HP’s Enterprise Printing Blog

HP's Carbon Footprint Calculator is Now Available

kate_sheofsky — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 21:41:00 GMT

Michelle Price

Manager, Worldwide Environmental Strategic Marketing, Imaging and Printing Group

On May 22nd, HP’s Imaging and Printing Group made a huge environmental announcement. As part of the announcement, we introduced the HP Carbon Footprint Calculator and indicated that it’ll be available at the end of June. Well, it’s now available. It takes about a minute to load. Check it out and let us know your thoughts.

The HP Carbon Footprint Calculator for printing helps you compare the carbon footprint of an existing sample printer fleet to that of a new, optimized LaserJet-based fleet. The calculator helps you understand how you can reduce your impact on the environment. It assesses printer energy and paper use, the carbon impact of usage and associated monetary costs based on geographical energy assessments.

If you are interested in learning more about the recent HP environmental announcement, click here or check out Mike Feldman’s blog about the announcement.

Technorati tags: enterprise printing, hp, Hewlett Packard, environmental issues, green business, carbon footprint calculator

HP Imaging & Printing Group restructuring and what it means to you

kate_sheofsky — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:42:00 GMT

Mike Feldman
VP, IPG Global Enterprise Business

The HP Imaging & Printing Group organizational changes you may have read about last week are great news for our enterprise customers. Most of the press coverage has accurately reported on the reorg, including this article in The New York Times, as a continuation of IPG’s Print 2.0 strategy. I’ll write more about customer benefits later in this post, but first, an overview of the new structure:

HP’s Imaging & Printing Group (IPG) will now have three global business units: LaserJet and Enterprise Solutions, Graphics Solutions, and Inkjet and Web Solutions.

Bruce Dahlgren will continue to lead IPG enterprise sales, but the business unit is expanding beyond the Global Enterprise Business, and will be re-named, the Worldwide Sales & Services team. I’ll continue to lead our enterprise sales and marketing team, but our charter is expanding to include both direct and indirect sales.

Benefits to Customers

The new, simplified organization updates IPG’s structure to sharpen our customer focus. We will continue to streamline and strengthen the delivery of fully integrated offerings – solutions that will help customers manage the challenges of their imaging and printing environment – optimizing the infrastructure, managing the environment and improving workflows.

We remain 100 percent focused on helping customers solve business problems – whether it’s lowering costs, managing risk (compliance and security), enhancing productivity, or speeding time to market. Customers already benefit from the scope and scale of HP’s distinction as the largest IT company in the world. Now, they’ll benefit even more from efficient delivery of imaging, printing and services that are crucial to their business and to customer satisfaction.

Technorati tags: enterprise printing, hp, Hewlett Packard

Final Thoughts from the HP Tech Forum

kate_sheofsky — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 19:08:00 GMT

Karla Winter
Marketing Program Manager
HP Imaging and Printing Group

Hello again from the HP Tech Forum in sunny Las Vegas. Today marks that last day of the forum and I was very pleased to see lots of people in attendance at the closing general session this morning. It really says that people are willing to put in the time investment to stay engaged.

The closing session featured presentations from AMD, Brocade and Intel, continuing the discussion on data center transformations and showing the power that these vendors, along with HP, can bring to the data center of the future.

The highlight of the closing session was a visit from comedian Howie Mandel. Very funny – in fact, I was laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes. What a great way to perk up a crowd of people who had the look of “too much Las Vegas” on their faces! Tonight the HP 2008 Tech Forum wraps up with a concert featuring Matchbox 20.

As I’m working the last few hours in the expo area, I continue to be impressed with the number of vendors that are here to help round out the story and showcase the capabilities they bring to the table along with HP.

The Universal Print Driver continues to be the hot topic in the booth. This is the strategy moving forward for HP – one print driver instead of individual drivers – so get on board with the transformation! The HP Universal Print Driver for Windows ® is a single, intelligent print driver that gives users instant access to a wide range of HP print devices, replacing individual product drivers. The HP Universal Print Driver makes it easy to connect to HP printing devices without having to download separate, product-specific drivers. And a more streamlined imaging and printing environment means less strain on the network and easier installation of new printers and queues. And the Universal Print Driver will help you optimize and better manage your printing infrastructure. And it’s free! Check it out at www.hp.com/go/upd.

Another major highlight of the printing and imaging section of the HP booth was the HP Retail Photo Kiosk – a walk-up device being deployed in major retailers, where customer can walk up and print their photos. Attendees have been walking away with pictures stating how “cool” it is.

Attendees were also looking at many of our consumer printers for home use to print pictures and to use in their home offices. Featured models were:

HP Office Jet Pro L7590 all-in-one
HP Office Jet Pro K8600
HP Photosmart Pro B8850
HP Photosmart C8180 all-in-one
HP Photosmart D7460

All-in-all, it was a great week, with great customers and vendor partners. Remember to Get Connected – People, Technology and Solutions from HP.

Technorati tags: enterprise printing, hp, Hewlett Packard, HP Tech Forum, universal print driver

HP Tech Forum 2008

kate_sheofsky — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 18:57:00 GMT

Karla Winter
Marketing Program Manager
HP Imaging and Printing Group

Greetings from the HP Tech Forum in Las Vegas, where things are hot. Not only is the temperature hot, 107 degrees, but so are the offerings from HP.

We’ve taken over the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Convention Center for HP Tech Forum 2008. HP Tech Forum is a technical training event and showcase where customers and resellers can learn about the latest HP enterprise technologies, products, applications and services as well as participate in discussions that will shape future offerings. Numerous breakout sessions, hands-on training and demonstrations are available.

The event started with a general session Tuesday morning featuring Randy Mott, HP’s CIO, sharing the story of HP’s IT transformation. Ann Livermore, HP’s Executive Vice President for the Technology Solutions Group, then took the stage and continued the story. Mark Hurd made a quick appearance to answer some questions and to thank everyone for their business and for coming to the event. The room was packed, with many people standing. Live music blasted from the stage and created a party-like atmosphere. The “host” of the event had the audience dancing and shouting “HP Rocks”. One customer from Canada was put on the spot and asked to do some dancing. He was a great sport and had the moves!

I’m helping to staff the expo area where the power of HP is on display. We have servers, storage options, software, services, PCs and printing – the one place where a customer can see everything HP has to offer. The expo area also has several companies demonstrating how their products and solutions work with HP.

On the printing side, we’ve seen great interest in the Universal Print Driver and multifunction printers, and how MFPs can be an alternative to a copier. We’ve also talked to customers about the importance of having a printing and imaging strategy in place and how a better optimized printing and imaging infrastructure can result in cost savings.

I am looking forward to meeting more customers and hearing what their needs are and discussing how HP can help them.

Technorati tags: enterprise printing, hp, Hewlett Packard, HP Tech Forum

Awards

kate_sheofsky — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 18:02:00 GMT

Mike Feldman
VP, IPG Global Enterprise Business

The Golden Globes, the Academy Awards, the CMT (Country Music) Awards; the Tony Awards, the MTV Movie Awards, and finally, six months into 2008, the biggest award of them all: The BLI (Buyers Laboratory Inc.) Spring “Pick” Awards.

And the winner of the BLI Special Achievement Award for Innovation goes to:

The HP CM8060 Color MFP with Edgeline Technology

This acknowledgement from BLI, coming a full year after the product hit the streets and started to aggressively capture copier pages for HP, is especially gratifying. A few quotes from the review:

“The CM8060 Color MFP proved itself admirable in BLI’s testing, separating itself from the pack with innovative features not regularly seen on its copier MFP competitors for a price that is the lowest of competitive models. Featuring a very large, well-labeled color touch-screen control panel, the CM8060 Color MFP also raises the bar for ease of removing misfeeds, providing live-action video on the control panel and LEDs throughout the device to guide users.

“The HP CM8060 Color MFP takes leaps and bounds forward in regard to being an environmentally friendly machine as well. Whereas the photoconductors used by competitive models have to be disposed of, with the HP CM8060, the imaging unit is the print head. The device also ships with no Styrofoam and no cardboard.”

Buyers Laboratory Inc. is the world’s leading independent evaluator of document imaging products and solutions. Presented semi-annually, BLI’s prestigious “Pick” awards identify the best products tested in their respective categories in a wide range of performance areas, through a series of rigorous evaluations.

Since the blockbuster launch of HP’s Edgeline MFPs in April of 2007, we’ve racked-up considerable acclaim for its high-performance and innovative design. The HP CM8060 Color MFP with Edgeline Technology garnered a “Must See ‘em” award at the recent Graph Expo trade show and received the “Technology Award” from the Microsoft Vendor Program (MSVP) Excellence Awards.

Awards are great, but the most important acknowledgement is the one we receive for helping solve a customer’s business problem. The best type of acclaim is when our innovation adds value – whether it’s a breakthrough in print quality and total cost of ownership, or a software solution that streamlines a billing process.

Click here to read the case study and find out more about how California-based law firm, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati realized immediate benefits with Managed Print Services from HP, and by replacing its previous generation of MFPs with the HP CM8060 Color Multifunction Printers with HP Edgeline Technology.

Technorati tags: enterprise printing, hp, Hewlett Packard, BLI Spring Pick Awards, edgeline technology, CM8060

Thoughts from the "Managing the Challenge" enterprise printing event

kate_sheofsky — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 16:06:00 GMT

Mike Feldman
VP, IPG Global Enterprise Business

On the road again -- I’m on the beautiful island of Sardinia, Italy, at our marquis European enterprise printing customer event, called “Managing the Challenge.” We have more than 250 large enterprise companies in attendance. Keynote presentations this morning by senior executives from HP’s Imaging and Printing Group (IPG) covered key trends in the printing market and HP’s strategy for working with customers to help them build a Print 2.0 plan. HP’s Alternative Thinking About Printing is all about helping customers reduce cost and improve productivity by optimizing the infrastructure, managing the environment, and improving workflows.

Following the keynotes, I hosted a panel with four customers: Imperial College (Charles Page, Campus Support Manager), Sahara Petrochemical (Ihab
Hawari, CIO), ITV (Nick Leake, Director of Operations and Infrastructure), and the Petroleum Development Oman (Saif Naaman, Head of Customer Services). These customers inspired the audience by what they have achieved through working with HP. They have all right-sized their printing and imaging fleets and standardizing on HP’s MFP’s and printers. They’re using our tools, such as Web Jetadmin and Universal Printer Driver, and they are implementing managed print services and using key security solutions with pull printing. They’re a great example of how customers are managing the challenges, increasing productivity and saving money. And they’re doing all that while delivering key Eco Solutions for Green IT. It’s really gratifying to get to connect with these customers and see that they’re getting results from the work we’re doing. All in all, this has been a great event.

HP Blogs are moving to a new platform

parkki — Wed, 21 May 2008 20:18:00 GMT

The Enterprise Printing Team

We wanted to let you know that HP blogs will be migrating to a new platform over the next week. As of Friday, May 23, we won't be posting to this blog and won't be able to receive any comments submitted. Please hold your comments until June 1 when our new site will be live.

Today’s Environmental Announcement

parkki — Wed, 21 May 2008 18:54:00 GMT

Mike Feldman
VP, IPG Global Enterprise Business

It’s great to see HP’s Imaging and Printing Group continue to make the public aware of our environmental programs. Few companies can match HP’s legacy of responsible corporate citizenship and environmental stewardship. It’s in our DNA to be an asset to the communities in which we live and work, and I’m proud of that heritage. The adage, “do well and do good” rings true. Smart companies realize that what’s good for the environment is also good for business.

It’s important for HP to show the positive steps we’re taking as a company to reduce our carbon footprint. It’s equally critical to proactively help our customers cope with their environmental footprint and improve their environmental responsibility. When we step-up, speak-up and support important issues, whether it’s global climate change or disaster relief, it increases awareness and encourages people – from individual consumers to executives in large companies – to pay attention and do whatever they can to make a difference.

Our enterprise customers are definitely paying attention and are inspired to make dramatic changes. Environmental innovation isn’t just the purview of a company’s corporate social responsibility department. It is happening throughout the organizations we do business with – at every level, including the CIO, facilities, procurement and business process owners. That’s why more than 80% of the requests for proposals (RFPs) we’re seeing for Managed Print Services include environmental impact as part of their vendor selection process.

I’m sure we’ll continue to see this number grow – and we’ll be there every step of the way. Our approach to environmental sustainability is about helping enterprise customers drive cost savings through efficiencies and securing competitive advantage. Our solutions range from helping customers with energy and resources savings to digitally green alternatives, to reuse and recycling.

Most of my fellow bloggers in HP are also writing about today’s announcement. You can get all the news of the day in our press release. Instead of repeating here what you can read there, I’ll focus on one aspect of the news that I think is exciting and cutting-edge for our enterprise customers: The HP Eco Printing Assessment.

We’ve been using the Eco Printing Assessment with several large customers over the last few months to help customers assess their energy consumption, paper usage and carbon emissions in addition to recommended ways to use less energy, recycle more and reduce the impact of imaging and printing. In using this assessment service, as well as a host of existing tools like Instant-on Technology, duplexing, Universal Print Driver, Web Jetadmin, and pull printing solutions, these customers see at least a 30% reduction in their carbon footprint.

The Eco Printing Assessment begins by taking a representative sample of a customer’s printing environment. HP uses the current printing infrastructure as a benchmark to capture the environmental impact of the printing fleet. HP then recommends best practices and identifies a roadmap of recommended changes, helping customers reduce costs, save resources and deliver results that are good for business. For more information, click here.

Also, if you have a little more time, please check out these case studies from some of our enterprise customers who are working with HP to make a difference.

We’re all in this together. “A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead.

Technorati tags: enterprise printing, hp, Hewlett Packard, environmental issues, green business

An Inconvenient Truth About Solid Ink: The Polar Bears Have Spoken

parkki — Tue, 20 May 2008 21:13:00 GMT

David Murray
Enterprise Marketing Program Manager

With some of the recent discussion on the blog about environmental topics like “greenwashing” and the recycling of supplies, I thought I’d share a video about Xerox solid ink titled “An Inconvenient Truth About Solid Ink”:

I’ll let the video speak for itself, but hopefully people will start looking at printers from an energy consumption standpoint as opposed to just paper and supplies (also important). The key differentiator here for HP is Instant-on Technology. If you want to learn more about Instant-on Technology and print speeds, check out this post from Vince Ferraro's blog.

Technorati tags: Business printer, printers, solid ink, Xerox, printing, HP, Instant-on Technology, energy savings, carbon footprint, inconvenient truth, recycling, greenwashing, supplies, youtube

HP and EDS

parkki — Wed, 14 May 2008 22:04:00 GMT

Mike Feldman
VP, IPG Global Enterprise Business

These are exciting times. Not surprisingly, press and industry analyst response to HP’s announcement of a definitive agreement to acquire EDS has been both massive and mixed. Whether pro or con, every article I’ve read reports on the surge in profits since Mark Hurd joined HP three years ago. Because of that success, I suppose it only stands to reason that we’re facing some skepticism. Plus, the story wouldn’t be as compelling if every reporter and pundit agreed with our positive outlook. That said, it’s hard not to prefer coverage like Fortune’s “Big Tech” Blog by Jon Fortt, “Why HP is smart to gamble on EDS.”

I’ve been through the successful integration of several acquisitions over the years, including the highly-charged $20 billion purchase of Compaq Computer. What I see with this acquisition is an integration that plays to our strengths in operational excellence and execution. This deal is consistent with both HP’s and EDS’ commitment to delivering value to customers. We are 100% focused on helping customers manage and transform their technology for better business results.

HP has a stated objective of increasing our services business. This acquisition will more than double that business and bring scale and reach to our offerings. As it relates to enterprise imaging and printing, this deal represents a significant opportunity for our go-to-market capabilities as more and more customers chose to outsource their printing environment and pursue a Print 2.0 strategy. The combination of EDS and HP will bring together best-in class hardware, software and services and will expand our reach in vertical markets such as public sector and healthcare.

This deal is good for our customers, good for HP, and good for EDS.

Technorati tags: enterprise printing, hp, Hewlett Packard, EDS

Governance by the People, the Page or the Cartridge?

parkki — Tue, 13 May 2008 21:34:00 GMT

Morris Wallack
Director, Presales support; HP Imaging and Printing Americas

“It turns out you have two choices: You can try to control people, or you can try to have a system that represents reality. I find that knowing what's really happening is more important than trying to control people” ~ Larry Page, NY Post, 8/24/04

In my prior posts, I focused on: what MPS is (definition),how to build a solid plan or output strategy, and most recently, a discussion of assessments as part of the process for developing a data driven business case for change.

One question I often get from MPS customers, users and sponsors is how to keep something they have started “on track” and ensure that the results expected from an endeavor like MPS are realized.

The answer? Some people call it metrics, some call it governance, some call it measurement – in reality all of them are part of an overall governance process needed to ensure results are realized and sustained over time.

Managing a project can be episodic; managing a process is a never-ending thing.

We all know what well managed projects look like: defined outcomes, clear deliverables, clear budgets and committed timelines. Those are relevant factors to track if you want to know if something is getting done according to plan. However, if you want to know if the system you’re using is working as intended, you may need others. In MPS environments, the challenge comes down to “how much do I need to measure and control to get the results I want? “

Here are some guideposts:

System metrics: overall only a few high level metrics are needed to know if an MPS project is yielding expected results:

Overall total costs (in $$); before and after optimization, and trend thereafter
Overall costs per page (total costs to produce pages divided by total pages produced)
Number of devices in the fleet; before and after optimization and trends thereafter
Ratio of employees to devices
Percentage of devices shared/on network
Percentage of users satisfied with MPS service/availability of technology

Armed with data on those key measures, you can see trends related to the entire fleet, employee or user satisfaction, and whether or not the overall design is working as intended. Here’s an example: if initially the percent of devices shared vs. personal goes up and then over time starts to creep back down, it’s likely people are buying personal printers despite the best intentions of your MPS program. If the overall costs per page are rising – either you have too many devices (underutilization), page growth beyond expected device range (wrong device for the job), or other costs not under control.

Performance metrics for ongoing optimization:

At a lower level you can institute device by device or group by group metrics to actively tune performance. Now the relevant metrics include:

Pages per device printed per month
% duplex (particularly relevant today if you are tracking green or environmental initiatives and their impact
Device uptime as % of workday available
Color/mono mix (if applicable)
Media size mix (A4, A3, 11x 17 8.5” x 11)
Page coverage percentage
Percentage of print/copy/fax

Ideally, all of these metrics would have predetermined targets or forecasts. Deviations from the target would trigger corrective action. Sustained deviations over longer periods of time might be reason to change the fleet, usage guidelines or practices.

Instituting metrics: keep it simple

Remembering that metrics should be used to help really understand what’s going on (rather than only for control) – you don’t need a long list. Focus first on the things you can measure, next on items uncovered by other lists, and finally, on any critical items that must be tracked (either for compliance, legal audits, or business critical applications that need tracking). Too many metrics likely mean you aren’t sure what’s critical for tracking. Simple metrics increase the likelihood employees will understand them when communicated, remember them if important, and align with them if meaningful.

Things to avoid:

Measuring things you won’t change even if you had the data. For example - if you won’t pull out a personal printer from a Sr. Vice President’s office even if it printed only 10 pages per month, why spend lots of time tracking it?
Focusing on data that’s more a dial than a knob. Cost per page really is just a dial, not a knob. You can’t really “manage” cost per page – any more than you can “manage” the cost per device (or profits…which are just the difference between revenues and expenses). What you can do is manage the usage – by giving people the right tools to know how and when to print. You manage the supply chain that supports the devices to get lower unit costs per page by reducing waste and redundancy. Those are examples of knobs you can turn.

Governance and dialogue: “without data we’re all folks with an opinion”

Finally, the enforcement of guidelines, particularly who can purchase what kind of printer, when a new device is added to the fleet or when exceptions are made to published guidelines is the acid test for whether policies are real or just words on paper. To make those policies come alive and for them to have teeth, leaders need to be well informed with the right system or performance level data and then make informed judgments supported by facts. Employees asking for new a printer “because I need it” without the data to support the request is no longer an acceptable perspective in many companies, and with environmental concerns reigning large in many offices, is no longer a hard thing to deny.

I’d recommend regular reviews (quarterly maximum, semi-annually more likely, annually at a bare minimum) to review policies and progress compared to targets or forecasts. In the first year of an MPS implementation, I’d suggest quarterly, and only after the environment is stabilized. If you want to read more, see HP’s whitepaper on this topic.

Technorati tags: enterprise printing, hp, Hewlett Packard, multi-function printer , MFP, Managed print services

Enterprise customers want to improve workflows, and HP is here to help

parkki — Mon, 12 May 2008 15:41:00 GMT

Mike Feldman
VP, IPG Global Enterprise Business

I’ve heard it can get really hot and humid in Texas, but when I arrived in San Antonio earlier this week, the temperature was mild. That didn’t last long. Now I know what they’re talking about – by 4:00 this afternoon the temperature is supposed to be up to 96 degrees, and with the humidity factored in, it feels more like 105.

But even in this air-conditioned meeting space, the HP Enterprise Sales Leadership team is hot. (Sorry -- bad pun -- it must be the long hours, the intensity of this awesome event and all the travel time I’ve been logging lately).

In all seriousness, the customer panel I hosted here in San Antonio has been the highlight of the event. There’s nothing more gratifying than hearing directly from our customers about what’s on their minds. The customers on the panel all agreed that workflow improvements are the next big thing for their imaging and printing environments. All have optimized their infrastructures and are managing their environments, which is an incredible start. Those are really the first steps a company needs to take to begin the process of making their imaging and printing devices more strategic to the business.

Now they want to look at streamlining their paper-based workflows and speeding up their processes to give them a competitive advantage. HP is ready with a host of solutions that cover scanning, storing, and retrieving documents. And with HP’s recent acquisition of Exstream Software, we are now able to help with Variable Data Publishing too.

There’s so much pressure on CIO’s and IT executives today. On the one hand, they’re being asked to cut costs and improve productivity, while on the other hand they’re being asked to do more – to be environmental stewards, to manage security and compliance and to increase customer satisfaction. It’s that age old dilemma – spend less, do more. Well, HP is here to help with some alternative thinking about printing.

Technorati tags: enterprise printing, hp, Hewlett Packard, multi-function printer, MFP, print 2.0

Live from San Antonio

parkki — Wed, 07 May 2008 15:28:00 GMT

Mike Feldman
VP, IPG Global Enterprise Business

It’s show time, again. This week, I’m in San Antonio, Texas, home to the Alamo, the Spurs, the River Walk and the HP Imaging and Printing Group’s 2008 Sales Leadership conference. It’s phenomenal to be here with HP’s Imaging and Printing Enterprise District Managers from around the world. I’m hearing straight from the proverbial horse’s mouth: What are our customers’ greatest challenges? What are the trends they’re seeing? Are security, compliance, the environment and cost cutting still hot button issues for customers?

Sales managers – the people on our team that have daily face time with customers – are often referred to as our “feet on the street.” They have constant exposure to customers and first-hand knowledge of the issues they’re facing. While we’re here in San Antonio to share the latest and greatest HP products, services and solutions with them – providing the tools and resources they need from us to do their jobs – these folks help us keep it real.

The event started Monday morning with a keynote from Bruce Dahlgren, the SVP of our Global Enterprise Business. Here’s my favorite quote of the event so far: “Nobody buys a value proposition.” So true.

On Tuesday morning I hosted a customer panel to bring the voice of the customer directly in to our sales leadership conference. HP is so lucky to have customers that are willing to give up their precious time to join us for an internal conference and share their perspective with our world-wide sales management team.

We’ve got lots of sessions planned over the next couple of very long days. I’ll check in again soon. More to come…

Technorati tags: enterprise printing, hp, Hewlett Packard, multi-function printer, MFP, print 2.0

Free Blog Templates

parkki — Tue, 06 May 2008 16:44:00 GMT

Alison Graves
Worldwide PR Manager for HP’s Enterprise Imaging and Printing Busines

Today my PR partners across the hall, over in the land of “small to medium” (SMB) business marketing, announced a new offering from HP that is so cool, I just have to share. Normally, we wouldn’t be writing about something for SMBs on this blog, but if smaller businesses start using this new tool from HP, they might find themselves moving up into the land of the giants very soon. (HP defines an SMB as a company with less than 1,000 employees, and enterprise companies are those that have more than 1,000.)

Here’s the deal: more and more companies are creating blogs. Forrester has some interesting research to show you exact stats. Whether you work for a small company or a huge multinational, blogs have become a viable medium for communicating with customers. I remember years ago when I worked for a PR agency and we were doing news releases when companies created their first web site. Nowadays, not having a website would be the story. Soon, the same is going to be true for blogs – you just gotta have one in your customer communication toolkit or you’re going to fall behind the competition.

The challenge is that if you work for a smaller company, you might not have the marketing resources – staff or funds – to design a blog and kick-off that great new vehicle for customer relationship building. If you work for a business function within a larger company, like a marketing team for a new product, you might face similar hurdles. Sometimes (not that I’m condoning this practice) business functions within large corporations need to act as their own small businesses.

Now, thanks to Logoworks by HP, businesses that decide it’s time to enter the blogosphere, can build their own from one of four different blog design packages. The best news for companies on a “you can’t squeeze blood from a turnip” budget, is that the templates are free. Yes, you read that correctly- free. You can get a blog template from an award-winning designer for free.

I have lots of friends, family, neighbors and acquaintances who run small businesses who could really use this service. In fact, I’m about to send them all an email with the link to the blog designs so they can get moving on this. If they need a little extra hand-holding to get started, they can check out our free webinar on blogging by small business expert, Chris Baggott.

Once again showing my true dweeb self by quoting Randy Jackson from American Idol, “Check it out.” And, hey, did I tell you it was free?

Technorati tags: enterprise printing, hp, Hewlett Packard, logoworks, smb, blog templates

Margin of Error

parkki — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 21:00:00 GMT

Alison Graves
Worldwide PR Manager for HP’s Enterprise Imaging and Printing Business

Greetings from Austin, Texas

The April ’08 edition of “Austin Monthly” was also the publication’s second annual green issue: “The people, places & ideas that are greening the world.” Just like every other city in the nation (I hope!) my fair city is all over this green thang. Austin-based retail and grocery chain, Whole Foods is about to ban plastic bags and the city launched an awareness campaign called “Austin’s Got a Brand New Bag.” So what does all this have to do with enterprise printing? I was inspired by a little blurb in the reader feedback section of the magazine about a weblog called www.changethemargins.com.

According to the reader, in a letter entitled, Margin for Error, “It’s a campaign to get everyone from Microsoft to universities to change their default margins from 1.25 inch to .75 inch. The group says if everyone did so, it would save more than six million trees!” That might be hyperbole, but who cares? I think it’s an awesome idea. I’m ridiculously excited about this initiative. As Randy Jackson on American Idol says, “Check it out!”

Just this morning I changed the margins on a document and was able to take what was previously a two-pager and print it out as one page. Contrary to how it may appear, I actually do have a life, but these things hit home when I think about all the other documents being printed in enterprises across the world and the amount of paper that could be saved by something as simple as putting our margins on a diet. Join the margin Biggest Loser Club.

It’s another one of those small things we can each do to make a big difference – like setting our default mode on double-sided printing. Pass it on – green it forward.

Technorati tags: enterprise printing, hp, Hewlett Packard, environmental issues, green business