Hello to you all.. And a special WELCOME.

Nowadays, “blogs” are part of everyday life and my feeling is that I should both take pleasure in my blog and breathe life into it, not so much for myself but for FESPA!

And it is also a good place to now wish you Health, Happiness and Prosperity for 2008!

Every month, I will bring to you a subject for discussion on which your opinions will be sought and to which both fespa.com visitors and I can add subsequent comments on how the subject touches our lives and professions.

A blog, used to be a just a means of communication. Today, it can also be newspaper, a column, contain editorial, ideas and information on our activities: it must be alive, flexible, adaptable and mobile: communication, it is an essential part of life today!

So, let us begin!
The subject of my first blog is exactly that « the importance of communication »!
And my question of the month is:
« DO YOU REALLY KNOW HOW TO COMMUNICATE? »

It is in fact a problem located on several levels:
Do you communicate yourselves enough :
- With your peers and friends
- With FESPA, with your association (and friends)
- With your suppliers (and friends)
- With your customers (and friends?)

For many of us, our professions are connected to « visual communication ». To communicate should be our vocation, our Bible - whether Gospel, or Koran, or Bhagavad Gita, or Road of Big Perfection, or even The Small Red Book - everyone is included!

- How can your customers know - if you don’t tell and repeat to them - that the images you produce are fantastic, and may be the best in the world !
- Do your peers know that you are ready to share your experiences and have them share theirs with you?
- Do your suppliers realise - if you don’t tell them - that what they sold you is brilliant? Or not good at all and that - anyway - what they themselves as being good enough for you, is not necessarily what you wait and hope for?
- How does your association and FESPA know what your problems are and how can they find solutions if you do not speak to them about it?

Now, the discussion : « communication » which I should like to launch, thus:
Do you communicate enough or not? And if so « how »?

What counts, in this discussion, are your opinions, but just to finalize things, I shall say clearly that in what concerns me, my personal answer to the question is NO, there is not enough communication between printers and their peers, customers and suppliers, not enough questions are asked and especially – a deadly sin - there is a tendency for printers to undervalue themselves with regard to their existing and potential customers...this goes not only for the European market but indeed globally as well.

Our basic language at FESPA is English, but I read quite a lot of other European languages and we shall always find a solution if it is easier to you to use your own language to communicate your ideas! French, German, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Dutch, Spanish, Italian or Portuguese.

Michel Caza