In [...]]]> Overland Park, Kansas (December 21, 2011) – On Demand Technologies, LLC (ODT) announced today that they have released an app for the iPad® that enables sales representatives to create custom documents and presentations with just a few screen taps. The app seamlessly accesses information in a corporate datastore to dynamically create client-specific content.

In addition, the data-driven content is created in real time, meaning that documents are always up-to-date. The app handles the presentation of content automatically, and does not use or require the installation of KeyNote, PowerPoint, or any other app to function.

The solution was successfully rolled out for use by a Fortune 100 company over the past weeks and will be used nationally among thousands of sales representatives.

“We are extremely excited to not only release this product, but to have it being used by one of the largest companies in the world,” said Tom VanGoethem, president and Chief Executive and Operations Officer at ODT. “We have been specializing in dynamic document creation for over sixteen years, and the iPad is a natural extension of our capabilities.”

A tablet-based strategy is gaining momentum as companies look to put actionable information in the hands of sales people at the point of decision making. It is also a valuable “green” strategy in terms of being environmentally friendly and saving money due to less paper printing.

“We wanted to exploit the capabilities of the iPad – instant on, the intuitive interface, and wireless connectivity – things that make it head and shoulders better than booting up a laptop in a sales situation,” said Philip Allen, ODT’s Chief Technology and Marketing Officer. “Ease ofuse is the key while delivering timely, relevant, and compelling content at the same time.” 

In 2012 ODT plans to roll the app out to a variety of industries, including insurance, financial services, advertising solutions, and medical sales as companies migrate to a tablet-based strategy.

About On Demand Technologies, LLC
On Demand Technologies is a provider of automated custom document solutions. Clients include a variety of Fortune 100 companies who use ODT’s Praxis™ automation and publishing capabilities to deliver unique document solutions across a variety of output devices, including print, web, and tablets.  

Contact:
Angela Waltz
On Demand Technologies
Angela.Waltz@odtinc.com
913.438.1800 x7204

The “It Girl” official news was released today by McKinsey in their survey results. According to the source, “In our sixth annual technology survey, executives say their companies are boosting IT spending and adopting [...]]]> Yes, IT (which in this case is an acronym for “information technology”) is now the “It Girl” of the business world.

The “It Girl” official news was released today by McKinsey in their survey results. According to the source, “In our sixth annual technology survey, executives say their companies are boosting IT spending and adopting new technology platforms to support innovation.” The whole article is here. (You will have to sign up for a free membership to read the entire thing. And their research-based newsletters are well worth your 30 seconds of typing.)

Basically, the gist of the report was that executives are budgeting for… growth strategies rooted in “big data,” cloud-computing platforms that are transforming operations, and development for mobile devices.  In other words, those who make it their business to be immersed in technology ANYWAY will be driving the growth and innovation across industries. Now that IT is “it,” there will be more concern with it, more decisions made around it, and more money spent on it. And all this activity on IT is very exciting from where we stand at On Demand Technologies. This news brought us clarity and confidence, the evidence that we’re on the right path. We’re in the front lines of the new economy!

Now there’s no need to act surprised. And there’s definitely no need to say “I told you so.” We ALL know it was only a matter of time before Information Technology had it’s rightful place, recognized as the center of the universe, and especially center of the business world. IT is powering everything we do… from waking up in the morning, to commuting, to the first thing you do in your workday: booting up your computer.  Who’s your weekday partner (and sometimes lunch partner, too)?  Your laptop, desktop, network, cloud, mobile phone, tablet.

(Isn’t it funny that not too long ago the “IT guy” of any organization was the most feared person? Well now we see it was for good reason! They have “the power” and “the force.” And apprently have a monopoly on “the future” as well.)

Instinctively, we ALL know that it’s IT which will assist us the most in climbing out of a lingering recession. “It” will be our ticket to freedom, innovation, revelation, stimulation, and new motivation. “It” can and will be our new great frontier, much like the pioneer days… now that we’ve landed on this great continent of IT Being the Center of the Universe, where and how will we build it, utilize it, fine-tune it?

Since the summer of 2011, the R & D department at ODT has busily been developing iPad apps which can run some of your business processes from the field. Give us a team of salespeople and in a couple of minutes, ODT will assemble all of the documentation on their accounts which they can use for a sales presentation to a client. We can serve up contracts, sales history, and a multitude of account details to the iPad interface. Yes, we can flow the data into a presentation. On the fly. Built on iPad in your car in the client’s parking lot. Anywhere your sales team can go, they will have all of their customer account information within reach – just takes a few finger taps. In addition, we can also furnish your business the printed version of the sales packages, for follow up via mail.

Sky’s the limit for IT. Next stop for ODT, Big Data!

I stopped by the other day to take him to lunch.  He told me he would be a couple of minutes, working on a blown turbocharger (I bet THAT’S expensive) and would be with [...]]]> One of my sons is a certified Audi Technician.  You and I used to call them mechanics, but that’s another story.

I stopped by the other day to take him to lunch.  He told me he would be a couple of minutes, working on a blown turbocharger (I bet THAT’S expensive) and would be with me in a couple of minutes.  ”No problem; take your time”, I told him.  I didn’t expect what came out of his mouth next.

“Can you hand me a 17mm socket wrench and my iPad?”, he asked a fellow technician nearby.

Without pause, his teammate handed him a wrench and an iPad wrapped in a protective case (I later learned is was an OtterBox that looked like you could run the iPad over with a Mac Truck and not hurt it.)

What was happening here?  I work in a high-tech world, and although I know automobiles have become highly technical and computerized since my first car (a 1965 Mustang…oh yeah), I didn’t expect this.

At lunch, over a buffalo chicken sandwich and a jalapeño cheeseburger, I discovered that the iPad was “the way everything is going”.  Like you, I thought it was just a cool device for checking email, running some fun apps, and doing the social network thing.  I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Instead of big bulky paper maintenance guides, they were using the iPad to deliver technical content to the mechanics, er, technicians.  Not only did it not tear or stain (kudos to Otterbox), but it was lightweight, always open to the desired “page”, and – as I found out – most importantly it was always up-to-date!

I struggled with this for a bit.  Super-cool techno dream meets grease and grime.  It didn’t seem to fit.  Then it hit me.  Always up-to-date.  And what I considered a fragile and precious device was not so fragile and, considering the relatively low cost of each, not so precious.

Since that changing day I have now heard of auto manufacturers including an iPad in the glovebox of cars instead of the traditional user manual.  Always up-to-date!  Airlines are using the iPad as a substitute for traditional operating manuals in the cockpit of airplanes, reducing weight dramatically and increasing fuel efficiency.  And they are always up-to-date!

How might you and your company use an iPad for something other than web browsing, news, and weather?  I think we’re all going to find out pretty quickly.  Let me know if you have plans to use the device in interesting ways in your business.

Of course, Digital print has had a difficult, short, and misunderstood life.  It began a mere 20 years ago with excitement and promise for a bright future, but it couldn’t survive the challenges it faced.  And now, it is all but gone.  A life snuffed out at such a young age.

Of course, digital print isn’t really gone, but its role is certainly in the process of changing dramatically.  It began as an alternative to traditional offset printing methods, where large quantities of items were printed (to absorb significant setup time and cost) at relatively low per item costs.  Digital print flipped the model by essentially eliminating setup time and cost, allowing for very short run quantities, but at a higher per item cost due to the costs associated with the new technology required to produce digital print.  In the right circumstance, digital print made (and still does) a lot of sense, particularly when there was rapid changes to printed materials (e.g. anything technical: software manuals, tech training materials, etc.).  In these cases digital print could prove far more cost effective than traditional print.

As digital print matured, it was touted as having the ability to not only print relatively low quantities, but actually in quantities of just one, meaning that each item could be unique.  This launched an entire industry bent on marketing and selling “1-to-1″ (1:1) print communications.

Unfortunately, 1:1 never realized mass adoption.  It was a good idea, but actually implementing it was far more difficult than most anticipated.  Creative teams still designed and thought in terms of layout for static pieces, and variable content was usually a passé afterthought that took the form of swapping out a name or some other uninteresting text. Getting at the data to drive the variable elements is difficult.  And oftentimes the RIP (the process of converting electronic files such as PDF to a format the digital press understands) was too slow to process print jobs where every single page changed.  A few companies and their digital print partners “got it”, but since it requires adoption from everyone in the supply chain, it was rare that this occurred, and thus most attempts at 1:1 ended in failure.  Those that succeeded utilized advanced process and workflow automation tools to manage all of the nuances of data-driven 1:1 digital print.

Having never met its full potential, digital print is now squarely in the sites of a new threat: document and content delivery via a tablet computer, specifically Apple’s tremendously successful iPad.  Aside from consumer acceptance of the device, companies are moving en masse to outfit their sales and other teams with the device in lieu of traditional paperwork.  Everything from sales brochures customized for each individual opportunity to crop insurance adjusters surveying crop damage is in play.  This is the next big thing that is going finally do digital print in.

Again, that’s not entirely true, but for those unprepared, the change will most certainly result in their demise.  As with 1:1, it will require digital document delivery (D³) companies and their clients to understand how to truly use the technology.  It will also require advanced automation and digital publishing solutions to acquire data and content to publish custom digital documents, as well as the ability to deliver it seamlessly to the tablet device.

While rumors of digital print’s death and a paperless society may be exaggerated, those that are not prepared for the changes the iPad will bring are certainly in peril.

Saying that change is inevitable implies a [...]]]> Change is not inevitable?!  I must be crazy, right?  Change happens all of the time, and at a blinding rate these days.  But change and the effects of it are NOT inevitable – how you deal with change is a secret weapon you can use to be successful.

Saying that change is inevitable implies a certain degree of passiveness, as if this uncontrollable force and its effect are out of your control. But nothing could be further from the truth. Since change affects us all, it is how we respond to change that defines our lives and businesses.

Change can be unsettling due to the nature of it not being planned – it comes when it comes. But if we focus on embracing change as an opportunity, surprisingly good things happen. True enough, some change is the result of tragic circumstances, such as death, war, and destruction, and I am not making light of the difficulty of dealing with changes of this magnitude. But oftentimes change is perceived as having tragic circumstances when indeed it is a tremendous opportunity!

We hear stories everyday that make us fearful of change and the impact it will have on our lives and businesses. Swift technological changes have been accused of wiping out businesses that have been successful for many years, but are now simply “outdated” and become replaced. The big stores will run off the mom-and-pops. Gloom and doom.

But there are also stories of success, where the change didn’t result in annihilation, but instead resulted in thriving. Taking change head-on and thinking to yourself, “I understand this change may hurt me in this way, but in what other ways can I leverage this change?” In what ways were you unique prior to the change that can be applied afterward? If this change will also be affecting your competitors, how can you respond in a way that can give you a leg up on them if they don’t address the change in the same positive way?

This is far more than a “when life gives us lemons, make lemonade” speech (another saying with a negative undertone). This is a life and business approach to understanding that there are TWO DIFFERENT EFFECTS of change: First, there is the passive impact if you did nothing, the result of just standing by. But the second, and more important, effect is the way in which you determine how you will utilize the change in a positive manner – oftentimes wiping out any negative impact and resulting in a positive outcome.

This is what happens when you hear people say, “At the time, I thought it was the end of the word; today, I look back and realize that was the best thing that ever happened to me.” Looking back, you would see that those people and businesses embraced the change – even if initially reluctantly and begrudgingly – and made that change work in their favor.

Change is good.

There’s no doubt about it.  These are challenging times, and not just in terms of the economy and its effect on businesses and families.  But of equal concern is a growing trend in the way in which we respond to difficulties.  Too often these days, many of us are reluctant to stand up [...]]]>

There’s no doubt about it.  These are challenging times, and not just in terms of the economy and its effect on businesses and families.  But of equal concern is a growing trend in the way in which we respond to difficulties.  Too often these days, many of us are reluctant to stand up to the challenges we face and instead choose to escape them under the auspices of “reinventing” ourselves.

On the surface, it sounds like a good idea:  we are struggling to survive doing as we have done, so why not try something different and new?  And the world is changing at a blinding pace, socially, politically, and especially technologically.  We certainly need to reinvent to keep up, right?

Wrong.

Literally speaking, to reinvent is to create anew, which sounds like a good thing if we’re struggling.  But the problem is that, at a minimum, it relegates our core, our essence – our soul – to a backseat.  We start to focus heavily on becoming something we are not, and because it is new, by definition we have little experience or knowledge as to how we should approach our new focus.  And learning something new can take precious time, time that we probably don’t have if we’re facing immediate challenges.

This is not to say that we shouldn’t try new things – we certainly must to survive and thrive.  However, when “reinventing” we tend to allocate a disproportionate amount of focus and effort on the new stuff and in the process ignore our core value – the stuff that has been working for us for all along.

Some focus on new ideas is always a good thing.  But we must spend as much or more time on advancing our core value!  Invent!  Don’t reinvent!

Focusing on invention and innovation enables you to stay in your zone, not just from a comfort standpoint but from a value standpoint.  Your customers have grown to expect satisfaction from you for what you have done over the years.  You achieved your success by starting with something you know and over time added value by constantly innovating and inventing products, services, or efficiencies.  While technology, the economy, and the rules change, you must address opportunities by being innovative and inventing ways in which your core value will continue to be applicable.  Working in your own space will give you the confidence to deliver higher value products and services.  This is in contrast to the lack of confidence that exists when reinventing due to the nature of learning and doing something brand new.  Worse, reinvention often translates into “trying to be something you’re not.”

When things get tough, it’s easy to throw up our hands and just want to go with the flow.  You will read everywhere how you’re supposed to adapt to changing trends by reinventing yourself or your business.  But as the old saying goes, “when the going gets tough, the tough keep inventing!”