by Kevin Anderson

There was an interesting discussion about linking and journalism amongst a number of journalists in North America. Mathew Ingram of GigaOm and Alex Byers, a web producer for Politico in Washington, both collected the conversation using Storify. It covers a lot of well worn territory in this debate, and I'm not going to rehash it.

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The Bangkok Post just wasn't getting value from its in-house IT department. There were 25 people on staff, costs were increasing, and the in-house skills were behind the industry standards.

"IT itself just wasn't supporting the business," says Pichai Chuensuksawadi, Editor-in-Chief of the Bangkok Post, during Publish Asia 2011, being held in Bangkok from 27 to 29 April.

"It wasn't supporting the advertising department so they could do their job. When there were problems in editorial, they were slow to respond, they had a wait-and-see attitude."

Anthony Arundell, Director of Eastern Tech Service, says outsourcing isn't a one-size-fits all proposition - every company has to manage its own needs.

In the case of the post, it was a three-step process: first assess the current environment, the second was the establish a strategy, and the third was to draw up a road map of expectations.

"Outsourcing is like a marriage - we go to bed together, we wake up together," says Mr Arundell. "There has to be trust in the relationship, it's a long-term relationship."

Some of their lessons:
- The service level agreement is a critical driver of change - it has to be based on business objectives, not IT objectives.
- The process needs to be measured daily.
- The IT company must understand the news business - that it works on deadlines and must produce news very quickly.
- Expect delays in the system - people don't want to change.

by Dean Roper

When 85 percent of their revenues come from print, says Kasturi Balaji, Managing Director of Kasturi & Sons in India, newspapers had better not scrimp on offering the best newspaper products to their readers. Mr. Balaji spoke at the WAN-IFRA Printing Summit 2011 Conference in Mainz, Germany.

Based in Chennai, Kasturi & Sons are the publishers of The Hindu, an English-language daily newspaper with a circulation of 1.5 million copies, and Business Line with 180,000 circulation, among other titles.

The company prints at 15 print sites, 12 of them owned by Kasturi & Sons, and three use heatset technology to print newspaper titles. That is what sets the company apart.

Since 1998, Kasturi & Sons have printed most of their newspaper products on double-width presses, many equipped with hot-air dryers. The company offers a number of niche, high-quality semi-commercial products, all bringing in significant new revenue streams.

For that new revenue, there are press-related and mailroom issues to consider, Mr. Balaji says. For the press, quality, formats and enhancements play major roles. But warning about quality, he says, "It is important to be realistic about quality expectations. Adding a dryer to a newspaper press does not make it a commercial press. While it may be somewhat easier to retrofit devices like stitchers and gluers, the same cannot be said for hot-air dryers, for example."

San Luis Obispo - In its continued effort to educate the best and brightest to enter the graphic communication industry and lead it in the future, Cal Poly's Graphic Communication Department has unveiled the Dow Jones & Company Web Printing Laboratory.

With heavy support from industry partners, the department has expanded its educational offerings in publication printing by doubling the page count and color capacity of its web publication press. The addition of four-units makes it an eight-unit web press.

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