Inkjet with a side of “Nerd Glaze”

Last night on “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart, Peter Dinklage who plays Tyrion Lannister on Game of Thrones (GoT) coined the term “Nerd Glaze” to describe the look of mental overload on the faces of GoT fans who mainline the show non-stop over a weekend. Nerd Glaze was the perfect way to describe the look on my face after returning from immersion in the Canon – Océ facility in Poing, Germany last week.

Canon hosted a Leadership Forum for prominent companies from the graphic arts, direct mail and transaction printing segments to network and learn. I was one of several industry experts and analysts invited to present. My topic was “Preparing Your Business for Inkjet.” The first day was held at Canon’s HUGE Customer Experience Center which showcased several cutsheet electro-photographic presses and a huge array of high-volume, continuous feed inkjet presses. Demonstrations were configured to highlight a variety of market segments and tricky workflows. Color, mono, MICR, inkjet, toner, dye versus pigment, inline versus nearline, treated versus coated papers, sheetfed versus continuous and lots of experts to discuss them with … ah yes, printer nerd nirvana followed by Nerd Glaze.

Over the years I’ve had the opportunity to work on many multi-channel communications projects and am pretty well known in the e-presentment and payment space but, after all these years I still love working with print. I’m a printer nerd and proud to be one. To all the rest of you printer nerds (I know you’re out there) if you ever have the opportunity to visit the Poing plant – Go! It’s very cool.

And to all the Game of Thrones fans – I will be watching Sunday.