Thanks for coming. It’s a great turnout. I know at this time of the year it can get so busy and I appreciate that you have all taken the time to come along.

It is the aim of the team at ProPrint to produce a business companion for the decision-makers in the printing industry – in case you didn’t realise, that means you here in this room. I hope the fact that so many of you have turned out tonight shows that we are achieving that target.

When we launched the Power 50 last year, there were more than a few raised eyebrows. Quite a few people said it wouldn’t work; some even said it might even work against us.

I can see the issues: a lot of people in printing like to fly under the radar. Speaking of flying under the radar, I was doing some research for #6 on this year’s list, Phil Taylor, and I came across a Ben Franklin quote: “If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed.”

This also applies to magazine editors. While the relationships between the industry and the media can be tense at times, that goes with the territory, But I’d hope that at the end of the year, you all see ProPrint as a force for good in the industry. It is important that we are championing the causes that matter to you, our readers and advertisers.

We are passionate about print. ProPrint’s publisher, Haymarket Media, is the biggest publisher of printing industry trade magazines in the world. But more than just as ProPrint, as publishers, we love print and we are dedicated to ensuring it has a future.

Of course, online is here to stay, It is refreshing how many of you are embracing internet technology, whether as a way for customers to order print online, or to offer website design or agency services.

The Power 50 is also a result of this cross-media new world order. We got more than 1,400 votes for the public ballot for this year’s Power 50, a great achievement for us as ProPrint and also a fantastic example of how print and online can work together.

We have also produced a personalised 16pp special supplement, printed digitally by Direct Mail & Marketing, for each of the people on the Power 50, here tonight. We wanted to show how online and digital printing can fit with the long-run heatset web printing done at Webstar.

The ProPrint Power 50 is all about embracing different channels.

What the Power 50 is NOT about is saying who is better. Well, it is to a degree, but not to the point that it should upset anybody

What we are all learning in these challenging times in the new digital economy – and I know this is true of magazine publishing as well – is that despite the cut-throat nature of the sector, we are all on the same side.

That’s where things like Two Sides come in, and I hope you are all supporting the Printing Industries Association of Australia and APIA with this great cause. Yes, you might pitch against each other for work, but it is in everyone’s interest to promote the medium of print. I hope that’s what we are doing with the Power 50 – celebrating all of you and in so doing, celebrating print.

I also want to thank a few people. ProPrint is a small but dynamic team, and I have to thank editorial people Nolan Giles and Sam Grimmer, who have been integral in all our activities this year, especially the mammoth task of putting together the Power 50. And I have to thank our amazing sales manager Carmen Ciappara, without whom we wouldn’t be here – period.

And of course I want to thank the generous sponsors of the 2011 ProPrint Power 50: Media Super, Energy Action, Optimus, Kodak, Konica Minolta, Fuji Xerox and Fujifilm. 

If you will allow me to sing our praises for a moment, this year, ProPrint was named as a finalist at the Publishers Australia Excellence awards, in the “B2B Magazine of the Year” category, something I am very proud of.

But I am even more proud of the turnout tonight, of the fact that we, as ProPrint, can bring people of such calibre together in the same room and I hope we continue to serve the industry as an essential business companion in the years to come.

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