If the printing industry can be likened to the Glastonbury Festival, Tony Hodgson wants to be running the dance tent. The former technical director of Lorien Unique and Documedia is now heading a BPIF led initiative to lead the transition to the promised land of market service providers. At the time we had coffee two weeks from the launch of the project, it still lacked a snappy name, though it is now to be known as dotgain.org. But branding aside there is a strong concept behind what ought to become as established a part of the print scene as Vision in Print has become over its five-year history.

Its roots lie in the realisation that one future for print lies in the transition to offering more and more non-print services, normally based around different channels of communication, to the industry’s traditional customers. BPIF chief executive Michael Johnson told the federation’s agm this year that where printers today will earn 30% of their revenues from non-traditional, non-print activities, in just a few years he predicted print will only generate 30% of the sales of a print company. The rest will come from data manipulation, mailing, emailing, web design and information capture. And so on.

Convinced of this future, Johnson explained the way to lead printers to this promised land, will be through what he called a customer centric programme, which Hodgson has been appointed to head.

Hodgson points to companies like Tangent, Lateral and Lorien as companies that have made the change successfully. Others may be part of the way there having worked out their own development from the installation of a digital press, through a web to print set up and into data handling. Hodgson’s aim is to make this journey less painful and to involve many more of the participants in this new era for print. This will include the agencies and data houses that are crucial to the successful deployment of a cross media strategy and also the customers themselves, what has been described as “the digital printing ecosystem”.

All will be eligible to enter what he likens to the Glastonbury dance music tent. “We will have activities on the outside that will draw people to the tent. If they become members they can come in and they can also participate in the workshops where we will teach them to spin the turntables,” he says.

First though comes the creation of an advisory council, 20 strong and drawn from all interested sectors, not just print business. There will be representation from large and small companies he continues. A first pre-launch meeting has been held with indications that the project has widespread support.

The project was due to break cover at MediaPro, an exhibition and seminar event where the focus was very much on cross-media and the developing media landscape. The formal launch will be at a conference that is planned for next spring. This will most likely take place in London and will involve the close participation of PODi, the closest US equivalent to what will take shape in the UK. PODi started out as the Print on Demand initiative, looking to standardise formats for variable data printing, now PPML, in the early days of digital printing. It has developed into an organisation to encourage the adoption of variable data communication using the internet, social media and print and claims that on average its members are three time more profitable than the industry average.

A key component of its education programme is the publication of case studies across a wide range of sectors to demonstrate how personalised communications can be effective across the board. These can be used by PODi’s members to explain the process behind a project and, vitally, the return on investment that resulted. These case studies become available to those signing up with the BPIF-led group. Ultimately the organisation will run alongside the federation as an autonomous body with its own staff and revenue generation.

The membership fee will be dependent on company size, somewhere between £500 and £5000 Hodgson says. For that the members will have access to the various training, seminar, webinar and conference events that are planned. An important part of it he says is to tailor what is on offer to the individual member companies, a case of practicing what we preach, he explains, adding: “This is going to be a challenge. We want to be able to show a return on investment to members at the end of each year.”

There have been contacts with other trade bodies, representing independent publishers, direct marketing, and customer service bodies. Their members are seen as potential members of the new body, as the new landscape needs more than just print to map it. There has been a welcome for the initiative, says Hodgson, who says that these trade bodies can benefit through providing some of the training programmes that will be on offer.

“Supply chains are no longer linear,” he says, where a designer or marketing agency is briefed, then passes the job through creative to premedia to printing with the printer having no direct contact with the end client. Instead companies form networks to take on a project with the lead company being any one of these types of company. “It’s a transition from a production-focused world,” he explains.

Recognition that there is a need to promote this line of thinking and to help printers acquire the necessary skills, is needed is not new. Many of the digital press providers offer business development seminars and training programmes to assist their customers and grow the clicks. What has changed is the attempt to do this on an industry-wide scale and without the backing of a Xerox, Canon or HP. The press suppliers will be involved, but it is not going to develop into a digital printers user group. While the vast majority of members are going to be digital printers, possession of a digital press is not essential. Hodgson relates meeting a printer in the west of England that produces small magazines for clubs and associations. The printer realised that these bodies run conferences and other events that need organising and that as a trusted supplier, he was in a good position to offer to take this on. The idea was not to source the hotels, nor even to run the personalised presses himself – at least not on day one. He knew plenty of digital printers who could be commissioned for the work and others with relevant expertise. “He got it,” says Hodgson.

The challenge now is to gather the others that have got it, or who want to get it, and bring them into the tent to start the dancing.