How We Choose Wine

The viticultural libation is as timeless as love and life. The Romans did it. Indeed, Roman soldiers were required to drink a minimum of one liter of wine per day. The Greeks invented the god of wine, Dionysus and Jesus made wine from water.

Like water, wine is a global constant and the altered consciousness achieved by consumption has been considered religious since its origin. I think the mass consumption of wine traces back to medieval urban areas and the lack of clean water.

LinkedIn is NOT personal branding.

http://www.grwalters.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregwalters/

"LinkedIn is NOT the internet." -

New to Copier Sales: What’s This Thing Called Managed IT Services?

Managed services is referred to by various names — managed IT services, managed network services, MNS, etc. But no matter what you know it as, managed services is the hottest thing since managed print services.

As a new copier rep, you may not initially hear much about managed services, but it is the next evolutionary step in the copier industry. The industry has developed repeatable revenue models around hardware, and for those who wish to survive, we’ll shift this model into different areas, or “anything as a service” (XaaS). Down the street copier reps should get familiar with MS basics.

Let’s start with a definition of managed services. According to Wikipedia, managed services is “the practice of outsourcing on a proactive basis certain processes and functions intended to improve operations and cut expenses. It is an alternative to the break/fix or on-demand outsourcing model where the service provider performs on-demand services and bills the customer only for the work done.”

Over Complicating Workflow… Again.

2013, Workflow

Back in my IKON daze (pun intended), one of the best sales managers I ever worked with told me, “Sometimes we overcomplicate things. It’s just copiers.” He was referring to an inability to close any deal that included EDM in less than 90 days.

He was right. We often did overcomplicate transactions beyond lease payments and cost per image in an effort to branch out into more “sophisticated” imaging subject matter, adding value and becoming a “trusted advisor.”

"Reversing deforestation is complicated; planting a tree is simple." 

- Martin O'Malley

Did the discussion of document management enhance our ability to close a five-person church? No.

Did talking about moving from printed pick-lists to digital images elevate the discussion, enhance our position and add 120 days to the selling cycle? You betcha.

But the point still holds. Overcomplicating transactions by...

Read the rest, here.

American Oak, The British Navy And Scotch

To be aged in bourbon barrels is the ‘hot’ thing in libation. From tequila to Worcestershire sauce, the finishing qualities of used bourbon barrels permeate a plethora of consumables.

But why and how did this ‘fad’ take off?

First, aging in used barrels is not new. Indeed, the practice of reusing casks goes back millennia.

Contemporary usage owes to these basic influences:

• The British Navy
• The Frugal Scotts
• Taste
• The British Navy

CubeSats, Ion drives, and the Internet of Space

Thousands of small satellites, circling the globe maintaining geosynchronous orbit.  Quarter sized thrusters hold these nano-boxes in place. Engineered like microchips, one thruster contains a grid of 500 needles — each a solar powered, custom-built nozzle generating ion sprays.

Not science fiction.

"CubeSats" are small ( 4 in × 4 in × 4 in) satellites, launched in space, in a low-Earth orbit - as of January, 2019, there have been 1,000 cubesats launched.

These devices are cheap and with newly developed 'fusion engines', they have the ability to remain in place or move to a different location.  Applications range from communications to giant, space-born, billboard signs.

The copier industry was the vanguard of connected devices(M2M) and we should be looking for future avenues of growth.

Imagine 5 or 6 or 7G connectivity speeds running on a mesh of cubesats.  Imagine all things connected; plants, paint, elevators, RFID, CCTV, and yes, even one or two remaining photocopiers.

Perhaps the Internet of Space is hyperbole.

I'm sure there were doubters and naysayers when the first copier connected to a thing called the "network".  Either way, is connectivity the 'manifest destiny' of our time?

"Manifest Destiny held that the United States was destined—by God, its advocates believed—to expand its dominion and spread democracy and capitalism across the entire North American continent." - History Channel