I am now two and a half years into the Jim Raffel’s Golden Nuggets / JimRaffel.com journey. I have gained a whole new appreciation for those who write on a regular basis and an especially great appreciation for those who write on deadline (I sort of slammed you deadline writers last week, but it’s a darn hard job and I am pleased you all keep doing it so we have printing trade journals to read.)
Writers block happens: Over the course of the last two and a half years, I have had more and less prolific periods of writing (the less of course we affectionately refer to as ‘writers block’). Some of my less prolific times have been caused by extreme busy cycles in my main stream business life (ColorMetrix Technologies, LLC). Other less prolific cycles have been caused by a simple lack of what I felt were quality topics worth taking my time to write and your time to read.
A tool to help me solve the less prolific cycles was in front of my nose the entire time……
I last wrote about New Media vs. Old Media and that got me thinking about other advantages we new media geeks have over the traditionalists. I periodically peek at my Google Analytics page which provides me with very detailed statistics about what content gets read at JimRaffel.com among other interesting things. (Yes, big brother is watching!)
The following is a list of the top 10 search terms utilized since Jan. 1, 2007 to get to JimRaffel.com as reported by Google Analytics. Next time I will present the top ten URL’s visited since Jan. 1, 2007. While most of the results are not really that surprising, they are quite interesting. In the balance of this post and in my next post I will simply present the information with a few broad overview comments. In the future I am going to address writers block by coming back to these lists (well, the up-to-date versions I will be able to find at Google Analytics).
Top 10 Search Terms:
- matamerism
- tvi printing
- grey balance
- jim raffel
- gracol 7
- “standard deviation” printing offset capabilities
- gracol
- grey balance brunner
- tvi dot gain
- tvi print
I am going to start with #4 on the list since it allows me to stroke my ever so delicate ego. Actually, I am humbled that people searching for my name have visited the JimRaffel.com site as often as they have. I honestly had no idea what to expect when I took Jeff Gitomer’s advice from his Little Red Book of Selling and began to publish this email newsletter. The combination of this #4 ranking and the number of positive comments I get when visiting customers and colleagues on this list is quite frankly the only reason I keep writing. I know I have said it before but I truly believe I would be unable to overstate my thanks to you my readers, colleagues, customers, and friends.
OK, back to what you all really care about. Matamerism is the number one topic that brings people to JimRaffel.com? You have to be kidding!?!?! It is the only real shocker that shows up on this list time and time again. It could simply be a search engine anomaly that places me high in the search list or it could be an under addressed topic in our industry. I believe the growth of virtual proofing may have reawakened this sleeping giant of the graphic arts industry. We are now trying (and quite successfully, I might add, in the case of ICS and Virtual MatchPrint/Insight ) to replicate what we do on paper with a subtractive printing process on additive process computer displays driven by crazy little unpredictable phosphors. Next time you see Franz from ICS or Chris Edge from Kodak take a moment to say thanks for what they have made possible. It is truly amazing.
I have left the best for last. This paragraph, like any paragraph with the word GRACoL in it, will generate more comments positive and negative than any other topic I write about. But hold on gang, this subject is finally starting to make some real sense to me. I was speaking with my good friend and colleagues Eric Magnusson of Left Dakota, last week about his session at the upcoming PIA/GATF Color Management Conference. While I do not know all the specifics of his talk (you should really attend if you want to know 
) we did discuss that the G7 gray balance technology fathered by Don Hutchinson is the cherry on top of the printing banana split. Huh, has Raffel gone off his rocker? Nope, Eric solidified it for me. We still need Density, TVI (Dot Gain), and Trap, etc. to make sure our press is in the ball park and running pretty darn near it’s sweet spot. Why? Because we have not yet determined how to interpret Neutral Print Density curves (at least I have not) to indicate when we have loose blankets and roller train problems like some real industry geniuses in my user base have. Take a look at my post about Gary Briney over at Hennegen.
This is getting quite long for a Golden Nugget so I am going to save the more in-depth analysis for future posts. Suffice it to say that my writers block has been cured for the short-term!
