Hip replaced & back to pricing study

Hi everyone,

To be honest, even I did not think the total hip replacement would go as smooth as it did.
I went ino surgery at approximately 11:30 a.m. Wed. and I was in recovery around 2 p.m. And then up to my room shortly thereafter.
The next morning (today), I was convinced my right leg was paralyzed permanently since I could not feel it or move it. I guessed that was the reason I didn't see a soul until around 10 a.m.... They were simply afraid to tell me.
Finally, the OT comes in with a walker and teaches me all the tricks for getting out of bed... I told her I was paralyzed and she just laughed. As soon as she left I used the walker and was standing there when the two PTs came to the room. One of them said he had never seen a patient moving around like
I was so soon after surgery. That made me feel great.
I go home tomorrow and I know I have lots of work remaining... At least now I can jump back on the pricing study like I never left.

Just Having Fun With Pricing Survey

I am not sure why, but I have so much fun working on huge spreadsheets, and I certainly have one on my hands... the 2012-13 Quick Printing Industry Pricing Study spreadsheet is approximately 246,400 cells in size, and is packed with data most printers can utilize as soon as they receive it.
As we have done in the past, we are leaving nothing to chance, providing you with averages, medians, majority high, majority low, as well as tables that provide total prices as well as unit prices.
There are a few surprises in the placement of digitial color copiers, both for primary copiers as well as second (backup) copiers but we will leave that alone for right now...
As I get closer to the end, I will be posting on here as well as my normal Quick Consultant Column some graphs, charts and sample data for you to puruse until the study is published.
I am trying to squeeze in a 50th high school reunion and a total hip replacement, all in the next eight days... that should prove exciting.
For those of you who have had hip replacements in the past, I am having an anterior replacement and I am assured the recovery will be much faster and the operation itself a lot less painful. Being a "wus" for pain that suits me well.
If you want to take advantage of a pre-publication special price of $143 be sure to visit my web site at: www.quickconsultant.com before Oct. 12, 2012.

Update on Industry Pricing Study

We've just completed spending 36 hours cleaning up survey data and will begin tomorrow extracting data from the 2012-2013 Quick Printing Industry Pricing Study.
Save 20% with Pre-Publication Offer - The new study goes on Pre-publication sale tomorrow at $143.
Publication Date - The study will be released on Oct. 12th, if not sooner, so between now and then printers can save 20% off the retail price of $179. Visit www.quickconsultant.com for details on how to order. If you wait until after it is released, you will be charged the full retail price of the study.
We could have charged a lot more and justified that price, but we want to make sure that everyone who didn't participate wasn't being gouged with prices in the $229 range and higher.
You can buy our study without breaking the bank and without having to sell-off one or two of your grandchildren!
Excellent Data - The data we are getting is the best ever, although it takes a tremendous amount of time pulling it all together and using both automated and manual methods for clarifying and/or correcting bad data.
Doing it Right or Throwing it Together - You can't throw together a pricing study and report accurate data to the industry at large without knowing all the tricks of the game, and without a lot of experience to boot, and that's exactly what NAQP/NAPL lacks - experience publishing pricing studies. To be blunt, they are destined to make a lot of mistakes at your expense. Their turnout has been low, with some questions receiving only a handful of answers. Insiders report that at one point they actually considered cancelling their survey because of poor turn-out.
Don't Get Me Wrong - NAPL has an excellent, widely respected team of economists working on staff and I admire their work. Unfortunately there is a world of difference between studying and reporting economic trends and studying and reporting industry pricing trends. In fact, no matter how they try to color it, they shouldn't be even attempting such a project.
No Expertise - These folks just don't have the expertise to know what data should be included and what should be excluded or modified. If you don't know where you are going, you're not going to no what adjustments and corrections are required to produce an accurate pricing study. Plus they are under tremendous pressure to get this study published (that's what they promised) by Graph Expo which is less than three weeks away.
Hold Off on Buying or Making Key Decisions - With 25 years of experience producing Pricing Studies in this industry, I take great pride in producing the most comprehensive, most accurate pricing studies in the industry, and I don't want folks to be misled accidentally and making pricing decisions based upon any data released by NAQP/NAPL - At least not until you've had a chance to thorough examine our publication.
100% Money-Back Guarantee - Best yet, our study, like all of our studies, is offered on a 100% money-back guarantee. If you are not totally satisfied that our study delivers what it promises then simply return it within 7 days and we will issue an immediate refund - that's how confident we are about our new 2012-2013 Quick Printing Industry Pricing Study. 

NAQP Violates Confidentiality of Participants

LOW TURN-OUT AND NO SECURITY

ARE HALLMARKS OF NEW NAQP SURVEY

First, If you participated in my 2012-2013 Quick Printing Industry Pricing Survey, I want to sincerely thank you for your efforts and trust.

Second, if you participated in NAQP's Digital and Wide Format Pricing Survey, or are considering taking advantage of their recently extended Sept. 17th deadline, you need to think again.

When you receive your free copy of their study, or start to enter your data because of the deadline extension, you need to seriously consider THREE KEY FACTS.

(1) Launched on Aug. 17, 2012, NAQP's Pricing Survey violated the most basic of all survey tenets, and that is to test thoroughly before launching - i.e "First, do no harm."

They didn't do that, and as a result for the first 17 DAYS the survey was on line every bit of confidential information including names, annual sales volume and of course pricing was available for viewing by both participants and even casual observers.

That means that if you participated in this survey, everyone, including possible competitors, could see the answers to each of your questions, including your sales, email addresses, and your answers to hundreds of questions.

With almost 30-year's experience in this industry, I believe this was an inexcusable error for a major trade association. Furthermore, I place 100% of the blame on the association and not the survey company that produced their survey. They may try to pass the buck, but their excuses simply won't pass the "smell" test. They screwed up and did it royally!

It is up to the client conducting the survey to decide what shall be visible and what is not. There are times when you might want certain information available and displayed so this type of window or backdoor is always available, but it needs to be exercised with caution and it is up to the association to exercise this caution by taking their own survey before releasing it to the public. Obviously, NAQP, in its rapid rush to distribute and publish a pricing study in competition to my own, released their study without ever thoroughly checking it over.

(2) The only good news for NAQP (if there was any) is that the rate of response was so poor up through the first 17 days fo the survey that it came as no surprise they decided to extend the deadline. While the release of confidential data is inexcusable, in only affected a relatively small number of printers!

How small? By Sept. 3rd, NAQP had received a GRAND TOTAL of only 53 surveys, with 21 or more companies skipping a significant number of questions.

(3) Large Format Questions Receive Lowest Response - When NAQP released its competing survey they defended it by noting that it covered Large Format Printing, something our pricing study didn't cover. Well guess what section got the most dismal response? - Large Format. I todl them that would happen. In fact, according to data we obtained, approximately 60-65% of their participants never even answered the questions on Large Format.

What does that mean? Well when you start of with 53 surveys submitted, and only 35% or so choose to answer questions on Large Format, that means in some cases less than 18 firms are providing answers upon which you will base your report to the industry! Folks, that's just too little data upon which to base a study. Knowing survey data as I do, NAQP will be forced to correct or delete at least 4-5 of those 18 answers so the reliability of the data will continue to plunge. If you decide to read this report, do so after taking a few grains of salt. You will need it!

With only six days to go before the end of their originally posted deadline, it shouldn't have come as any surprise to anyone that they decided on Sept. 6th to extend their survey deadline to Sept. 17th. Now, it's possible many more surveys will come pouring in in the next 7 days, but in my experience that is highly unlikely.

Why? Because NAQP is not only inexperienced conducting pricing and benchmarking studies, but they also lack basic marketing skills to take on a project such as this. It will be interesting to see how they try to put a good face on all of this, especially the violation of confidentiality, and attempt to create a "silk purse" out of a "sow's ear."

Based upon my experience in this industry, any increases in participation levels they receive in the last seven days of an extension will remain modest, and they will still end up with a relatively small amount of data replete with many questionable entries.

Of course after revealing the above, it will be interesting to note whether NAQP decides to even publish this study considering the low rate of return. If they do go ahead and publish it, I assume they will report what all good surveys do and that is the "N" number for surveys submitted, as well as the "N" number for at least individual sections, if not individual questions.

If I was one of those 53 firms that submitted their survey by Sept. 4th, I would be pissed at how irresponsible NAQP was in the handling of my data, and second I would demand my money back! Oh wait, you didn't have to pay so that option is out. Of course, you could invoice the association for the time spent completing the survey but that would be a bit too much!

Check my web page in the next couple of days to read my latest column on this association fiasco!