measurement

Info*Flex – Social Media Test

by JimRaffel on May 2, 2010

Tomorrow morning I board a plane for the Info*Flex trade show. Time for a social media test of the strategies I have utilized over the past six months.

My social media test parametersPicture 2.png will be to keep track of the number of comments I get about blog posts, Facebook and Twitter activity. My intention is to count and categorize the comments. The idea for this test came from a conversation last night with my new friend @dwilde about quantifying B2B results of all my social media activities.

As a small business owner I follow my gut and know these strategies are working. As a blogger I never stop looking for the why and the how. It’s time to pick my head up look around and understand the results of all the hard work. Make no mistake about it social media is hard work when done correctly for business purposes as @imlucid pointed out in this post about advertising during difficult times.

I’m still working out how to track the results but I have a little over 24 hours left to figure that out. My thoughts are to track comments in three basic categories.

  1. Comments about blog posts (or the newsletter I send subscribers)
  2. Comments about Tweets
  3. Comments about Facebook

Also, for those who initiate a conversation I am considering asking them about the value of LinkedIn status updates and the new blog that is part of the ColorMetrix web-site as compared to this standalone product.

The KISS(Keep It Simple Stupid) principle will rule my decisions on a tracking methodology. The social media test must be easy to tally on the fly while working a trade show floor. If I make the measurement too complex I will either not do it, forget answers or incorrectly categorize results. I want results. I want good solid results of the social media test to come back and share with you guys.

If you have done something like this or just have good ideas please jump in the comments and share. I promise to do a blog post as soon after the show as I can to report what I learn.

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Continue Reading 7 comments }blogging, conferences, flexography, Marketer, measurement, new media, personal development, sales, social media, Twitter

Virtual Proofing – Oh Boy!

by JimRaffel on April 17, 2008

I believe virtual proofing is at the same cross roads ink jet proofing was around 2001.  I am both hearing and observing information that provides growing support in my own mind for this position.  First, I am not going to name any names in this post.  Why?  Because gut feelings and intuition are not fact.

Think back to 2001 and earlier as it relates to ink jet proofing.  For a frame of reference think Print ’01 in Chicago, just try not to remember that 9/11 fell right in the middle of the show :(   We finally had a good stable pigment based printer.  We had a few good RIPs emerging from the pack, but you still really needed 3rd party color management software to make the whole thing work.  Of course there was the nightmare of the day which was trying to find a suitable media for Graphic Arts proofing purposes.

The reality was if you understood all the steps involved (or hired a good color management consultant) you could make decent ink jet proofs that rivaled the standard analog and digital proofs of the day.

Now think about virtual proofing today.  While I believe there are at least two (and quite likely more) solid products capable of producing virtual proofs rivaling the ink jet proofs now carrying the standards flag; getting even those two systems to work in multiple locations can and does prove tricky at best.  This is no knock on the virtual proofing software vendors, but instead really an issue of hardware.

Putting together a solid ink jet proofing system requires an end-user to source a printer, media, a RIP, a computer to run the RIP, and probably a good color management consultant as well.  Putting together a solid virtual proofing system requires sourcing a display…let’s stop right there.  There is more to it, but the display is proving (at least my gut tells me this) to be a huge thorn in the side of virtual proofing working in multiple locations.

I am hearing some crazy numbers like less than 1 in 10 “qualified” displays can be used in a 2 or more location virtual proofing set-up.  If this is true (and I am starting to think it is), than it is no wonder virtual proofing is being used more and more for intermediate color (as I predicted in a previous post) and good old reliable ink jet proofs are still being produced as a final contract proof.

I still believe virtual proofing will continue to make gains over hard copy proofing.  I just think it may be a little slower than we thought until this display issues gets worked out.  Part of the problem is that measuring displays is not the easiest thing in the world to do….but that could be a whole post or even a complete white paper.

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Continue Reading 2 comments }blogging, calibration, color, inkjet, measurement, monitors, proofing

#68: Sustainable Green Printing

February 7, 2008

What is this new and latest buzzword sustainability? If I have offended you by calling it a buzzword I am not apologizing. Please do not misunderstand me; I think sustainability is a good thing. Smart printing businesses have been engaging in most if not all of the components of sustainability for years. The reason is [...]

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#67 Metamerism: Hard copy vs Monitor

January 16, 2008

The most visited post on JimRaffel.com in 2007 is #16 written October 2005 and addressing metamerism. Because of the popularity of this post I have decided to revisit the topic. I will start with some basic terminology and definitions. Then, I am going to present a real world example we are dealing with right now [...]

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65-2: New Media vs. Old Media at a Trade Show

October 30, 2007

As a member of the new media I would like to thank the SGIA show management for their recognition of the shift that is occurring in the way people gather news and information. While JimRaffel.com is not listed among the 22 most popular blogs in the world we do a pretty good job reaching those [...]

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#61: Get Over Your Measurement Fear

August 22, 2007

Fear lies clearly in the path of all roads to success. In order to succeed at anything in life one must first get past the fear associated with the task. Think back to the days when you were learning to throw and catch a baseball. Throwing was no real problem was it? No fear there. [...]

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#58: I Still Love the Smell of Ink in the Morning

June 28, 2007

I have been so immersed in virtual proofing over the last several posts, that I had almost forgotten how much I still love the smell of ink in the morning. Last week I had the privilege of spending two days assisting a customer in the set-up of our software primarily for use as a pressroom [...]

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#54: Some Thoughts and Comments about Soft Proofing

May 1, 2007

In #53 I listed a bunch of color resources I had found on the web. I was looking because we are putting the finishing touches on the first beta release of our ProofPass.com soft proofing verification module. For me this project has turned out to be about the journey not the destination. Of course the [...]

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#51: Proper Press Fingerprinting takes Commitment

March 21, 2007

In this installment we will address the third question Dale raised in #47. Dale’s first two questions got answered in #48 and #49 which can be reviewed at JimRaffel.com. Now, onto Dale’s third question: 3. In fingerprinting our presses, we’ve run up against the dreaded “Hurry up and do it, but don’t put too much [...]

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#48: Make Proofs That Match Your Press

February 16, 2007

Since #45 in December we have been discussing resolutions to improve the quality of your proofs. In order to gain the full benefit of this installment one should have read and implemented the suggestions in #46 & #47. Proceeding forward it does not matter if you are utilizing a methodology like GRACoL G7, or a [...]

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