Monday, June 29, 2009

Destroy Your Printer Video Contest!



Ever want to smash you printer with a bat?

So there has been times in the lives of everyone who has worked in an office when you try to make a print or a copy and the printer or copier simply does not comply. After fifty or so attempts all ending in failure, one may feel the need to take a sledge hammer to that copier or printer.

Well now you can do just that...

I am pleased to announce the New England "Destroy Your Printer Video Contest"

It's rather simple and could be great fun! We ask that you make a creative, fun and humorous video of you and your cohorts destroying one of the following: Inkjet Printer, Laser Printer, Copier or Fax/MFP. Then upload the video to youtube and post the url on the comments section of this blog post. After a months time we will choose a winner and the winner will get his or her video posted here on the "Adventures in Office Imaging blog" and they will receive two FREE toner cartridges for their office copier, laser printer, or fax/mfp. see below for full contest details, rules and regulations!

Rules and Regulations.

1. Contest is open only to New England Businesses, large or small.
Contestants may destroy Inkjet Printers, Fax/MFPs, Laser Printers or Copiers.

* We are looking for humorous and creative videos of you destroying your selected piece of office equipment from the above list of types of machines.

* Have fun but be careful, Expert Laser Services will not be held responsible for any injuries resulting from the making of your videos.

2. To enter the contest, create a video, upload it to youtube or a similar video service and post the url as a comment to this blog article.

3. Videos will be reviewed by myself, our CEO and several other ELS representatives.

4. The contest ends July 29, 2009.

5. The winning video will be posted here at the Adventures in Office Imaging blog July 30, 2009.

6. The winner will receive two free toner cartridges via personal delivery or shipment for your offices copier, laser printer or fax/mfp.

7. All video urls will be screened before being posted in the comments section.

Monday, June 22, 2009

Songs in the key of MPS

I recently read an article about "copier" tweets on twitter at the Death of the Copier Blog. It is as most of Greg's articles are, relevant, humorous and informative. All of the thoughts in the article remind me of my own thoughts in regards to how twitter has been quite useful in respect to the twitter search engine and the relevant and useful information of which can be mined from said resource.

I noticed Greg has been retweeting some very funny tweets about copiers, copier repair guys, laser printers, toner cartridges and the such. So I did a search of my own and found and retweeted this tweet which Greg later retweeted.

RT @DubiousMonk: RT @AgileRoxy: 1989: Leo Kottke records "Why Can't You Fix My Car?"2009: Jim Hutchins cries "Why Can't You Fix My Printer?"

Jim Hutchins cries "Why Can't You Fix My Printer?" - Being a Kottke fan, notably of his work with Mike Gordon I gota chuckle out of this.

Being a musician, I got proactive...

Please click HERE - to listen to this song about office printer woes and the repair men who are supposed to fix the problem as well as an all around solution.

All instruments and vocals by yours truly.

Friday, June 19, 2009

New England Landfills Thank ELS!

What did our customers ever do for New England’s landfills?

Expert Laser Services customers have directly contributed to the duration of the landfills, not only in their own local towns, but also in Expert Laser’s home town of Southbridge as well. Within the decade the Southbridge landfill is expected to be one of only 8 active in Massachusetts receiving municipal solid waste! The town is quite proud of that fact, and Expert Laser’s customers can share in that pride. Each customer does their part to reclaim reusable materials, lessoning the impact on our landfill. Folks often wonder whether they really make any difference. Well ...

Their efforts made a difference.


The issue is laser toner cartridges. Hundreds of millions of cartridges
go into dumps every year ... and the total is growing by about 12% annually! Imagine literal mountains of black, non-biodegradable, hard plastic cartridges. Well, over the past 19 years our managed print services customers are directly responsible for keeping between 100,000 and a quarter million cartridges out of our respective landfills! Since they require literally hundreds of years to decompose, even our great grandkids will appreciate it!

Most dumps quickly begin looking like ... well, dumps.


But the photo on the front panel is an actual picture of the Town Landfill in
Southbridge, so you know that someone’s making a difference. At Expert Laser’s Southbridge plant we remanufacture about 1,000 cartridges per month. All parts are reused first and remanufactured as needed. Boxes, cardboard, packaging materials—everything is reclaimed as much as possible.

How “green” are we, really?


With O.E.M. manufacturers the routine is that cartridge cores are never brokendown
completely. They are re-used most often just once, then discarded. Think about that: they are reused once only; it’s all done overseas saving THEIR landfills, with the work done by their workers driving THEIR economy. With Expert Laser your toner might actually rival the 9 lives of your favorite tabby! Cartridges will be remanufactured up to 8 or 10 times before finally reaching our “junkpile.” Of course, with Expert Laser even then the plastic is not just “dumped!” We have identified recycling resources for even the base cores and “non-recyclable” plastic tubes. The work is done right here in Massachusetts at our plant, bolstering our own economy. What’s more, the bottom line environmentally is that with your help we are keeping at least ...

12,000 toner cartridges per year out of our landfills!


One final shocker: Each cartridge equates chemically to two quarts of oil. So our
customers are enabling us to keep the equivalent of 6,000 gallons of oil per year out of our precious landfills!

6,000 gallons of oil in our dumps is not a pretty sight.


Think about the difference that simply reusing cores makes:
• Each and every new laser toner cartridge requires about two quarts of oil to manufacture! • Worldwide about 70% of used cartridges are simply trashed. • Every discarded cartridge adds about 3-1/2 pounds of solid waste to our dumps! • Every cartridge takes up to 450 years to decompose! • Reusing cores and remanufacturing cartridges cuts these numbers by up to 80%!

Can you imagine a mountain of 100,000 toner cartridges!?


Expert Laser Services is doing even more to make those mountains of cartridges into environmentally-friendly “molehills.” In co-operation with a regional environmental leader, Expert Laser Services has developed a system whereby we recycle virtually every piece of a toner cartridge.

Doesn’t “environment-friendly” imply “poor quality”?


In the early days of the recycling movement, businesses often had to settle for lesser quality if they wanted to use “green” products. That was never the case with Expert Laser Services. From our inception, top quality has been the top priority. The result was the development of a detailed and unique remanufacturing process. At our Southbridge plant every cartridge we receive undergoes a rigorous 7-step process of remanufacture before being boxed and loaded out to our trucks for another round of business productivity:


1. Our technicians do a complete disassembly of each cartridge.


2. Our eyes and hands examine each component—removing, inspecting, and either cleaning or
replacing parts as necessary.

3. Left-over toner is completely purged (never re-used) in our state-of-the-art suction
workstations, pulling the spent toner not into the air but into secure disposal units.

4. The cartridge’s toner hopper is refilled, matching original equipment manufacturer (O.E.M.) specifications.

5. Each refilled cartridge is professionally reassembled.

6. The exterior of each cartridge is wiped clean and relabeled as needed.

7. Every cartridge is print-tested for quality then repackaged (we
even utilize reused or recycled packing materials).

Ultimately every customer using our cartridges benefits from fewer defects, and, at the same time, we all benefit! We even save money! That’s a rare bonus—dramatically cutting overall expenses while doing the right thing. It’s the reality for Expert Laser’s customers. Our managed print services customers routinely pay less than 2¢ per print including toner, routine maintenance, emergency service—everything. Sound like the best of both worlds to you? Well, that’s exactly what we offer.

Do we have a cartridge for that printer??



Happy Friday folks! Here is a funny little video for the purchasing department at your company.

Monday, June 15, 2009

Be careful with that axe Eugene...



Someday I am going to cut this printer into little pieces.

Ok, so he's got a shovel not an axe but lets face it this guy is not happy with this copier. It should not be your office staffs responsibility to fix a piece of office equipment if it goes down. However if said office staff needs to have that report on the CEO's desk in the next few hours and they come to that equipment and it is not working, they may feel the need to try to fix it, or smash it into little pieces.

Now what about calling a copier repair guy?

Do you know for sure they will be able to help you in time before that report is due?

Which repair service should you call?

How long will it take for them to get there?

Could this have been prevented?

Expert Laser Services Partnership Program (our MPS program, now known as PrintDOME) is the answer to these and many other questions regarding this stressful scenario. Please see the video below.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

MPS, Headache Medicine for IT professionals

In your office chances are there is one person who would be even more happy than the CEO should your company plan to implement an MPS program. Your IT professional. Check out this funny video above!

This is the first part of a series of video posts about the benefits of MPS, namely our MPS.

Monday, June 8, 2009

Everyone and their Cousin?

I just finished reading an article at business transformation resource center (here) entitled "Four Keys to Selling MPS In Tough Economic Times" within the first couple of paragraphs I came across this unsettling comment "In the last six to eight months, managed print services has become extremely hot, so much so we are seeing everybody and his cousin get involved."

I must say that to me this translates to the idea that within the realm of managed print services there is going to be a slew of "jacks of all trades" who are masters of none, well not MPS anyway. With that in mind I would like to draw attention to the following bit of information from the same article "According to MPS research and analysis firm Photizo Group, MPS contracts could grow at a 22 percent compound annual growth rate through 2012." If you are a business owner who is considering an MPS program for your business I would like to ask you, does everybody and his cousin really have the experience and expertise to successfully run an MPS program for your company and truly save you the most money while providing you with the best service? I think not...

Point: When looking for an MPS company to manage your printer fleet, do your homework! Find a company who has the experience, and references to show that they truly are MPS experts.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Rookies in the major league of MPS


Photo by Rafael Amado Deras'

I recently commented at the Photizo Group's Managed Print Services blog about a point made in this post regarding the growth of MPS and the necessary evolution of hardware centric business models to professional service business models based on delivering Managed Print Services of traditional vendors. See below.

11:02 AM
Nathan Dube said...
In your opinion what makes a great MPS company? You mentioned that traditional resellers will be out of business within the next five years if they fail to make the transition to the new business model. So assuming some of these businesses see the changes ahead and create their own MPS programs, what would you say a customer should look for in a great MPS company? When so many companies will be scrambling to offer their own MPS product how does a customer separate the true MPS professionals from old school vendors who are throwing up a new sign and trying to sell you MPS in a box?

12:02 PM
Photizo Group said...
Nathan, you have a good question. The answer is, from my point of view, that there is no 'single' best dealer program. I guess the closest I could define is the Hybrid dealer. This is the dealer that has transitioned from a hardware centric sales focus to a professional services delivery focus. Check out our web site (www.managed-print-services.com) for more information.

While the MPS industry may seem fairly new and while the Photizo Group has made a point that traditional vendors will have to adjust to the demands of the MPS industry if they wish to survive, I must say that while there may be no single best dealer program there is in fact (not unlike the realm of baseball) rookies and major league veterans in this industry and the big name vendors who are transitioning to this industry are not always the later. Expert Laser Services for example (of whom I am biased), has been providing a top notch MPS program for more than 19 years. We are in comparison to some companies a small company. However compared to some of the new "Hybrid Dealers" we are one of the true veterans of the MPS world while some of these larger companies have just been called up from the minors so to speak.

No matter how big the name, or how many millions of dollars some of these larger companies make on a global scale, compared to us they are but newbies. The list on
this post at Photizos blog are excellent points about what one should know about MPS. Surely many traditional vendors are scrambling to meet these expectations and ready them selves to make the transition spoken of at Photizo's blog. However even when a giant "old school" vendor with no prior MPS experience takes the time to study, organize, and eventually launch an MPS program and enter the MPS industry, they lack the one thing that we have. Expertise. No matter how you look at it, regardless of the preparations the rookies have made... the major league is a whole other ballgame and in the world of MPS there are smaller MPS companies like Expert Laser Services who are the true veterans of the game. Visit us here and compare our program and years of experience to some of these new "Hybrid Dealers" and decide for your self. Who do you want on your team?