2009 Resolutions

Few people keep their New Year’s resolutions, however, now
it seems that fewer are even taking the time to set the resolutions. According
to research conducted by Steven Shapiro and the Opinion Corporation of
Princeton, New Jersey, 45% of those polled admitted to regularly setting New
Year’s resolutions. The data appears more abysmal when it comes to keeping
those resolutions and meeting those personal goals with only 8% able to stay
the course.

Goals are a crucial part of charting your direction for the
upcoming year and should not be casually tossed out with last year’s Christmas
tree. When given proper thought and due diligence, goals should guide the major
decisions of the upcoming year.

Here are a few tips to creating useful goals:

1. Goals should
   have concrete numbers. The most popular New Year’s resolution is to lose
   weight but many who commit to the resolution do not set a target weight.
2. Goals
   should have hard timelines. If you are committing to weight lose, then set
   the goal to lose 5 pounds in the first month, 10 pounds by the third month, etc.
3. Goals
   should include a reward – instant gratification. Consider a new piece of
   clothing, service at the spa, or similar after passing your first milestone of
   the goal.
4. Goals
   need to be reviewed. The goal of weight loss is quite easy to review in the
   form of stepping on the scale or measuring your BMI. These measurements are
   instant feedback of the progression toward the goal and should be reviewed on a
   periodic basis – every two weeks, one month, or enough to provide positive
   reinforcement.

Since we have established the importance of goal setting,
let’s consider a few potential goals for printers in 2009.

1. Research and implement a new alternate revenue
   stream. Go beyond your traditional print markets by offering more value added services such as web design, asset management, mail fulfillment, warehousing, relational database support, training classes, etc.
2. Become FSC certified for sustainable paper sourcing. This is typically the first step in marketing of your sustainable printing operation but there are many more initiatives that can be taken from renewable energy to employee recycling campaigns.
3. Dedicate resources to training current employees to do more demanding tasks – Uptraining. Train your prepress operator to create estimates and job tickets. Move the small format press operator to a larger format helper for a week.
4. Integrate online transactions into your Management Information System (MIS) or get one that does. Pay particular attention to the ease of use from the user interface because potential customers gravitate to the path of least resistance.
5. Implement a JDF workflow from MIS to Prepress to Press.
   

The New Year’s resolution at m-Bossed is to
have a meaningful, relevant blog that provides print professionals with a
valuable outlet of news, ideas, and topics for discussion in 2009. Such a bold
resolution also implies frequent postings to keep the conversation fresh.