[INTRODUCTION]
[0:00:02] DD: Does your printing need some passion?
[0:00:04] NT: Your design, some dynamic dimension?
[0:00:08] DC: Are you stuck in a CMYK rut?
[0:00:10] DD: I’m David Drucker, Founder and CEO of highresolution printing and packaging.
[0:00:16] NT: I’m Noel Tocci, Founder of Tocci Made Bespoke Print Consulting.
[0:00:20] DC: And I’m Deborah Corn, the Intergalactic Ambassador to the Printerverse. Welcome to Making It With Print, the podcast that takes a deep dive into the conception, creation, and production of amazing printed products.
[0:00:33] DD: If you can dream it –
[0:00:35] NT: You can make it.
[EPISODE]
[0:00:38] DC: Hey, everybody. Welcome to Podcasts From the Printerverse. This is Deborah Corn, your Intergalactic Ambassador. We are here with Making It With Print, yay. We’re going to make it with print today with David Drucker, the CEO of highresolution printing and packaging, and Noel Tocci, the Founder of Tocci Made. Hello, gentlemen, who both sound alike.
[0:01:02] DD: Hey, everybody. This is David, in case you’re trying to figure that one out.
[0:01:05] NT: It’s Noel. How are you guys? Good to be back.
[0:01:08] DC: The other day, I was listening to one of our podcasts, and I was like, that’s a weird thing for David to say. I was like, “Oh, wait. That’s Noel.” Even I get confused sometimes. I think we’re going to have a really interesting conversation today. We’re titling this one, When Press Knows the Job, But Not the Craft. Print still depends upon people who know how to listen to a press, who know how to feel paper and finish things by hand, and solve problems that require human thought processes.
The path to becoming one of those people seems to be fading. A lot of the equipment manufacturers have training programs for operators, or the printers, try to get people in a few print shops, or trying to get apprenticeships going and partnerships with school, even in England, they don’t really have a formal apprenticeship programs anymore. The weird thing about it is that younger people are actually looking at trades now for work, whether that’s fixing an air condition, or repairing a server, or something like that. Those are extremely lucrative jobs that are comparable in many ways to fixing a press, or running a press, or things like that, if you like to tinker with things in your hand.
The problem with all of those people going into the trades means that we can’t really have a future if we don’t have the right type of people working with those presses and with the customers, especially customers like you guys. In a rhetorical setup, how does print pass on craft, attract new talent and make it worth staying for everybody? Now, David, this all came from you, this topic, and you actually put a LinkedIn question out and got some responses. I’m going to kick it over to you.
[0:03:12] DD: Yeah. The preface of this is I was on press and we were talking to the foremen and the pressmen and we all had about 40 years of experience. We were talking about the good old times and how they all got to that point. Then somebody walked over to me and said, “We’re trying to recruit new pressmen here.” They’re beautiful presses. They do everything. Most modern you could imagine. They said, “We’ve even offered $40 an hour to start and we can’t get anybody. There’s nobody coming in here.” I just began to question various suppliers as to what they’re doing, how they’re bringing in people.
When you begin to look at engraving or stamping, those people are generally older people who have been involved with it and know what to do. Well, it’s time that the business owners started bringing in younger people and training them and letting them work alongside of the craftsmen and asking plenty of questions. I’ll go back. When I first started in this business, I really had no business background, no printing background, no sales background. But I came in at 6.30 every morning and I sat down with the owners and I began to ask them questions.
Though I might not have been able to use that piece of equipment at that time, it’s information that came in and I retained and thus, my lucrative career now and where it’s gotten to. In producing, there has to be ways that we can begin to bring in talent to make it far more acceptable to the Gen Z and the younger people to come in. You had mentioned about plumbing and such like that, well, maybe there’s no fun in the printing industry, or it’s not perceived as that. What I did is I went on to LinkedIn and I said, “Hey, printers. This is our situation.” I’ve gotten over, almost 6,000 impressions on it and about 27 responses to it. I just dialed that all down. A matter of fact, today, this morning, I had a meeting with a designer who teaches at Baruch and we began to talk about this and how we can get in front of students and make it look like it’s something that is a form of art, that they can go ahead and they see what quality printing looks like.
If you walk into a department store or a supermarket, that’s printing all over the place, and we’re blind to it. Well, we’re not blind to it. But you don’t really expect a layman to go in and say, “Oh, yeah, that’s printing. Oh, yeah, look at that box. Oh, yeah, they used hot stamp on it. Oh, yeah. Look at those colors.” The second we begin to narrow it down and focus the younger crowd on what this is and how it’s built, maybe we can help turn it into something that direction that they want to go into.
[0:06:24] DC: No offense, but this is not a new problem, right? What were some of the suggestions that you heard from the printers is I think what is interesting to hear back. What are they saying?
[0:06:36] DD: We got a lot more responses from designers than printers.
[0:06:40] DC: Okay. What are they saying?
[0:06:43] DD: One of them is team up with local schools and do print demos. I have a friend named Carl Heina, and he builds journals. He’s been in schools teaching young kids. I would say, maybe they’re 10, 11, 12 years old, and they actually go ahead and build journals, and they stamp them and they bind them together. That is from beginning to end, coming up with a final product and introducing them at least to what that could be. He does a high-end product, so they’re working with what I think is a top-tier print product and going that way. The other thing is to Gen Z is maybe changing the work week. Make it more attractive to them. Maybe a four-day work week and say, hey, maybe they’ll work longer hours and cut off a day here and there. To sit and work with the master craftsman and do a mentorship in that.
The other thing is that these printing companies are making money, as most large corporations are making money, and putting a certain amount of that money off to the side, so they can begin to bring in people. They can begin to train people and even go out and outreach to the schools and see how they can get involved with that as well.
[0:08:12] DC: Noel?
[0:08:14] NT: Yeah, fascinating. About 15 years ago, I started to notice, because there were the old guys I knew. Best ones here and there with a missing finger. Then I began to see younger guys. They were a second on a 3-million-dollar press, and then they became a pressman, and they were young. When things started to be more after computer to play, with all the computers and such, I took an interest in some of these kids, and I’m like, how are you doing? Some of them became lead pressman and were making good money, more than their friends who went to college. But they were kids that were very smart. Maybe they were ADD, or maybe they like to get high a little bit or something, but then they needed a career, and they got married. A couple of these printing companies took them under their wing and basically showed them.
You can run a 2, to 3-million-dollar Heidelberg, and you can really write your own ticket. My point is some of these kids were at the point where they were working 12s, right? 12 hours, six to six. They were working four days a week. They were making 40%, 50% more than their friends who went to college. This happened to be out in the country, but they had a good life. They had a home, they had a family, and they never dreamed it. I thought about, well, where does that come from? I think we need to mentor people, but I think people don’t see our – and we hear it all the time now. Kids go out of college, they spend a quarter million dollars, three, other parents do $300,000, the best liberal arts school and they come in, they’re not going to run anything. They’re not going to be anybody’s boss. They don’t seem, no offense, to have the passion for what they do.
There are lots of people who want a career and they don’t know what to do. I’ll name names a little bit here. I was over in cost at, David, I thought I saw something that was yours and I said, “Oh, you must know David.” I’ve known Andy at used to be Hand Packed. Now they make boxes on cost that. I’ve known him for 30 years. He took me in only, because he found out he knew this about me and he knew my brother who’s gone. But he knew I was originally from Boston. He goes, “You got to come in this room.” He took me in a room. I don’t know if you’ve seen this there, David. He doesn’t show everybody. And is a room with desks and there isn’t he showed me, because it’s Yankee. It’s Mariano Rivera all over the walls, because Mariano is a friend of his and he started a program called 365. Andy, I think it’s 365.
Andy has kids in from the inner city, from Newark and other places, people that need a career and they come in and they’re actually like in a little classroom there, learning how to integrate, finding out what interests them, right? Where their propensity in – a lot of smart kids. Just because they’re poor and they don’t have opportunities doesn’t mean they’re not smart. It’s such a success story. Every now and then, Mariano comes in and they give them the support they need. Then Andy takes them and puts them in his plant, so they learn certain parts, certain departments, and then they connect with other printers, or finishers, or people. You see the light come on in these kids’ eyes, right? Because they’re like, “I can get paid for this?” It’s something they never knew. I think that’s part of the problem.
Where now, when you think, well, my kid’s going to do a trade. You hit it on the head. Plumber, electrician. You don’t think printer. But printing is everywhere. It’s been around forever. I think we need to do a better job of making people understand that there’s all different jobs, right? I mean, you could be the CEO of a printing company and have a pretty good life. David also said, a lot of the older equipment we use has craftsmen, and there are kids, or youngsters, or younger people who can learn by watching and following, and they can make a career. More importantly, they’re going to preserve what we have.
I’m going to say one more thing, if that’s possible for me to keep it short. What I’ve noticed is when you get a young, smart person. I’ve been doing this 45 years now. Yeah, you’re going to show them something, and they go, “Yeah. Well, why wouldn’t you?” The perspective that a younger mind can bring. It’s more potato-potato. It’s not that I’m wrong and they’re right, or vice versa. David, you know this, you’re figuring out what to do. You know what you know, and that’s what you got to do. But when you bring fresh minds and teach them and open them up to this world, print world is huge. Just it’s getting overlooked, and it’s a real problem, and I’m glad you brought this topic up.
[0:12:42] DD: Yeah. What you said. In my career, when I brought in a new production person, or a new salesperson, and they’ve introduced me to one of their other suppliers and how that supplier has really affected my business and helped to propel my business, it’s the same thing with the conversation that you just said with a younger person coming in and listening to those minds. That person has a direction prior to walking in and wants to see things for themselves. By bringing in somebody younger, now we begin to listen to them, as well as maybe benefiting everybody else that’s in the shop as well with new direction. Yeah, I’m 100% agreeing with you.
The other thing I wanted to say is this is fairly a new topic for me, because it was made that way. It was presented to me. I just can’t believe that it’s so hard to find new people. The fact is that once you do, and you can bring in somebody that’s younger, those ideas, working with paper, understanding what the papers are, how they are affected by ink on them, or however you’re going to use it, is open to new minds and teach old dogs.
[SPONSOR MESSAGE]
[0:14:04] NT: Hi, I’m Noel Tocci, founder of Tocci Made. The printing industry has changed quite a bit, and I’ve learned a lot since I joined my brother’s small but mighty printing company in Newark, New Jersey, back in 1980. Over the years, while focusing primarily in the design and creative communities, I’ve come to understand and believe wholeheartedly that powerful, effective, and impactful print communication always lives at the intersection of great design, appropriate materials, and thoughtfully curated execution. Making beautiful work is a journey from concept, or idea, to desired result. Tocci Made is here to help you find your way and create work that is not only effective but something you can be proud of. Head to toccimade.com and find out how we can help.
[EPISODE CONTINUED]
[0:14:51] DC: It’s a really interesting conversation, because there’s a shorter distance from a Gen Z’er to a digital press, or a Landa press, than there is to an offset press, because they’re already technically engaged. They can already, in a way, process the way a system works, because they work in systems all day long. Going back to the craft of things, sitting on a press and making sure that the ink is right and it’s got the proper temperature and moisture in the air, and the paper was kept the way that it needs to do is harder and harder and harder to get done.
I love that you brought up Mario Rivera. I actually saw him receive an award for his foundation at an industry event. He’s actually a great example, because I don’t know at this point if the industry can actually attract those people to the industry. Mostly, that is because, as I quote Donny Deutsch all the time, who I worked for, he said, the Eiffel Tower is just a lamppost with great PR. That’s how I think about the printing industry. Right now, everyone just sees this as a lamppost, but we’re really the Eiffel Tower. We just don’t do a great enough job, or any job that matters and speaks to those people to say, “I want to be creative with technology,” right?
Do we want to figure out how to form that training out, just like the DeVry institutes in the world? I don’t know if that thing is still around. I mean, when I was growing up there was a secretarial school, like Catherine Gibbs. I know people who went to it and learned how to type and became their first job as an executive assistant and then they rose up to whatever they rose up to, but they went for specific business training. They’re going for specific, to fix an air conditioner, or a circuit breaker, or whatever it might be. We don’t have that in the industry. What are your thoughts on that?
[0:16:57] NT: They got discovered, and I’m waving my arms like crazy, because I’m the baby in my family, but my sister is 11 years older than me, and she’s 51 weeks from my brother, and a million years ago in the 70s, he went to a really good college, right? She was going to go. My father was a corporate executive, went all over the world, but the thought was, well, she’ll probably get married. It might not be a good investment to go to college. She went to Catherine Gibbs in 1966 to a secretarial school. She’s real smart.
Within a year, my father said, “You know, IBM’s putting their headquarters up there.” She went and started with IBM as a secretary. 40 years, she ended up traveling the world. She was a senior manager. They discovered each other, and that’s my point. If you’re not in the room, you can’t be part of the discussion. I think that’s it. You know very quickly if you hang around in our world, this is interesting. By contrast, somebody can say, “Wow, this kid’s smart.” You know what I mean? It just takes eating whatever I give them.
I think you’re right. I like DeVry thing. I don’t think it’s quite that, like the training institute, but it kind of is that. Why doesn’t somebody talk about our industry?
[0:18:07] DC: Those schools have a vested interest of getting students, right? No offense, but Heidelberg doesn’t have a vested interest in growing print operators. Their vested interest is making presses and selling them, and servicing them, and making sure that they’re relevant in the market space. But if those companies maybe invested in getting something going, I had an idea once that five different manufacturers came together with a certain amount of money, and you got 10 people who were willing to be trained for, let’s just say, six months.
They would go to the experience center of each of those manufacturers, so they could learn all of their equipment with the understanding that after this training, the first job that came available in one of these manufacturers customers place, they would have to work in the industry for three years, or pay the money back for the training, whatever it is. Just like they used to do with, if you went into the army, they would pay for your college. Or, there was a point where there was a shortage of doctors. If you agreed to work in Alaska or something for three years, they would pay for your medical school. There’s got to be something in that system that we used to have.
[0:19:30] NT: You have to expose them. No names, but I worked for a company a million years ago who bought one of these giant buying everybody. The first thing they did is they went to colleges and got all these kids out of school and they said, “We’re going to teach them printing,” with clipboards and the money and the business side of them, and they run around. These old guys going, “Who am I working for?” I think it was a mistake, because they were business people, as opposed to taking them in and exposing them to what the industry is, and then seeing who was going to – you know what? They’re enjoying it. Look at them. They’re learning. They’re going to be great. You know what I mean? You can’t teach somebody they don’t want to do. If you expose them –
[0:20:12] DC: Yes. I understand what you’re saying, Noel.
[0:20:14] DD: – they may find themselves.
[0:20:16] DC: Yeah. I understand what you’re saying. But what I’m suggesting is that nobody in the printing industry has time for that, and then it’s not their focus.
[0:20:23] NT: They think they don’t, but then they don’t have any – Every shop I know –
[0:20:28] DC: I know. But that’s why I’m saying that if there was a third party that the print industry funded somehow, that’s a business. They need students to take to the experience centers, to take to the print shows, to do whatever it might be. I’m just saying that it’s not working right now, because everybody’s doing it themselves, instead of one collective thing that – like, everybody knows to go to the culinary institute if they want to become a chef, right? We need one of those that teaches people everything about printing, whether or not they have to go to different places to see machines, or where they actually make them, or go to a paper mill, take color management classes, whatever it is. But the ultimate thing is that it’s their responsibility to get students and then that will help us. David?
[0:21:22] NT: I think that’s a wonderful idea. I don’t want to cut you off there, but I would go back a step. I think it’s up to people like yourself and David and I to get people excited about this industry and what we do and then they can go find a program like that.
[0:21:35] DC: It’s literally my job.
[0:21:37] DD: We’re not big enough yet.
[0:21:40] NT: No. I was an adjunct at NYU way back in the school of continuing and whatever it is, study.
[0:21:46] DC: We’re individuals, instead of collectively doing it together.
[0:21:50] NT: No, we need to do it collectively. But it’s like, there’s a big secret about our industry of some –
[0:21:54] DC: I know. Let me tell you.
[0:21:55] NT: Just getting ready to go, “I don’t know anything about that.”
[0:21:57] DC: Let me tell you what I don’t see. I don’t see ads for a great career in print on YouTube TV. I don’t see anything like that. I see tons of stuff for designers. I’ve been seeing a lot of stuff about people who are selling direct to film transfers and things like that. David?
[0:22:14] DD: Which really means nothing, unless you’re in the industry.
[0:22:17] DC: Correct.
[0:22:18] DD: But most larger plants have somebody who does their social media, all right. I was taught a long time ago that as a head of a business, you’re always supposed to cultivate and look for new talent. Always be on the search for it. Always be asking, so on and so forth. But if we begin to take the people who do social media and somehow either get them together, or as an individual basis, to go to job fairs, and I’m not talking about college. I’m talking about students at a 14, 15 –
[0:22:48] DC: Career year high school guidance counselors.
[0:22:51] DD: Right. Put it out there, I mean, I know that when I’ve done some trade shows and I’ve put out better-looking work, people stopped. There are only so many calendars and brochures that you can put out before people look at you and just continue to work. But the fact is that if you can take these people that are doing social media, bring them in, have them do the job fairs, have conversations, because they’re not just talking about equipment, they’re talking about a lifestyle and what their company can do and how they’ve started their career and where it’s gotten to them then. There’s a much bigger picture here.
Until you begin to plant those seeds, and everybody here, and what they’re saying is right. Perhaps, if there were some committee or group that started these and they were able to give the same idea around the United States that you’re going to have people that are retiring and you’re not replacing 10 people. You’re replacing one at a time. If they could get that going, I’m sure that they will begin to recruit people, or plant the seed of saying, hey, this is a career. Look at that guy. That guy owns a boat and a motorcycle, and he runs a piece of equipment. How great is that?
[0:24:13] DC: Yeah. I mean, that’s totally true.
[SPONSOR MESSAGE]
[0:24:17] DD: Are you a frustrated creative and want a print partner that takes an artisan approach? Do you want to be inspired with techniques that will enhance your next printed or packaging production? Or are you a printer that has unique abilities and need a liaison to enhance your exposure? I’m David Drucker, owner of highresolution printing. I am an independent creative consultant with access to every printing technology out there.
I work hand in hand with creatives and printers, creating projects that are complex, and require meticulous detail, and precision, from concept to completion. Want to see what I mean? Go to guruofprinting.com and get inspired.
[EPISODE CONTINUED]
[0:25:00] DC: Before we move on to the next little topic here, I just want to add a couple of things. Job descriptions are super important. Nobody wants to learn how to operate a digital press, instead of be part of a dynamic communications team, using the modern technology. No. There’s got to be marketing those job descriptions to at least get people interested. The other idea I had was to go to concentrated areas, where there are younger people who might not be going to school, wherever that might be, get a bunch of food trucks, get a bunch of I wanted to put presses, like one press in a van and drive it around, like Print Palooza, or something like that, like a festival. We would all just keep driving around, not to colleges, because they’re already in college. We don’t want those people. We want the high schools.
Whether we go to where there’s a concentration of a lot of high schools, and we do it in a park, and people can come and they can make things, and do the food trucks, and maybe there’s a little band, so it becomes an environment that they want to be part of. Because God knows, if they go to the interview in the print shop, they’re going to see yellow cement walls. They’re going to see the chair that Fred died in from emphysema in 1963, or 1987, and the only nice place in that print shop is going to be the client room, which they never get to go in. There’s a lot to say about that as well.
Then, David, you actually gave me an idea. When you said mentorship before, I thought you said a different word, so I’m stealing it. Instead of a mentorship program, a makership program. That totally changes what it is. Oh, I’m going to have an internship where I’m making cool stuff. That sounds a lot more attractive.
[0:27:00] DD: But also, you want to ask, well, what is that? Now, you can teach them what making is.
[0:27:04] DC: Exactly. Then use all the examples that you’ve been giving of look around, you could make a street sign, you could make a billboard in Times Square. You could make something that goes to 2 million people’s mailboxes, and you could be part of all of that. Some of the proudest moments I ever had was going to work down Fifth Avenue and all the bus shelters were done by us, or all the taxi cab tops were done by us, or the billboards in Times Square. I mean, to see it out in the world, I could just imagine if I made cereal boxes, I would be so excited, because that’s my favorite aisle in the grocery store.
Okay, so going back to if the responsibility is not on a third party, then it’s back on us. One of the reasons why there’s not a lot of apprenticeships going on anymore, or on-the-job training is that the printers don’t have time to do it, or the staff to do it. They were already in crisis mode in a lot of cases. I know printers who have their families come in after school and stuff and they’re working in the fulfillment department.
[0:28:15] NT: But don’t you think not having enough time might be part of the crisis?
[0:28:20] DC: I don’t disagree with you.
[0:28:21] DD: You’re talking about bringing family in, which I get. I’ve done that. If there are people out there that you could have taken a little bit of time to bring them in, maybe your problems wouldn’t be what they are.
[0:28:31] DC: Okay. But we’re dealing with that they have the problem now, right? So, they shouldn’t do that moving forward. What are your thoughts on that, besides make the time? Which by the way is a completely valid position. David?
[0:28:47] DD: I’ll give you a little bit of my history. I had been doing some really nice work for the museums, and somebody from the museum had said, there is a printer, his name is Sid Rappaport, and he does some pretty amazing work. I’m going to call him, and I want you just to follow him for a week, and I did. Sid didn’t even look up at me, and he didn’t give me the time of day, or anything like that. But in just taking an overview of what he was doing, why he was doing it, led me to ask questions. Not of him, of course, but from the press mint and such like that. That led to a whole new means of focusing on how you can get to the next level.
I was thinking about a student coming in on that apprentice level as part of a school curriculum, where they would spend two, three hours in the afternoon coming into a print shop and having a master mentor working with them on press, just so they can get that overview. It’s like lighting a fire. Once you put the fuel on it and the fire starts going, then you’ve accomplished at least the opening of what’s next and what can we do. I think that that’s really missing. I mean, I’m saying this, and I really don’t know. I’m not in a press shop every day.
[0:30:15] DC: I don’t think anybody knows is why we’re still in this problem.
[0:30:18] DD: I’m not in a press shop every day, so maybe this is going on, or maybe this is school for thought and whoever’s listening to it. There is something else I’d like to say, is that I have this up on LinkedIn right now. I’d like the printers to follow up based on this conversation, as to what they think. I mean, we can take those ideas, and we can come back here, and you have the perfect format of talking to printers and talking to designers and maybe getting those ideas out. But it’s got to be kick-started and we better do it soon, because Noel and I are not going to be here forever. That brings everybody to just standardized printing, and we need to let everybody know that there’s far more out there. There’s far more inspiration out there, and like you had said, we don’t know when a younger person is going to come in, and what they’re going to see and how they’re going to want to move it forward. I’m very interested in hearing that.
[0:31:21] DC: I will put a link to your post in the show notes, so people can click on it and they can comment on it. We have talked about this, but I want to just put a period at the end of the sentence. The more automation we have and the less humans touching print is a business strategy. Let’s just put that to the side. But more than likely, I mean, not more than likely, those people are operating digital equipment. You can’t do that with offset as far as I know, just like say, push a button and it goes by itself. I will stop myself and say, not that that is what operating a digital press is, but in the scheme of things, it is quite different than an offset press. Would you gentlemen agree with me about that?
[0:32:10] DD: Absolutely.
[0:32:11] NT: Yeah, 100%. We just know what goes into it, because we were around before it. But yeah, you’re right.
[0:32:16] DC: I just wanted to make sure that the digital press people are like, “Hey, wait a second.”
[SPONSOR MESSAGE]
[0:32:21] DC: Are you looking to elevate your game, take your bottom-line customer relationships, and events to the next level? Then, I want to work with you. I’m Deborah Corn, the Intergalactic Ambassador to the Printerverse. I engage with a vast, global audience of print and marketing professionals across all stages of their careers. They are seeking topical information and resources, new ways to serve their customers and connect with them, optimize processes for their communications and operations, and they need the products and services and partnership you offer to get to their next level. Print Media Centr offers an array of unique opportunities that amplify your message and support your mission across the Printerverse. Let’s work together, bring the right people together, and move the industry forward together. Link in the show notes. Engage long and prosper.
[EPISODE CONTINUED]
[0:33:23] DC: So, we still need humans, though, for the craft side of this, especially the projects that you guys do, the projects that I would be doing in an advertising agency right now. I mean, let’s be honest, the big-budget projects are looking for craftspeople. How do we position the industry that way? Noel?
[0:33:50] NT: Well, David said something really interesting. He described following Sid Rappaport, and I did similar with other people, but David has a passion for it and wanted to know more. He was doing it already, and by watching somebody, and that’s how people like myself and David do it, but there are other people built other ways they can do it. But I think it has to start with a passion, or wanting to understand and learn something. The first 20 years of my career, I just did it by watching. I didn’t want to mess up, and I just listened. I worked extra hours. I talked to everybody. But I did that on my own.
I think what you’re saying is, if we had something, someone who could step into, we could get people like David and myself that didn’t have to find somebody that was just going to look at us, “Be quiet, kids. Stay out of the way. Watch if you want.” If it’s more organized, we would get a lot more people like David and I, who – not that we’re the end all, but who just have a passion for what we do and yearn to get better and do it and have done it over time. Think about all the people that were exposed, because they didn’t decide to put themselves in it, and then find a way to learn, if there was a way to learn, or to be introduced to it, right?
We got into it and said, I’m doing this, come hell or high water. I think there should be some – I think mentorships are important. I think we could develop programs. One of the things I want to leave as a legacy is to be able to impart it to someone what I know, what I’ve enjoyed, what I’ve been able to do, and just see, is that interesting to you? I mean, I would love to see, and yourself, I’d like to see the three of us talk and argue. 200 or 300 people that they’re not sure what they want to do, you know what I mean? I told my own kids, they’re older now, when they’re teenagers, 17, 18, 19, just listen to it as much as you can. You might talk to 200 people and you might have 30 who come up after and go, “Let me understand this. What do you do? How do you do this?”
But it got to this. You do this now. You make this. You have to create interest. I think we need a bread, a crumb trail to our industry. It’s unbelievable, it’s one of the biggest industries in the world, and one of the oldest. Yet, it is just, oh, yeah, printing. It’s like, you walk by a 1,400-foot building and you go, “Yeah, it’s a building.”
[0:36:19] DC: It’s a building. Yeah.
[0:36:22] NT: Whoa. You know what I mean?
[0:36:22] DC: People take it for granted. Yeah. Just like toilet paper. Everybody took toilet paper for granted, until the pandemic, right?
[0:36:30] NT: You’re right about creating social media. I think it’s a bunch of people like us in a room talking about it.
[0:36:39] DC: I agree with you. Everybody acts like a little fiefdom, Noel. I’m telling you, everybody, because they only care about getting someone for their print shop. They only care about training somebody on their equipment. I know, but that’s why we’re having this conversation.
[0:36:54] NT: There are others of us who just want to put something together. I would be willing to spend time doing that.
[0:37:00] DC: You know would be really cool, I mean, just think if we have one of those DeVry things. That’s a trade school, basically, is all I’m saying. A technical trade school. The next time you’re in the city, there’s a field trip to go with you to wherever you’re on a press check. David, there’s one in New Jersey. When the next time you go to a client meeting, or a pitch, or something, you bring a couple of people with you, and they learn that way. But there’s got to be an entity –
[0:37:30] DD: That will work and I tell you why. I’ve been teaching in the design community for 45 years. I do it with them, but they’re not going to become printers, but it’s the same thing. They go in and they go, “I never knew. I love it.” It makes them a better designer. But I see what young, smart people do when they were around it. I always did it with designers, because, well, designers use printing, and they want to know what to do. But you know why they never do it with people that want to become printers?
[0:37:56] DC: No, I get it.
[0:37:56] DD: The light will go off on half of the people’s –
[0:38:00] DC: It’s not just young people and designers either. I am on the board of a group called the Five Keys. It is for ex-convicts to get trained and get jobs.
[0:38:12] DD: It’s amazing.
[0:38:12] DC: I mean, depending upon – Obviously, these are people whose crimes were not in a –
[0:38:20] NT: They’re rehabilitated. They want a life.
[0:38:22] DC: Yes. I mean, you don’t hire an embezzler or somebody who did a violent crime. But a lot of these people are in jail for unpaid parking tickets and things like that, but there is still a box on a form that says, have you ever been convicted of a crime? Unless somebody says, can you tell me what this is, and has a conversation about it, they’re just like, no, garbage pail. There is a real untapped market of people who not only want a job, but they want the stability of a job. They want to know that they’re going – I mean, I’m one of those people. I like to know what I’m doing every day, although it’s harder when you work for yourself. But it’s a state of mind. It’s security.
Talk about loyal employees who are getting second and third chances at having a life. They will not let anything happen to that print shop. I know people who slept in the print shop during the hurricane, because they were some of these second-chance people, and they didn’t want the business going down, if they could help it. David, thoughts?
[0:39:32] DD: Yeah, I’m in agreement. It’s a large task to take on. Where does one start? Do we go into the high school and say, let’s put together a program? Let’s put it over the loudspeaker, Thursday. We’re going to end after school. Get in there and start by grassroots and really start at the bottom and begin to introduce it. I don’t have the capability to start that type of thing, nor do I really have the time. I know with Noel, or all three of us that we can step into that if it’s available to do so and preach.
I would think that at that point, if you can get through to one person and they have a print shop, or somebody who is sponsoring this that can go into that and into that print shop and begin, it doesn’t take a lot, but it takes something. I’m really interested in the printers that are out there that are willing to do this, this is the first step is to find the people who want to be part of this, and then work from that point and speak to their social media people, and then have them begin to preach. I don’t think it’s a hard thing to do. I just think it needs planning and maybe some failure and some learning.
[0:40:57] DC: Yeah. What about just having a career fair in your print shop and saying, here’s all the potential jobs.
[0:41:03] NT: 100%.
[0:41:03] DC: Even if you don’t get it, at least you know, “Oh, I didn’t even know that I could look for a job in marketing in a print shop. I didn’t even know I could be a social media person in a printing business.”
[0:41:13] DD: Print shops should reach to the big towns around them and say, listen, may or may not listen to them, but it’s a, yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, way back when I was young, you could learn how to work on a car, build furniture in high school. They would –
[0:41:27] DC: Had shop class. Yeah.
[0:41:29] DD: I mean, they had print shops.
[0:41:31] DC: I learned how to make cinnamon toast.
[0:41:31] DD: My buddy was running a business. For 45 years, he did it. He printed. He got at school at 6.30. Printed stuff. He learned the trade in high school.
[0:41:38] DC: Yeah. We didn’t have a press. We had a car. We had a car shop down.
[0:41:42] DD: You had a car shop. Yeah.
[0:41:43] DC: And some metalworking thing and they were always making something for the school. All right, I think this was a really interesting conversation. Let’s leave it here, because hopefully, some people will chime in on your post, David, or more people. You already had some nice responses there. Then we can follow up with some more concrete ideas. Sometimes I don’t like this topic, only because I don’t like when people say, “We’ve got a problem. Thank you very much,” and then they leave. Yes, we have a problem, and everybody’s talking about the problem.
There are scholarship funds to get people into school, but what are they learning? What are they coming out, able to do, or not to do, or what equipment are they getting trained on? There’s not a lot of soft skills. There’s big disconnects, and the graphic communications programs, you look at the two-year schools, the community colleges and things like that, and enrollment is down in this segment, because what do people think print is? They think it’s the old guy in the overalls with ink all over him going, “Stop the presses.” Because that is what they see in the movies. Maybe we have to make a really cool movie about something that goes on in a print shop to get people interested.
Thank you, everybody, for your time and attention. We really appreciate it. If you want Noel, David, and I to come and speak to a bunch of students, we are in. So, until then, make it long with print and prosper.
[END OF EPISODE]
[0:43:20] DC: Thanks for listening to Podcasts From the Printerverse. Please subscribe, click some stars, and leave us a review. Connect with us through printmediacentr.com. We’d love to hear your feedback on our shows and topics that are of interest for future broadcasts. Until next time, thanks for joining us. Print long and prosper.
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