011: Returning To My Roots

People often ask me about my background - where I cut my teeth in business. In this podcast you get a pretty clear peek at my entrepreneurial roots in the printing business.

This week I was invited to speak to the Franklin Technical Society, a group of folks involved in providing printing and information services to government agencies, corporations and other large organizations here in the Washington, DC area. It was quite a trip down memory lane.

In attendance were executives from the American Red Cross, Library of Congress, Government Printing Office, United States Army and large local printing companies including Stephenson Printing and our hosts, Goodway Graphics.

Though I spent over 25 years in the printing industry, it had been at least six since I last addressed a room full of printers and their clients. This industry has been enduring wave after wave of technological onslaught for decades. And, every time they think they can come up for air, another unforseen marketplace upheaval rocks their world.

Well before desktop publishing, optical disks, the Internet and sub-$100 desktop inkjet printers with photographic quality, printers have dealt with revolutions like the Linotype in the late 19th Century and offset printing in the mid-20th Century. The pace of change only seems to accelerate over time.

If you’d like to hear me tell some stories on myself, and learn about how one industry has continually adapted to change, give a listen to this week’s podcast. And post a comment to let me know what you think.