and business communications. Today, there are an estimated 175 million Facebook accounts, 39 million LinkedIn accounts, and 15 million Twitter accounts. And how many active blogs are there online? While you may have just started using these social networking sites, I would venture to guess that many of the younger generation of employees within your company are social networking “veterans.” Case in point – I opened my Facebook account nearly five years ago.

Today’s college graduates bring a new breed of invigorated, young professionals eager to help reshape a printing industry that needs to evolve with the times. While we—the younger generation—want to learn from you, you may be surprised what you could learn from us.

I attended the EDSF Industry Leaders Forum reception at this year’s ON DEMAND conference. One great part about the event was that scholarship recipients were on hand to meet those who helped make their education possible. Each of the four recipients, all of them graduate students, took turns at the podium to express their gratitude for the assistance. It was clear to me why these students received scholarships. Not only did they excel in their studies, but they were also genuinely excited to start a career in the printing industry. Whether they were entering the industry from a technical or marketing perspective, these students could not wait to begin the job interview process. They firmly believed that their recent studies would help them contribute new and compelling ideas to prospective employers within a transforming industry.

Few industry veterans had the opportunity to take college courses on cross-media workflow, digital asset management, or Introduction to Multimedia. In fact, they might ask “Why would a printer even need to know about any of those subjects? Ink on paper, what else is there?” Some up-and-coming sons and daughters of printers may say “We have had a family printing business for years. I will learn everything I need to know from my parents and I will be all set, right?” Although there is a place for that legacy, the times are rapidly changing. Today, studies in printing are more like a combination of computer science, graphic arts, and marketing, than they are conventional printing.

As a new class of print industry professionals enters the workforce, you may be surprised at just how helpful their backgrounds can be in leveraging today’s technology, developing new services, and simply looking at the market from a different point of view. Keep in mind that someone is hiring these graduates, most likely your competitors. I recently spoke with Shauna Newcomb, Program Coordinator for the Office of Co-op and Career Services at Rochester Institute of Technology. She indicated that six months after graduation, the office is typically working with only a small percentage (2 to 7%) of the new graduates from the School of Print Media, with the rest already having found a home.

This year’s graduation bells have already begun to ring. In a difficult job market, qualified young professionals in the print industry have hope—and that hope includes a fresh perspective from a recent (and relevant) education.  It’s time to take inventory of the skills within your company and what it will take for your business to succeed in this technology-driven, new economy.

Now is the time to invest in your future.

Matt Swain is a Senior Research Analyst for InfoTrends’ TransPromo Service. He is responsible for providing market and forecast analysis, developing content for the service and related projects, covering and reporting on industry conferences and advances in the TransPromo space, and offering ongoing client care and inquiry response. Swain first joined InfoTrends as part of the company’s On Demand Printing & Publishing Consulting Service. Prior to joining InfoTrends, he conducted market research for Barb Pellow, provided Print-On-Demand marketing support at the corporate offices of Standard Register, and was employed as an electronic printing lab technician at FLEXcon. Swain received a Bachelor of Arts in Imaging and Photographic Technology as well as a Master of Science in Print Media from the Rochester Institute of Technology.