Hampton, Iowa may not be a major urban center and may not be a city that comes readily to mind when you think of ahead of the curve innovation, but this Iowa hamlet is quietly surfing a new tech wave that is sweeping the newspaper publishing industry.
Pushing time-worn processes aside, Mid-America Publishing, a third-generation publishing house based in Hampton embraced industry-leading new tech and moved their outdated, legacy workflow system to the hosted, cloud-based production environment offered by Presteligence, NewsXtreme Cloud.
The innovation was a sea of change and involved some plotting, but the switch is paying off as Mid-America reaps the benefits of a streamlined pre-press workflow.
I spoke with Mike Enzenauer, Pressroom Manager for Mid-America Publishing regarding his experience with NewsXtreme Cloud.
How much production is currently being run through NewsXtreme Cloud?
We've got 34 publications each week along with 3 grocery stores, plus any extra runs. This week there's 10 but that number varies week by week.
What's it like using NewsXtreme Cloud?
I create the schedules in NewsXtreme. People send the pages and they immediately show up. There isn't a delay. I approve the plates and the files get FTP'd for release to CTP. It's not a big deal and I'm rather enjoying it!
How has NewsXtreme Cloud improved your print production?
Everything looks better across the board. It was either that we didn't have the latest update or something was failing but it was nowhere near the quality of NewsXtreme Cloud. There is such good print detail. Ink miser is phenomenal! We are new to ink optimization. All of our pictures and grocery inserts come out sharper.
What surprised you the most about using Cloud services?
I was skeptical at first; mostly because the hands-on training wouldn't be in-house like we're accustomed to. However, the whole experience has been good. Presteligence did a great job training us and making us comfortable with the new system.
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