OUTPUT

It has been clear for a very long time that the reality of digital media impacts print. Printers have for most of that time been getting increasingly paranoid about the threat and many have watched their businesses decline. And that watching is at the heart of the problem. Print is no longer protected by the mighty walls of the expensive and complex machinery used to produce it. Since 1984 when the wondrous Mr Jobs introduced the Mac, we have seen the cost of entry into all things print declining, collapsing in the face of the digital revolution. That printers refused to accept this inevitability is in large part due to the sense of security the heavy iron and exorbitantly priced layout workstations gave them. However that refusal is still too prevalent in the market.

Like any other media professional, printers have eyes and they can count and they can recognise that consumers and media buyers are going to go with whatever media gives them the best return on investment. Printers have ignored this reality at their peril, many failing to adapt their businesses to the changing times and market diversification. Customers have embraced alternatives, but that doesn't mean print has passed its sell-by date.

Traditional print's crisis of confidence has its mirror in the exuberance of the digital media market, especially in wide-format and variable data print applications. Digital media providers include print in a complexity of options designed to maximise response to client messages. There is no doubt that print works and that people respond to it on many and subtle levels, from the emotional and sensual (that yummy-yum smell, those silk-smooth pages) to the practical (no need for batteries, doesn't matter if you drop it, unlikely to be stolen, and so on).

Print has suffered, but as much from its own vanity as from the effects of the market and technological advances. The print industry must stop whinging and start cheering about its continued success, innovativeness and effectiveness. Media, like sex, is all about stimulation and response and once the excitement and novelty wears off response depends on stimulation. How stimulating are 3,000-odd titles locked in an e-book? E-reader response is subjective: can you be bothered to switch on the device? Will you remember what you wanted to read? Will you be able to find the title, check the battery life and stay focused long enough to actually engage with the media? A printed book sitting on one's bedside table is a lot more tempting.

Cicero said: "A room without books is like a man without a soul". Print's major competitor is not electronic media per se, it is the ability of any media to get a response. A soulless and transient communication is like that empty room, so let's remember that print adds a little bit of soul to an otherwise fractured communications landscape.