When Nick Keegan launched his startup a decade ago, he was building a mobile app to organize household bills. It flopped. But the idea that failed turned into one of Europe’s most interesting customer-communications stories.

Today, Mail Metrics sits at the intersection of print and digital communication platforms a digital-first technology company that also happens to be Ireland’s largest transactional printer.

If that sounds familiar, it’s because Amit Sawhney, CEO of FCI in India, described almost the same journey in an earlier podcast. Both leaders telling a similar story: technology-led firms using print as an access point to win trust, control data, and modernize how regulated communications are created, tracked, and delivered.

The Turning Point

By 2020 Mail Metrics had no presses. Then came a string of acquisitions like Persona, Fourth Communications, Dafil, and then Adare SEC giving it full control from data to delivery. Keegan discovered that transforming communications requires owning the last mile, not abandoning it.

“We thought going digital meant less print,” he told me. “It turned out the more digital we offered, the more print clients trusted us with.”

The Mail Metrics Model

Keegan rejects the math that has trapped many PSPs. Selling digital messages for fractions of a cent while pricing print by the page is a race to the bottom. His answer: sell the platform: the secure, audited, multi-channel engine behind regulatory communications.

It’s a different conversation with a different buyer, one who values compliance and customer experience over simply cost-per-envelope.

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Europe Ahead, U.S. Behind

Keegan views digitization as uneven across markets. Denmark and parts of Europe are already paperless. The UK is mid-curve. The U.S.? Still mailing half of the world’s letters with only 4 % of its population. For him, that’s not decline, it’s opportunity, with a clear focus on targeting print-first PSPs in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Investment and AI

Private equity is fueling consolidation, but Keegan warns that capital alone won’t create platforms. Transformation requires technology DNA. And while AI is now the default buzzword, Mail Metrics treats it as a toolkit for incremental improvements optimizing journeys, processing inbound data, and speeding template creation rather than a headline.

Andy’s Take

Mail Metrics is the inverse of the typical U.S. print service provider. Where most PSPs were born from ink and paper and are now chasing digital relevance, Mail Metrics began as a digital company and deliberately acquired print capacity to accelerate that transition.

Its strategy isn’t about keeping presses busy it’s about using technology to make mail meaningful again, in all its forms, not just on paper. Backed by private equity, Mail Metrics is also part of a larger story playing out across the industry: investors are betting that the next wave of growth won’t come from more volume, but from smarter orchestration.

Closing Invite

If you’re in London on November 12, join us for Communicate ’25 at King’s Cross — where leaders from across Europe will discuss how digital-first thinking is reshaping customer communications and I will be giving the opening keynote.

Thirty two years ago, Adobe launched Acrobat and the Portable Document Format. Two years later, in 1995, I met Duff Johnson. He walked into my office, and I showed him what we were doing with PDF. The rest, as they say, is history.

That same year, my company Emerge was named Adobe’s Premium VAR (Value Added Reseller) of the Year, a recognition that reflected just how quickly PDF was starting to reshape the world of documents and digital workflows. We were all learning in real time what “digital paper” could become and nobody could have guessed how far it would go.

Since then, Duff has been one of the leading forces behind PDF’s evolution first as an evangelist, later as the architect of its standards, and now as CEO of the PDF Association, the global body that maintains the format’s technical and accessibility specifications.

When Adobe released the PDF specification to ISO in 2008, Duff and a small international team took on the responsibility of ensuring the format’s long-term health. Today, PDF is second only to HTML as the most common format on the web—used everywhere from contracts and invoices to shipping labels and government archives.

“PDF has become nearly invisible infrastructure,” Duff said. “Everybody assumes it’s there and that it just works. Try living without it.”

The Shape of Digital Paper

Most people think of PDF as “digital paper” or a way to fix the look of a page on screen. But Duff reminds us that under the hood, PDF is a page description language capable of carrying structured data, annotations, forms, and even 3-D models. One developer once described it as a “free-form database,” and Duff agrees.

That flexibility is what has kept PDF relevant while other formats have come and gone. It allows developers to render exact replicas of printed output—or to extract, tag, and reuse data for accessibility, AI ingestion, or interactive applications. Half of all new PDF files created today are “tagged,” meaning they include semantic information that makes them readable by both humans and machines.

The Accessibility Imperative

Duff’s team has spent decades advancing tagged PDF and the global PDF/UA (Universal Accessibility) standard. Europe now mandates accessible PDFs for public content, and the U.S. isn’t far behind.

“Accessible PDF is far more in reach today than it’s ever been,” Duff noted. “The limitation isn’t technology. It’s policy, process, and training.”

AI will soon help here, too. Machine learning can propose headings, detect structure, or auto-tag content before a human validates it. The goal: billions of legacy PDFs made fully accessible without manual remediation.

PDF vs. Toilet Paper

During our conversation, I mentioned that critics have called PDF “the single-ply toilet paper of business documents” which is technically functional, but clunky, static, and frustrating on mobile. Duff laughed and didn’t disagree entirely.

“It’s actually one of my favorite analogies,” he said. “PDF and toilet paper have a lot in common. For example, nobody likes to talk about them, everyone assumes they just work, and you only notice when they don’t. But most importantly, try living without either one.”

In other words: the world might complain about PDF, but it can’t function without it. Reliable, secure, and universally shareable digital documents are as fundamental to modern life as running water or, toilet paper.

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AI and the Future of PDF

If AI is the new frontier, PDF is one of its richest terrains. But, as Duff cautions, most AI systems treat PDFs like flat images by scraping text rather than reading the structured data they already contain. That wastes compute power and loses meaning.

He envisions a future where AI tools respect PDF’s internal semantics, reducing cost, improving accuracy, and allowing creators to embed “do not ingest” metadata for copyright control (the new TDMRep protocol).

“We’re waiting for the AI world to realize PDF isn’t just a picture. It’s data, structure, and meaning already packaged together,” said Duff.

What’s Next for the Standard

Current work at the PDF Association and ISO includes better compression, high-dynamic-range (HDR) imaging, and richer embedded content. These efforts ensure PDF remains future-proof for archiving, accessibility, and intelligent automation.

“PDF isn’t about nostalgia for print,” Duff explained. “It’s about reliability, authenticity, and the ability to share information offline and across systems. Try running a business or a civilization without that.”

Andy’s Take

For all the jokes about digital toilet paper, PDF’s real magic is in what it quietly enables: trust. It bridges decades of digital transformation without breaking a link.

It’s a file format that connects 1993 to 2025 an unglamorous but indispensable connective tissue spanning 32 years of our digital world.

PDF isn’t going anywhere. It’s just getting smarter.

In this 14th episode of Above the Treeline, I sit down with Kim Lykissas, co-founder of Cadence Communications, an independent advisory and managed services firm based in Sydney, Australia. Cadence helps banks, insurers, and pension funds optimize their “essential communications ecosystems” which is everything from compliance-driven customer communications to experience design, content governance, and brand alignment.

“We saw a need for a truly independent voice, one that wasn’t tied to a print bureau, a large corporate, or a software vendor,” Kim says.

Both Kim and his business partner, Dave Robinson, came out of Computershare, a global financial systems provider also based in Australia. Their vision for Cadence is to help organizations modernize their customer communication stacks with neutral, experience-first strategy, not vendor bias.

Digital Adoption, Regulatory Change, and the Decline of Print

Australia and New Zealand are experiencing a dramatic shift toward insourced, digital-first communication models. Much of it is being driven not just by consumer behavior but by regulatory modernization. Governments are updating rules that once required physical delivery, clearing the path for secure digital channels.

“Consumers are saying, I don’t want all this paper,” Kim notes. “And once governments free up the rules, everything changes.”

Add to that postage inflation, environmental pressure, and rising digital literacy even among older consumers and the result is an accelerated transition away from print.

Cadence’s clients such as banks, insurers, and superannuation (IRA) providers — are increasingly buying and operating their own CCM software platforms rather than outsourcing to print vendors. It’s a regional pattern that may soon define global best practice.

The Print Service Provider Crossroads

Kim and I dug into a topic that hits close to home for many of my readers: what happens to U.S. PSPs as transactional print volumes drop by another 50% or more?

“If your view of the world of CCM is composition, you’re legacy,” Kim says bluntly.

He sees a “last-man-standing” race among print providers and only those who become ultra-efficient in print and invest in advanced digital capability will remain relevant.

Trying to grow digital capabilities organically within a traditional print operation, he warns, is “hard work” and often too slow to compete with digital-native solutions.

Instead, he points to examples like Broadridge’s acquisition of Signal where investment in digital expertise fast-tracked transformation.

CX Has Left the Basement

Customer communications used to live deep in IT a function of operations and compliance. Not anymore. Today, ownership is shifting toward Chief Customer Officers, Growth Officers, and CX leaders, signaling the convergence of RegTech, MarTech, and Data.

Cadence research shows that 70–80% of customer touchpoints in financial institutions are transactional, not marketing. Those moments, Kim argues, define the customer relationship far more than a marketing campaign ever will.

“If you’re relying on two marketing messages to build the relationship, you’re missing the point,” he says.

AI and the Real-Time Future

The conversation naturally turned to AI not as hype, but as trajectory.

Kim foresees a world where every interaction is real-time, personalized, and orchestrated by automation far beyond today’s batch-based CCM.

Humans will stay “in the loop” for trust and compliance, but AI will handle orchestration and insight at scale.

The Most Valuable Data Point

Asked which matters most: postal address, email, or mobile number, Kim didn’t hesitate:

“Mobile. Email has a limited life. Everything’s moving to mobile.”

It’s not just a device shift, he suggests, but a cultural one: mobile is becoming the universal endpoint for both identity and interaction.

Andy’s Take

As digital continues to take hold, insourcing is a competitive threat that is not being viewed seriously enough in the U.S. and Europe.

While regions like Asia-Pacific/Oceania are advancing toward customer-owned orchestration, more advanced U.S. print service providers are expanding their platforms to retain customers by adding digital capabilities, but still ultimately they are tethered to print.

For now, the market in the U.S. remains “print + digital,” not digital-first. But as U.S. regulations, like the “Improving Disclosure for Investor Act" advance, and digital communications become the default across more industries, the evolution of insourcing in Asia Pacific/Oceania will be worth watching.

As enterprises bring orchestration, preference management, and content control back inside the firewall, those PSPs that continue to hold onto print as a part of their core value proposition will risk losing strategic visibility and with it, their influence over the customer communication value chain.

The next decade will determine whether North American PSPs can evolve from manufacturers to enablers or whether insourcing will quietly rewrite the rules of engagement as it has Down Under.

When I spoke with Gina Armada, CEO of MHC, our conversation kept returning to one word: agility.

Not the buzzword kind. The kind that determines whether a company can adapt fast enough to meet the expectations of its customers and its regulators.

“Agility is critical. Change is coming at all of us so fast… it’s absolutely paramount that organizations can change quickly and adapt those communications.” — Gina Armada

For years, customer communications lived in the back office as batch jobs, print queues, PDFs. It worked when change came slowly. But not now.

Today, agility has become a competitive advantage.

Agility Over Inertia

Many organizations still struggle to make simple updates. Gina told me about a financial services firm where changing one customer letter took four weeks. Everyone accepted that as normal a mindset she challenges directly.

“Is it okay for your business to be waiting four weeks?”

Waiting weeks to make a simple change in a digital world isn’t just inefficient it’s a form of brand neglect. Customers notice delays as a poor experience. Regulators notice errors. Competitors notice opportunity.

Your customer communication platform shouldn’t be holding your company back, it should empower the organization and everyone in it.

Empowering the People Closest to the Customer

MHC’s response has been to build a platform that hands control back to the business. Through low-code and no-code tools, line-of-business teams can update messaging, test new workflows, or refine language without submitting IT tickets or waiting for developers.

“We need to enable smart, analytical business users to make change,” Gina said. “They know the business processes. They know their audiences.”

That shift from IT-owned systems to business-owned outcomes changes everything. It’s not just about speed. It’s about building a culture where teams can act on insight immediately, where innovation stops being another project, and starts to become the norm.

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Automation vs. AI - The Real Difference

When we got to the topic of AI, Gina didn’t blur the lines.

“Automation is logic,” she said. “It’s rules-based. It’s if-this-then-that. AI is different. It’s decisioning intelligence.”

In other words, automation follows the map. AI redraws it.

MHC has been in the automation business for more than two decades, long before “AI-powered” became the default tagline. Automation handles the repeatable, predictable work: it enforces rules, ensures compliance, and eliminates manual errors. AI, on the other hand, brings the ability to make contextual decisions to see patterns, recommend actions, and learn from outcomes.

Gina’s point: the real future isn’t AI replacing automation, it’s AI amplifying it. The organizations that get this right will use AI to supercharge human decision-making, not to sidestep it.

And that’s where she sees the next big shift a new kind of role inside companies: “agent managers” who train and supervise AI systems much like you’d coach an employee. People who understand both the business and the logic behind automation will become essential to scaling responsibly.

“AI isn’t a silver bullet,” she said. “But for those who modernize and know how to use it, it’s a force multiplier.”

Andy’s Take

What struck me most in this conversation wasn’t the technology it was the mindset of Gina and MHC team.

So many companies talk about “digital transformation,” but what they’re really doing is digitizing old habits. Agility isn’t about the tools. It’s about trusting the people closest to the customer to make changes, in a controlled and regulated way, without having to ask permission, beg for budgets and get on the IT roadmap.

What MHC is doing different. They’re saying: if you understand the customer and their needs, you should have the power to act.

Looking Ahead

MHC will be on the floor at Printing United in Orlando, showing what that next generation of agility in customer communicaitons looks like in action, with automation that empowers business users and keeps organizations ahead of change. Check them out at Booth #1211

Introduction: Rethinking Email

When most people talk about email strategy, they’re thinking about campaigns such as promotional blasts, loyalty offers, and direct marketing. But David Allen of Cumulo9 makes a sharp distinction: not all email is created equal. In fact, his company’s research shows that essential (regulated, transactional) emails are opened at twice the rate of campaign emails and consumers often revisit them multiple times.

The story here isn’t just about replacing mail with email. It’s about how consumers prioritize what matters.

The Numbers Tell the Story

Cumulo9’s Email Insights Report, now in its fifth edition, draws on millions of emails sent monthly for some of New Zealand’s largest enterprises. Over five years, one fact has remained consistent:

* Essential emails average ~70% open rates.

* Campaign emails average ~35% open rates.

* Consumers frequently reopen essential messages, sometimes nearly twice, to double-check information.

This behavior reveals a hierarchy of trust and attention: when it’s about your money, your power, or your health, the message matters.

Why Deliverability Matters

The transition from post to email was fast in New Zealand . Today 80% or more of essential communications have now gone digital. But Allen cautions that the postal service came with a hidden feature: reliability which email traditionally has struggled to match.

The mail almost always got through.Email doesn’t always unless the sender has the right protocols and infrastructure.

Deliverability rates on campaign marketing platforms can range from 85%–95%. That may sound high, but for essential communications it’s unacceptable. A renewal notice that never arrives can void a policy. A disconnection warning that’s missed can cut power. In one tragic case in New Zealand, a customer relying on oxygen lost electricity and died after a missed notice.

Cumulo9’s platform is built to avoid that risk, boasting 99.5% audited deliverability and the ability to provide deep sending logs and data that regulators in markets like Australia are now requiring in court.

Consumer Behavior Has Shifted

The New Zealand story also highlights how digital substitution reshapes communication itself:

* Banks increasingly stop sending statements altogether, pushing customers to online portals.

* Government agencies do the same with tax and social services.

* Direct mail and loyalty programs that once supported physical communication have virtually disappeared.

The result: a landscape where essential digital messages dominate attention, while promotional ones struggle to cut through.

Andy’s Take

For years, the narrative around digital fatigue has been that “consumers are overwhelmed with email.” That’s true for engagement campaigns. But essential regulated communications are different. People make time for them, because they have to.

If you’re a service provider in print, mail, or digital this is the heart of the opportunity. Don’t just lump all email together. Recognize the distinction, build the reliability and compliance infrastructure that essential messages demand, and you’ll be solving a problem your clients can’t ignore.

And as David Allen’s data proves: consumers are already voting with their clicks.

Essential email is not just another channel. It’s the digital backbone of customer trust. Campaigns may get the creative attention, but essential communications get the real attention that matters. The companies that understand that difference and deliver on it will win the future of customer communications.

Mike Porter has built a career on words. He’s been writing about mail and customer communications since 2010, ghostwriting business books, and creating content that gives companies and business leaders credibility in a crowded market.

But what stood out most in Episode #11 of Above the Treeline is how seamlessly Porter ties writing to the other two themes shaping our industry today: direct mail and AI.

Writing in the Age of AI

Porter doesn’t waste time debating whether a piece was AI-assisted or human-written. His point is simple: if it delivers value and it’s accurate, does it matter who — or what — wrote it? (em-dashes included).

That perspective feels refreshing in an era where AI checkers are flagging three-year-old articles as “40% AI generated.” We’re all tired of the hype cycle. The question isn’t whether AI touched the text, but whether the content has something to say.

And books, Porter argues, still have unmatched staying power. A published book gives instant credibility a clear sign that you know your craft, whether or not anyone finishes the last chapter. In B2B markets where thought leadership sways decisions, that matters more than likes or impressions.

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Direct Mail as a Data Channel

Direct mail has never been about nostalgia. It has always been about business results.

Porter reminds us that a physical address is more than a delivery point, it’s a data asset. It holds demographic, geographic, and economic signals that make campaigns smarter.

“Mailers need to think of themselves as data companies who happen to mail.”

When paired with digital QR codes, PURLs, USPS Informed Delivery direct mail becomes a bridge. It’s an on-ramp to digital engagement or a re-engagement tool when email and online channels go dark. That’s why mail continues to justify its place in the mix: not because of tradition, but because of measurable ROI.

AI Beyond Content

When most people hear “AI,” they think chatbots and automated writing. Porter sees something bigger: AI as an engine for targeting, prioritization, and market discovery.

If AI can help you identify your best prospects, justify higher-value campaigns, or make smarter use of data, it changes the economics of communication. And while hype fatigue is real, the technology is already reshaping how firms think about unifying transactional and marketing messages into a single customer conversation.

As Porter put it, AI is less about replacing writers and more about accelerating the insights that make communication effective.

Andy’s Take

I see a clear throughline in Porter’s work: words, addresses, and data.

* Writing gives leaders a voice.

* Direct mail gives businesses a measurable bridge to digital.

* AI gives us the tools to make both smarter.

The future of communications won’t be about clinging to print or chasing the next AI feature. It will be about combining tools in ways that create credibility, value, and results.

If you’re looking to tell your story or engage in the latest thought leadership in print and mail, connect with Mike Porter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pmcmikeporter/

Episode #10 of Above the Treeline is a conversation with Amit Sawhney, CEO of FCI, that deserves your full attention.

In just 25 minutes, Amit shares how a family-run print shop in India, home to 1.4 billion people, grew into one of the nation’s largest transactional PSPs, then broke through the digital barrier to where more than 50 percent of revenues now come from digital, while still maintaining a significant print business.

FCI didn’t start as a technology company, it started as a print service provider living the same realities as every other PSP. That DNA shaped a solution designed for real-world challenges, compliance, and the pressures of regulated industries.

Why This Matters

* At its peak, FCI printed nearly 2 billion A4 pages a year, and yet Amit is clear: print and digital are not on the same seesaw.

* Digital isn’t just a replacement for print, it’s a growth engine on a different trajectory.

* The buyers have changed: from sourcing managers to CIOs, CMOs, and Chief Digital Officers who see communications as a revenue driver, not a cost center.

* Their solution is used by some of the largest banks and insurance companies in India and around the world.

A Ground-Breaker

What Amit describes isn’t theory, it’s happening now at enterprise scale in markets outside the U.S. This is what it looks like when a PSP becomes a digital platform company, and it’s a clear indicator of what’s coming.

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Many in the U.S. still believe transactional print and mail volumes are stable, or at worst only marginally declining. But global markets prove how quickly that can change. Those unprepared, or still relying on systems built five years ago, will be challenged.

As businesses emerge from the COVID chaos, investments in digital are no longer theoretical. They are being implemented and are now front and center in the enterprise, with clear expectations to deliver on their promise driven by digital adoption, interactive experiences, real-time data, and the growing influence of AI.

Once you cross the tipping point, the market shifts fast. Print providers stop fighting for more pages and start scrambling to add digital capabilities.

And here’s the truth for many service providers: going it alone to build a robust, digital-first B2B solution for regulated industries isn’t realistic. Most PSPs don’t have the time, the skills, or the money to reinvent the wheel, let alone provide the 24/7 support customers will demand and sustain over the long haul. By the time a homegrown system is ready, the market will already have moved on.

This is going to push the U.S. PSP market hard! The largest providers with advanced in-house capabilities won’t be able to sit back, and those still talking about “omni-channel” while digital represents only 5–10 percent of revenues will be pushed even harder.

Time to market will be everything. PSPs need to be ready to answer the call.

Already in the U.S.

FCI is not just an international story. They’re already operating in the U.S., delivering integration projects and CCM expertise for regulated communications. Now, they’re looking to partner with a few select PSPs to bring their proven platform, experience, and expertise directly into the U.S. market.

This will allow these select PSPs to quickly lead the market and bring digital-first capabilities that, until now, only the largest providers have been able to afford and support.

If you’re interested in learning more about this opportunity, please reach out to me directly at [email protected].

Andy’s Take

If you see your print and mail operation as part of the select group of PSPs that will survive and thrive in the digital future, I guarantee you’ll learn something in this conversation. Spend 25 minutes and listen from beginning to end. Amit doesn’t just talk about the future of communication service providers, he shows what it looks like to actually build one and now he is looking to share that experience with the global market.

Amanda's story is a masterclass in personal reinvention. From the pressroom floor to managing high-volume in-plant operations to shaping go-to-market strategies as a creative force in the print and communications industry, Amanda has never been afraid to stand out, and it's made all the difference.

We covered everything from her early love of screen printing to managing a 24/6 print operation, breaking stereotypes as a woman in a male-dominated field, and her unexpected rise on LinkedIn during the pandemic.

But the conversation went deeper than that. We talked about the value of being seen, the challenge of raising five boys as a single mom, and why the next generation may still fall in love with print, if we can show them what makes it magical.

Highlights from the Interview

From RIT to Running the Show

Amanda started her career as a press operator with a dream of running a print facility. That dream became reality when she stepped into the role of production manager at UPMC, transforming a fragmented, chaotic in-plant into a 24/6, high-efficiency operation producing over 18 million impressions a month.

“There was no prepress schedule, no organization. Whoever answered the phone took the job. By the time I left, we were producing 18 million impressions a month.”

Owning Her Brand (and the Room)

Despite being the expert in the room, Amanda often had to fight for recognition especially as a woman in operations. Her turning point? LinkedIn. When COVID shut down events and cold calls, she picked up her phone and started posting videos. That decision changed everything.

“If people are going to talk, let them talk. But I’m going to show up, be consistent, and be remembered.”

Authenticity as a Career Strategy

Amanda's presence is not accidental. From her fashion to her tone, she’s deliberate and unapologetically real. She now coaches others to do the same, helping clients step out from behind their logos and into the spotlight.

“Even if nobody watches, you have to put yourself out there. It’s like being a mom you can’t care for others if you don’t take care of yourself.”

Raising Entrepreneurs

Amanda’s story as a leader extends well beyond business. Her two oldest sons, now 20 and 21, have both built successful businesses of their own, inspired by watching their mom work, adapt, and lead by example.

“They saw the freedom I had working for myself. They didn’t want to go the standard route. They’re both thriving and that’s the best part of this journey.”

Amanda on the Future of Print

Amanda is vocal about the need to reignite passion in the print industry. She recalls the excitement of past trade shows and presses that made you feel like a kid in a candy store. That energy, she says, is missing and it’s time to bring it back.

“I want people to be excited about print again. Let’s stop clocking in and zoning out. Let’s get that spark back.”

She’s especially focused on showing younger generations that print is still tactile, technical, and full of possibility if we make the effort to show it.

Video Content Outline with Timestamps

00:00 – 01:00

Intro + Personal Brand Recognition

* Opening of Above the Treeline

* Host describes Amanda as a recognizable presence in the industry

* Amanda’s background as both creative and operational

01:00 – 03:00

Early Exposure to Print & RIT Education

* Amanda's introduction to screen printing through her dad

* Decision to study printing at RIT

* Desire to work in a hands-on, male-dominated field

03:00 – 04:30

Career Path: From Pressroom to the Supreme Court

* First big press experience: Goss Sunday 2000

* Canon demonstrations and Supreme Court publications role

* Realization: not interested in desk-based legal editing

04:30 – 06:00

UPMC In-Plant Transformation

* Amanda’s “dream job” as production manager

* Took a chaotic multi-hospital print system and transformed it

* Built a structured workflow, growing output to 18M impressions/month

06:00 – 07:30

Sales Isn't Her Thing, But Marketing Is

* Experience at Heeter taught her sales wasn't a fit

* Discovered her talent and passion for marketing

* COVID forced a shift: began using LinkedIn to connect and share

07:30 – 09:00

LinkedIn Breakthrough & Embracing Visibility

* First video post led to backlash but also growth

* Lesson: consistency + authenticity > perfection

* Encourages clients to show up even without engagement

09:00 – 11:00

Women in Print: Visibility, Stereotypes, and Persistence

* Misconceptions in meetings: assumed she was “the assistant”

* Early Print17 experience: ignored by vendors until a male colleague vouched for her

* Importance of being loud and persistent in a male-dominated field

11:00 – 13:30

Personal Life: Raising 5 Boys and Modeling Leadership

* Her identity as a mother first

* Struggles of early career: missed moments with her two oldest

* Divorce led to rethinking work-life balance and career strategy

13:30 – 15:30

Raising Entrepreneurs: Her Sons' Success Stories

* One son started two businesses after watching her example

* Another son became a certified mechanic and trades professional

* Both inspired by Amanda’s independence and work ethic

15:30 – 17:30

Trades, Technical Skills & the Next Generation

* Amanda’s support of non-traditional career paths

* Trades and hands-on work seen as critical in an AI world

* Amanda and her son collaborate on marketing his flooring work

17:30 – 19:30

Industry Perception & the Language of Print

* Reflections on Dr. Harvey Levenson’s views on how we talk about print

* Industry needs to reframe print as technical and modern

* Amanda emphasizes complexity and opportunity in today's print jobs

19:30 – 21:30

Reigniting Excitement in the Industry

* Amanda misses the energy and buzz of early 2010s trade shows

* Observes apathy in post-COVID print events

* Wants to bring back the spark for industry events and new tech

21:30 – 23:00

Print Is Shifting, Not Dying

* Commentary on how print is evolving from documents to other formats

* Amplify show anecdote: glitter name tags reignite excitement

* Final message: Let’s get excited about print again

Closing Remarks

* Amanda as a role model, advocate, and leader

* Call to action: embrace authenticity, visibility, and creativity

* Gratitude for Amanda’s energy and leadership in the space

Andy’s Take

“Standing out isn’t a personal branding tactic, it’s a survival strategy.”

Amanda’s story underscores what I see across the industry: we are entering an era where authenticity, creativity, and confidence are not just appreciated, they’re required.

In a world where AI is flattening voices and standardizing content, standing out will become a competitive advantage. But it takes courage. Amanda has that. And she’s passing it on to her clients, her community, and her kids.

That’s leadership!

“We shouldn’t lose CCM in the marketing jungle. It’s built on trust, compliance, and integrity.” — Saurabh Raj

In this episode of Above the Treeline, I sat down with Saurabh Raj, a rising analyst at QKS Group, for an energizing conversation about the global state of customer communications. Saurabh brings a fresh perspective to a maturing industry, he's not bogged down by legacy definitions, and that makes this dialogue especially important right now.

The big idea: Customer Communications Management (CCM) is evolving into Customer Experience Management (CXM) and beyond. What used to be about regulated documents and static templates is now about data, orchestration, AI, and global scale.

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What We Talked About

This wasn’t your average "print to digital" discussion. A few of the highlights from the 38-minute conversation:

* GenAI and the end of templates: From document-driven workflows to dynamic, prompt-based content(14:30–17:00)

* Journey orchestration is now table stakes: And CCM has a critical seat at that table(06:00–08:00)

* Healthcare innovation and notification triggers: What India is doing that the U.S. isn’t(22:00–24:00)

* Why preference management is still broken: And how AI might fix, or further manipulate it(31:00–32:30)

* Global fragmentation: CCM maturity isn’t uniform, and the U.S. may not be the most advanced market(26:00–29:00)

* Data ownership wars: What happens when marketing, ops, and compliance fight over the same stack(10:00–12:00, 20:00–22:00)

Why It Matters

CCM is being recast as a strategic customer experience and data asset, not just a compliance function. But as Saurabh points out, there's a risk: in the rush to modernize, we can lose what made CCM so powerful in the first place including its reliability, integrity, and role as the system of record.

He also makes a strong case that the most important innovations in CCM/CXM are not coming from the U.S., they’re emerging in markets like India, China, and Southeast Asia, where cloud-native infrastructure and customer expectations are leapfrogging the slow evolution we’re used to in regulated industries.

Bonus: What is SPARK Matrix?

You’ll also hear Saurabh share what QKS Group is building with SPARK+, a new global dashboard that tracks adoption trends, RFP evolution, and how AI is being integrated into CCM platforms. Think of it as the analyst lens on CCM you didn’t know you needed, but now won’t want to work without.

Andy’s Take

This conversation reinforced something I’ve been saying for a while: CCM is no longer a back-office operation. It’s a core business capability, tightly integrated with CX, data, privacy, and growth strategy.

If you’re in print, mail, MarTech, or digital engagement, you need to hear this this conversation.

Two years ago this week, I walked away from the traditional analyst world and stepped into the unknown. I didn’t have a company name yet. I didn’t have a website. But I had an idea, a laptop and a microphone.

On August 29, 2023, I recorded my very first interview. It was a web conference with the late Dr. Harvey Levenson, Professor Emeritus at Cal Poly and one of the most respected voices in print education. At the time, I wasn’t sure what I was building. I just knew the industry needed new conversations and that this was the first of them.

It started with a question about a textbook.

I was researching Graphic Communications by Richard J. Broekhuizen known as “Mr. B” to the students he taught for 38 years at Nova High School in Ft. Lauderdale. That book helped fashion my own journey into graphic arts. When I couldn’t find much information about Mr. B’s legacy, someone pointed me to Dr. Levenson.

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That email led to a call. And that call became this conversation.

The interview runs just under 45 minutes. It’s unedited, unscripted, and looking back more relevant than ever.

In this conversation, Dr. Levenson reflects on:

* The collapse of high school print education programs

* Why the terms “shop” and “trade” are holding the industry back

* The rise of packaging as a growth engine

* The disconnect between marketing tech and print workflows

* And how innovation in education is needed to shape what comes next

But what stuck with me most was this:

“If the printing industry wants to be heard, it needs to stop preaching to itself and start speaking in the language of marketing.” - Harvey Levenson

Dr. Levenson didn’t just teach printing, he helped define its place in modern communication. Releasing this conversation now, two years into my journey, feels like closing a circle I didn’t even realize I had drawn.

Two years later, what’s changed?Listening back to this conversation, I can hear how much my own thinking has evolved. I still believe many of the same things about the future of print, but I now see them through a wider lens. I’ve spent the last two years studying digital adoption, paper suppression, marketing tech stacks, and how communication actually works in practice.

I’ve also learned that change rarely comes from within the industry. It comes when we ask better questions, invite in new voices, and step outside the language we’ve always used.

This conversation with Dr. Levenson helped set that path in motion. I’m grateful to have had it and even more grateful to share it with you now.

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