Acccording to the article referenced below, the FTC is planning to update its guidelines as what actually constitutes a "Green" label as soon as early 2009.

The updated guidelines will take into account new and current technologies in an effort to provide the consumer with an assurance that the company is truly "Green".

Read the entire article at://http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=93003

RISO has been manufacturing environmentally friendly printing devices for over 20 years! Visit us at: https://us.riso.com/

RISO’s Dallas branch contributes to local conservation effort while advancing the company’s national tree planting campaign with the Arbor Day Foundation

On December 19, 2008 RISO's Dallas branch donated two trees to the Trinity River Audubon Center in Dallas, TX. Members of RISO’s Dallas branch joined Audubon Texas staff and volunteers at the Trinity River Audubon Center for a dedication event and planted the two trees, which were specially selected for the surrounding wetlands.

“We greatly appreciate this generous donation by RISO,” said Chris Culak, Director of Trinity River Audubon Center. “Located on reclaimed land, these trees will help us meet the Center’s goal of turning a municipal liability into a major asset. In addition, these new trees tie into our other sustainable efforts, which include the Center’s vegetated roof, rainwater collection system, energy efficient systems and use of recycled materials.”

“It is an honor to make this donation to the Trinity River Audubon Center,” said Michael Samson, Dallas Branch Manager for RISO, Inc. “The Center is much in line with the goals of RISO’s tree planting campaign, which is to work to improve our local community and have a positive impact on the environment in the process.”

About The Trinity River Audubon Center:
Sustainably built and LEED-certified gold, the Trinity River Audubon Center is situated on 120 acres of the Great Trinity Forest, the largest urban bottomland hardwood forest in the U.S. TRAC represents a combined $37 million restoration and capital improvement project that was funded and built by the City of Dallas. The Center is a partnership between the City of Dallas and the National Audubon Society. Located just eight minutes from downtown Dallas, TRAC is the flagship for Audubon’s science education and conservation initiatives in Texas. The Center is located at 6500 S. Loop 12, Dallas, TX 75217. More information can be found by calling 214-370-9967 or at http://www.trinityriveraudubon.org/.

The highest 2009 priority for printing equipment buyers is high-speed production digital color printers with speeds of more than 60 pages per minute. These are the findings from a December-2008 survey of print service providers, print brokers, and in-plants, by Digital Publishing Solutions and Madison Advisors. About 29% of the respondents placed high-speed color devices at the top their of list, with 23% targeting 80+ ppm monochrome production sheet-fed machines. About 8% have production sheet-fed spot color devices at number one. The in-plant respondents in this survey represent the banking, insurance, financial service, information service, and educational service sectors. See the article in DPS magazine's December 2008 issue. Click here.


Once again, this survey demonstrates the continuing market demand for high-speed sheet-fed digital color. Even in this chilling economy, document producers recognize that color and digital print technology are the safest and smartest investment for their production print needs. Any organization wanting a sheet-fed color device that prints 120 ppm at ultra-low costs should learn about RISO inkjet printers.

Currently use of the Intelligent Bar Code is optional, but it makes good sense to switch as soon as you can to take advantage of its many benefits.
The 31 digits offer more encoding of information, allowing for unique identification of up to a billion mailpieces per mailing.
Provides more accurate and detailed information about mailings which can enable better decision making.
And it eliminates the need for multiple barcodes which opens up valuable "real estate" for marketing information.
Isn't that the mailer's purpose?
Interested in using affordable full-color for your direct mail? See RISO's Full-color inkjet printer at http://us.riso.com/

See why our products are some of the most environmentally friendly printers on the planet. This 3 minute video covers topics like energy savings, e-waste, emissions, energy star and much more..



To see more RISO videos visit us on You Tube

To learn more about RISO's environmental efforts click here

In today’s economy we are all looking to boost revenue.

The Market Report wrote a great issue on November 17, 2008 and suggests four ways to pump new life into an existing campaign.

1. Add Graphics:
Consider adding illustrations, photos or charts, to help prospects understanding of the message

2. Test new headlines:
Try Changing the biggest words on the page can triple or quadruple results.

3. Polish small type:
Change opening sentences so they flow with new headlines. Let the reader absorb the message without having to read the small print

4. Add another channel:
Direct mail works the best in combination with the Internet. Sending a postcard to a prospect and then direct them to a dedicated Web site.


RISO, Inc has the technology to help you boost your revenue, visit our Web site to check out all the products, from a range of duplicators to the full color ink jet HC5500 printer.
Click here

Looking to add that personal touch while not hindering all over productivity? Variable Data Printing may be the answer to your personalized printing needs. VDP projects will not only help you increase sales in a print service provider environment, but it will also give you an example of how VDP works to show to your customers.

Printers use VDP to write “personal” letters to each of their customers, indentifying each of them by first name and their business name in the context of the letter. This personal touch is created simply through a template, but customers feel as though each letter is personally addressed to them. This method of approaching customers has been very effective in numerous markets, but in the case of a printer, this increases the number of inquiries about how the letters were personalized. This creates an opportunity for the printer to demonstrate how they created the personalized message, and sell!

For ideas of how VDP can be effective for your organization visit Click Here
This site can give you ideas on how to sell and use VDP as well as manage a marketing database. A list of VDP solution providers is also provided.

How to Begin a VDP Project:

VDP isn’t easy. It requires a mix of some technical skill and marketing savvy. Luckily, it adds a value that the customer understands and will pay more for.

(Steps provided by Quick Printing)

• Start with a template. Design a project in Quark or InDesign and create a template that gives you an example of where variable test and graphics will go. Give the areas that will the variable data specific names.

• In the first row of the data file, make a header row and title the columns using the same names you marked on the hard copy of your piece. The header row should show all the file names. Every database column will represent a different variable field name used in the layout or template. Each row after the header is a record and equates to all the data needed to complete a printed piece.

• Clean and filter your data. If you doing a complex project from multiple data into a single data file. Delete fields that are not used. Proof the data and review it for accuracy before you give it to the printer.

• Export your data either in Comma Separated Values (.CSV) or Tab Delimited text file formats.

VDP is not easy as mentioned above, but once mastered is definitely worth the time becoming familiar with as it is an innovative and profitable tool.

BMEU (business Mail Entry Units) started accepting letters with Intelligent Mail barcode in September of 2006.

Use expanded in May of 2007 to include automation-rate flat-size mailpieces.

Mailers have the option to use the Intelligent Mail barcode on letter and flat mail for the Confirm® Service,
also known as OneCode Confirm™ and a version of Address Change Service™ (ACS™), known as OneCode ACS™.




















Mailers can use the barcode on First-Class Mail®, Standard Mail®, and Periodicals when participationg in OneCode Confirm and OneCode ACS.

Current Confirm subscribers should contact Confirm Customer Service at 800 238 3150 for help on how to use their subscriber ID within the Mailer ID field.


Source: http://ribbs.usps.gov/


Maximize your direct mail savings by printing with RISO's Full-color Inkjet printer! See us at us.riso.com

TEMPE, Ariz. – Mitchell Park was the first park in Tempe to benefit from the recently revitalized Trees for Tempe program. The summer storms damaged or destroyed many of Mitchell Park’s trees, but on Saturday, Dec. 6, at 8 a.m., volunteers from the Mitchell Park East and Mitchell Park West Neighborhood Associations branched out to restore the park’s tree population by planting 45 15-gallon trees. One 48-inch box tree was also planted at the entrance of Mitchell Park to replace an iconic Mesquite tree that was also damaged by the monsoons.

Forty of the trees used on Saturday are a kind contribution to Trees for Tempe by the RISO's Phoenix branch.


RISO launched a partnership with the Arbor Day Foundation earlier this year to help plant 100,000 trees over the next four years, and the Phoenix sales branch is doing its part to reach that goal. In addition to planting trees, RISO’s various printing products have a lower environmental impact than traditional printing technologies that in turn help customers conserve energy, reduce waste and use environmentally-friendly features such as soy-based inks.

“Through our partnership with the Arbor Day Foundation, we are honored to make a positive impact on the communities that we serve,” said Dan Raffety, Phoenix Branch Sales Manager for RISO, Inc. “We are pleased to support the Trees for Tempe program.”

Before the planting began, one of Tempe’s certified arborists instructed the volunteers from Mitchell Park East and Mitchell Park West on how to properly plant and care for a tree. The volunteers then dug in to plant Thornless Mesquite, Ash, Chinese Pistache, Elm and Museum Palo Verde trees throughout the park.

About Trees for Tempe
Trees for Tempe is a program that aims to replace the more than 400 Tempe-owned trees that were damaged or lost during the summer storms of 2008, and to provide opportunities for Tempe residents and businesses to participate by way of monetary donations and volunteer service. Trees for Tempe was initiated in 2006 by Dr. Paul Bonham, a Tempe orthodontist who pledged to give $40 to the city for every new patient to help replace trees uprooted from the storms. After this summer's destructive winds and rains once again tore through Tempe's tree population, the program was revived and expanded to rebuild the city's urban forest.


Visit www.tempe.gov/parks for more information.
To view the press release click here
To learn more about RISO's environmental efforts click here

The state of our economy is no surprise to us, but the many ways in which it affects all major players may come as surprise to many. By now we are all aware of the major bailouts for banks and lenders. Being aware is one thing, preparing for how it affects individuals and key markets is another.

In a recent article written in the “NAPL Business Review” profit margins are being squeezed, not only for print, but also throughout the economy in general. Business environments as a whole have decreased dramatically in the last year: leaving very little room for error. The important thing to remember is not to confuse urgency with a rush judgment or action – “We have to do something.” Urgent matters more than ever still require deliberate and focused analysis to develop appropriate solutions.

What they are predicting is feeble growth at best. “During the first three quarters of the year, sales for the commercial printing industry, from all sources, are estimated to be down 1.5% over a year ago --- a far cry from the almost 5.5% gain recorded during a similar period in 2006.” Business conditions in general have deteriorated and there are no significant signs of any meaningful improvement occurring any time soon. It is feasible that conditions may get worse before they get better.

A weak economy and weak advertising go hand in hand, and as much as our industry trends are changing, no industry is more important to print, than the advertising industry. Printers should not be surprised by that the weakness in advertising has put a damper on print demand. This challenge has placed more push fro shifts in media uses and have defined more issues for the printing industry. Clients have more and more forms of communications available today and more appearing in the horizon.

“In the advertising segments, newspapers have been hit the hardest, with advertising in national and local newspapers expected to be down 7% and 8% respectively. At the other end of advertizing, the Internet continues to record a sizeable gain, with online ad spending expected to gain 12% this year to $11.8 billion.” Direct mail is expected to rise 2.5% this year to $61.7 billion, which is part of the remaining 22% of the overall share of advertising and remains a major component of the total.

Investments decisions need to be well researched in light of our current economic times. Before we ultimately pronounce the demise of print’s share of advertising due to the steady decline of the past year, we must note that print’s advertising share remains above 40% and is expected to total more than $114 billion in 2008. Direct mail’s share of the advertising pie continues to increase. Print is not dead!

The most important trend that we have seen as a trend is that companies are changing their priorities. Reaching profit goals over the next three years will mean vigilantly watching every decision made and the financial impact it will have on the company as a whole. Priorities are changing in regards to top investment objectives.
Below is a chart to show what 6 of 10 companies have been cited as primary objectives over the next three years. State of the Industry participants’ primary investment objectives over the next three years.


Most companies are cutting back on wasteful spending. They are focusing on investing money in “more efficient workflow/ improved productivity”, “serving their current markets more profitably” and “reducing labor costs/automation.” More companies are focusing on improving their core investing money for “training employees/education” and “web-to-print capabilities.” Another investment priority standing strong is “variable digital printing and mailing.”

RISO like all companies in the printing industries is affected by the economic trends that we now find ourselves. As a company we make investments in manufacturing cost-effective digital duplicators and full color inkjet printers. Saving our customers money and increasing their overall productivity helps to serve our current markets not just in times of crisis, but on a daily basis. Diversifying our products to expand into new markets gives us a leading edge. And when in doubt we always invest in our employees. Training is an integral part of what makes us unique, more productive and efficient. Environmental campaigns are not a new concept for RISO as we have been involved in numerous ways since the early 80’s. We at RISO definitely say, “Print is not dead.”

University Printing Services, school officials and RISO’s South Carolina branch come together to dedicate the tree at USC Upstate Rotary International Peace Park.



On Dec. 5, 2008 – RISO's South Carolina branch donated a Summer Red Maple tree in honor of the annual Arbor Day Celebration hosted by University of South Carolina Upstate (USC Upstate) Alumni Association. The tree, donated by RISO on behalf of the University’s printing services department, was dedicated at an event held today at the USC Upstate Rotary International Peace Park in Spartanburg, SC.

"The Printing Services Center at USC Upstate has been a RISO customer for nearly 15 years," said Charmaine Hazekamp, Director of Printing Services for the University of South Carolina Upstate. "We are honored that RISO has chosen to show their appreciation to our campus by donating a Summer Red Maple in our department’s honor at our Arbor Day Celebration. This tree will certainly enhance the beauty of our campus for many years to come."

"RISO’s commitment to the Arbor Day Foundation has proven to be beneficial not only to the environment, but also the local communities we serve,” said Bryan Williams, South Carolina Branch Sales Manager for RISO, Inc. “I am pleased our branch was able to come together with the University’s printing services department to donate this tree in honor of the USC Upstate Alumni Association’s annual Arbor Day celebration.”

To view the press release click here

To learn more about RISO's environmental efforts click here

On Dec. 5, 2008 – RISO's Chicago branch advanced the company’s environmental stewardship by holding the company’s first tree planting event in the Midwest and it was cold.

A dedication was held at Hilda Walker Intermediate School in Frankfort, IL. School officials including Principal Jan Zevkovich, Assistant Principal Christine Hudziak and Superintendent Keith Pain were joined by employees from the RISO Chicago branch to plant the donated Autumn Blaze Maple tree at the school.

On December 3rd, 2008, officials from Pembroke Pines Florida including the Mayor, Vice-Mayor and Parks & Recreation joined RISO for a tree planting dedication at Rose G. Price Park.

"We appreciate the commitment RISO has made to Pembroke Pines," said Mayor Frank C. Ortis. "Suffice to say, partnerships which improve the environment and community benefit everyone!"

The ceremony included the following representatives from Pembroke Pines: Mayor Frank C. Ortis, Vice-Mayor Carl Shechter, Commissioners Angelo Castillo and Jack McCluskey, along with Dean Combs, Director of Parks & Recreation. Jose Hoyo, Florida Branch Sales Manager and employees of the branch represented RISO.

RISO recently implemented a tree planting campaign with the company’s branch offices across the United States.

A customer of RISO's San Francisco branch is undergoing a major remodeling and RISO was happy to donate two Evergreen Trees to Cunha Middle School in Half Moon Bay, CA. The trees will go toward the school's remodeling project and were dedicated at a planting ceremony on Monday, December 1, 2008.
The ceremony was attended by representatives from RISO's San Francisco Branch; Naomi Patridge, a member of the Half Moon Bay City Council; Ed Watkins, Construction Manager for Cabrillo Unified School District; John Nazar, Assistant Principal; and a group of seventh graders from Cunha Middle School.

To learn more about RISO's environmental efforts click here

When Printing a Variable Data Processing (VDP) job on the HC5500 printer with IS700C ComColor Express RIP, there are some things you should do to ensure the job will be done in the shortest time.

1. Queue the document to a RAW port. The RAW port effectively changes the HC5500 from a job printer (where the entire job is ripped prior to printing) to a page printer (where each page will print as soon as it is ripped.)

2. In the print driver open the finishing tab and ensure that the Output Face is set to Face up (The default is Auto which will run each page of the document through the duplexor placing it face down in the output tray.) Place a check mark in the Reverse Order box. (This will notify the ComColor Express RIP to process the job from last page to first.)

The VDP job will print at 120 pages per minute placing the individual pages in ascending order (last page on the bottom; first page on the top) in the output tray. Leaving the print driver at the default will slow printing to about 92 pages per minute as it will use the duplexor to invert the pages into descending order and face down.

I just got off the phone with National Customer Support Center Technical Support Help Desk (877 640 0724). Current status shows that PostNet will "go away" in May 2011-effectively making the Intelligent Bar Code the logical choice. These are however, plans and plans are subject to change-but this is accurate as of 10/29/08 based on the phone call.
Good resource of information: http://ribbs.usps.gov/OneCodeSolution/USPSIMB_QandA.pdf

There's also a great little video about the Intelligent Bar code, if you're interested.

RISO manufacturers and sells a range of high speed digital duplicators and inkjet printers for print-on-demand applications. Visit our site at http://us.riso.com/