In case you didn't catch the "12 days of print predictions" articles that appeared over the holiday period, I can heartily recommend setting aside a few minutes in order to read the various contributions.

Lots of interesting nuggets lie within, and even some amusement, to whit Miles Linney's suggestion that the industry could raise its profile by entering a choir or a dance troupe in the next telly talent fest. I can see it now, Print's Got Talent, marvellous.

Linney's comments about the need to further compress lead times also struck a chord, because client requirements for ever-decreasing turnaround times must surely present one of the greatest opportunities for domestic printers to win work that might otherwise have found itself heading to the continent, or further afield. Or just quite simply the increasing prevalence of "we need it yesterday", as campaign lead times are shortened and client decisions are left later and later. That requires being up with the pace and in a position to capitalise on such requirements. An example came my way over the Christmas break via Twitter (did you know PrintWeek also witters on Twitter? We are @printweek).

Anyhow, a great example of being on the front foot and alert to opportunities via alternative sales channels occurred over the holiday period, when this request was posted on a networking forum on Christmas Eve: "I wonder if anyone can help I am looking for a quote for 800 leaflets printed.  I would design it myself and email it by Dec 29th but I would need them printed & at my office in Hampshire by the end of Jan 4th." Some fast work both in terms of responding to the client request and producing the job itself saw FM Print covered in glory and in receipt of some excellent online PR for its efforts.

This brings me on to we in the printing industry blowing our own trumpet, another topic expounded by the 12 days correspondents. As Printflow's Paul Manning says: "Printers have to realise that we need to be generating print, not waiting for it to fall into our laps." Hear, hear.

And while we're at it, why not resolve to use this New Year as an opportunity to review things like email sign-offs, websites, business cards and other company collateral to ensure that wherever possible you are including suitably positive messages about print and what it can do for your customers. I can confidently predict that nobody else is going to do this for us, and combatting the wealth of misinformation out there can only be achieved as a collective task.