These recent reports of “white powder” letters in the Dallas area made me think that there are probably many who don’t know what to do if they receive a suspicious package or envelope.

My first thought was to go to the USPS website, find the information and copy links to it in this post. After much searching and many clicks on dead end links, I finally found some information. I was disappointed that the information was buried and required so much time to locate, so I hope this makes it easier for you to find answers to any questions you might have about hazards in the mail.

It is very unlikely you will ever receive a hazardous mailpiece as this piece explains: http://ipresort.com/gcpb

The link above also includes the precautions to take, should you have that experience.

Of course, it is more likely (although still not very likely) that you might receive a suspicious package or envelope at a place of business, government building or organization, than at your home. So, I’ve decided that this “Suspicious Mail Guide” is an important resource. If you are involved in your company’s mailroom you probably already know this stuff and, hopefully, have practices in place ‘just in case.’

Also, the FBI is seeking the public’s assistance and offering a reward “of up to $150,000 for information leading to the identification, arrest, prosecution, and conviction of the person(s) responsible for the recent mailings of letters containing white powder in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.”

As I’ve said before, it is highly unlikely that you will ever be exposed to anything dangerous in your mail and hopefully this information will alleviate any anxiety the recent “white powder letter” news may have caused.

Every Door Direct Mail is made possible by standards that are set for flat sized mail pieces bearing a simplified address.  What is a simplified address?  It is an address that that contains no delivery specific information.  An example would be “Local Postal Customer.”

Mailing to “Local Postal Customer” allows you to mail without a mailing list. More about proper use of the simplified address can be found here: http://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/602.htm

Summary of changes taking effect May 7^th 2012 :

Size; Old Rule:

Must exceed at least one of the dimensions of letter sized mail.

Must exceed maximum Letter size height:  6 1/8 inches or,
Must exceed maximum Letter size length:  11 ½ inches or,
Must exceed maximum Letter size thickness:  ¼ inch

Size; New Rule:

The old rule (shown above) still applies but now includes the following options.

Will qualify if it is a minimum of 3 ½ inches high and exceeds 10 ½ inches in length.  But please remember it must exceed 10 ½ inches not be 10 ½ inches. By all other postal standards this would be considered letter sized mail.

NOTE:  If you use a size that meets this minimum requirement but does not exceed letter sized mail then you must put EDDM in the endorsement line after ECRWSS.  So your endorsement should look like this:

********ECRWSS  EDDM.

Addressing Requirement; New Rule:

The requirement to include the City, State and Zip code in the simplified address on mail that is not entered or delivered to the DDU has been relaxed to a recommendation.  That means, when printing pieces that will be entered at an ASCF, you no longer have to print different versions for each zip code.

Addressing Requirement; Business Addresses; New Rule: When the carrier route is 100% business addresses, you can now use the term Business Customer instead of Postal Customer or Local Customer.

This is a summary of the changes. For all of the changes please refer to http://about.usps.com/postal-bulletin/2012/pb22335/pdf/pb22335.pdf or check the updates to postal explorer under “Saturation Mail Simplified Address.”

Why? Because so many well meaning people have that ‘save a tree’ thing backward. It makes me both angry and sad to realize how many people jump on a band wagon without really doing their homework. Do you really want to save the trees? You can, and, at the same time you can save jobs and boost the economy.

Please check out these websites and accept my challenge to bust this destructive myth.

• http://www.amorian.org/2009/09/10/the-myth-that-using-less-paper-saves-trees/

“When a company decreases its paper use, it does not decrease the number of trees that are cut down.  It only lowers its business expenses for paper.When companies decrease their paper consumption, they aren’t trying to save the environment.  They are trying to increase their bottom line by saving money.” – Scott at Amorian

• http://www.internationalpaper.com/apps/gopaper/bustthemyths.html

“The U.S. pulp and paper industry generates more
than 60% of its energy from carbon-neutral biofuels.”

• http://www.printgrowstrees.org/paper-facts.html

“The average data center serving our electronic devices consumes the same amount of energy as 25,000 households.”

• http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/recycling-myths/

“As it turns out, most of the trees that are planted in America are planted with the intent of eventually harvesting them to make things like paper. This means that if we all used less paper, there would be fewer trees planted. ” - Lawrence W. Reed

And feel free to share any other ideas that you have about how we can spread the truth about what really threatens our environment and the quality of life we want for future generations on this big blue marble.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

As a long time fan of the series “Mad Men” on AMC, I have seen every episode and yet I can’t remember if they’ve ever mentioned a direct mail campaign? So, not having the time to watch all four previous seasons to find out, I did a little Googling. As often happens when I’m researching a topic, I took many side trips on the internet highway. One of which led me to this video which I originally found in a post on the Copyblogger site called, “David Ogilvy’s ‘Secret Weapon’ of Online Marketing, Selling, and Business Success” by Robert Bruce.

You have to get almost 3.5 minutes in (3:41) before he starts to tell of his secret weapon. Most people will tell you the answer is “Direct Response Marketing” but he’s much more specific than that. Listen carefully at 4 minutes and 15 seconds. That’s when you learn what form of Direct Response Marketing is his “secret weapon” and how he deployed it and how it grew business.

We aren’t an ad agency. We’re a marketing services provider. We don’t come up with the campaigns but we sure know what vehicle drives results. I’m not surprised to hear him say that his secret weapon is Direct Mail. I’m not. I just wish I didn’t have to get more than half way through the video to hear the words. And though I said “is” his secret weapon, David Ogilvy passed away in 1999. But Direct Mail is still alive and kickin’.

I enjoyed the season premiere of Mad Men, even if I now have that Zou Bisou Bisou earworm that other fans of the show have been tweeting about. But I never did find out if Mad Men did an episode mentioning Direct Mail Advertising. Do you know?

Yes, it was 220 years ago, on February 20, 1792 that President George Washington signed legislation creating the U. S. Postal Service. So I guess that means that those of us in the mailing industry owe a special thank you to President Washington on this Presidents Day which, coincidentally, is a postal holiday.

The MFSA Midwinter Conference is in Phoenix this year and I’m excited to say that I will be participating on a panel, Thursday, February 23. The Mailing and Fulfillment Service Association, otherwise known as ‘MFSA‘, is a trade organization that has been helping mailing and fulfillment companies keep up with all things related to business development.

If you’re going to be there, you can find me at breakout session #2, “Making EDDM Work FOR You.” I’ll be giving a short presentation about our experiences with the USPS Every Door Direct Mail program. After that I’ll be fielding questions as part of a panel discussion.

I’m looking forward to  the networking dinner Thursday night so please come say hello and share your favorite mailing industry stories with me.

Oh! And if you’re on twitter, like we are (@ipresort), follow @MFSAnet and don’t forget to use the #mfsamidwinter on your tweets before and during the event. Hope to see you there!

The United States Post Office will observe the following holidays in 2012:

This series came about because lately I’ve noticed a lot of references to snail mail in a lot of different mediums. I guess this proves that mail is still fun, interesting and most of all relevant or why else would it be used as inspiration for things such as packaging for items totally unrelated to mail? And story lines on TV and in movies?

We invite you to share your own postal related finds on our Facebook page. And as always, we welcome your comments on our posts.

Oh! And I should admit that, although I’m not as smart as Sheldon Lee ”Shelly” Cooper, B.S., M.S., M.A., Ph.D., Sc.D. (and really, who is?), I am kind of a nerd. Please share your thoughts on mail in pop culture, the Big Bang Theory TV show and it’s characters with us by leaving us your comments. You can also post your own pop culture postal finds on our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/ipresort

I have a lot of family and friends with birthdays this month and, I was just realizing that if the Five Day Delivery plan were already in effect, this would be one of those weekends when the mail would be delayed for three days of non –delivery instead of just one due to Veteran’s Day.

And because Christmas is on a Sunday this year, the US Post Offices will be closed on Monday, December 26. So if Five Day Delivery was effective this year, we would have one less day to get those Christmas cards to their recipients. And what about the cards with the “ca-ching” money holders that many send as presents, and the gift cards that get mailed? No hoping that they get delivered that Saturday right before Christmas and what’s worse, no thinking, “Well, if it’s late, it will surely be there the Monday after” because there would be no mail delivery the Saturday before or the Monday after.

Even if you’re not a procrastinator, you know that the USPS will be busier than usual and has cut back it’s work force so…

This will be much trickier for those who live in rural communities. What about those who get prescriptions through the mail, have to pay bills before they go on trips, etc.? I’m glad that the PRC took them into consideration when it issued it’s report because I have at least six family members who live in rural areas and get prescriptions through the mail.

Even if my livelihood did not depend on delivery of the mail, I depend on it for many other personal reasons. And the people who respond to posts on the internet are not typically the people who depend on the frequent delivery of the mail for the things that they need. Those folks have a harder time keeping up with the Postal Service’s plans and sharing their own concerns about it because they don’t live on the internet.

If you think you know someone who would have problems due to the US Postal Service’s Five Day Delivery Plan, I hope you’ll speak for them by letting your representatives know. And, please leave a comment on this post if you have feelings on either side of the issue.

 With the holiday season fast approaching, we are reminding friends and families to mail early to ensure delivery of their holiday cards and packages to APO/FPO/DPO destination addresses by December 25. Deadlines for mailing to specific APO/FPO/DPO ZIP Codes vary according to the specific classes of mail being sent to them. They are listed below.

 We also remind mailers that all mail addressed to overseas military/diplomatic Post Offices is subject to certain conditions or restrictions regarding content, preparation and handling.

 Those restrictions are listed by individual APO/FPO/DPO ZIP Code in each Postal Bulletin.  To access this listing on the Internet, go to pe.usps.com, click Postal Bulletins in the blue navigation bar, and then select the Pull-Out Information section.
 

¹ EMMS is available to selected military and diplomatic Post Offices. Check with your local Post Office to determine if this service is available to an APO/FPO/DPO address.

 ² PAL is a service that provides air transportation for parcels on a space-available basis. It is available for Parcel Post items not exceeding 30 pounds in weight and 60 inches in length and girth combined. The applicable PAL fee must be paid in addition to the regular surface price of postage for each addressed piece sent by PAL service.

³ SAM parcels are paid at Parcel Post prices with maximum weight and size limits of 15 pounds and 60 inches in length and girth combined. SAM parcels are first transported domestically by surface and then to overseas destinations by air on a space-available basis.

Holiday shipping dates for domestic and international mail will be provided in a separate DMM Advisory.

 The Domestic Mail Manual (DMM^®) is available on Postal Explorer^® (pe.usps.com). To subscribe to the DMM Advisory, send an e-mail todmmadvisory@usps.com. Simply indicate “subscribe” in the subject line.

Most of what companies like ours do falls into the category of mail preparation. That is, we take anonymous pieces and, through a series of processes, turn them into the mail that reaches people. First, we run your mailing list through presort software that sorts all the addresses, removes duplicate records and updates the addresses of people who have moved. The software also creates the paperwork for entry at the post office. This is where a lot of the postage discounts are realized, and the money saved here frequently adds up to significantly more than the entire cost of our services.

Once the list is ready, we put your mail pieces on large, inkjet printers and print the address information on them. The computer presort allows the pieces to come off the machine in the proper order for traying, which is the next step. As the addressed mail comes off the printer, it is put into postal equipment, trays, tubs or sacks depending on the class of mail, and labeled with a tag telling the postal service where it needs to go.

Finally, when the pieces are all prepared, we deliver them to the appropriate Bulk Mail Entry Unit. There we work with a bulk mail entry clerk to verify that the weight of the mail matches what’s listed on the paperwork, ensuring that the appropriate postage rate has been paid.

As a mail services provider, we don’t have to perform every step of the process. We can perform the computer presort for clients who wish to do their own preparation, for example. Or we can provide turn-key mailings, doing everything from designing and printing the pieces, to sourcing a mailing list, preparing and entering the mail. It all depends on what your needs are.

However, there are things a mail services provider can do for you beyond straightforward mail preparation. Not all of our clients are aware of the ways in which we can make their mail more efficient and effective. I will elaborate on these less-obvious ways in which we can help our clients over the next few entries here.

Mail prepared for acceptance at the local BMEU.

This is a time of transition for the mailing industry in general, and the USPS is looking at ways to adapt to the new business environment. One of the changes the postal service is considering is a vaguely defined concept known as Seamless Acceptance.

Seamless Acceptance is basically a simplified mail-entry process in which the pieces do not have to be physically verified by a bulk mail entry clerk. Instead, compliance will be measured during processing via the information contained in the Intelligent Mail Barcode. After the presorted mail has gone out, the USPS will send a report card of sorts to the mailer, detailing the level of compliance. Mailers who fail too often to meet postal standards may be charged for lost discounts after the fact.

Personally, I think this could be a good thing for mailers. Entering the mail can be a time-consuming process for both the mailer and the postal service, and streamlining that process could offer several efficiency benefits for both parties.

However, as a mailer, it strikes me that the mail-entry process is also an important component of my company’s relationship with the USPS. While we have good working relationships with postal employees at several levels within the organization, it’s the bulk mail entry clerks whom we see most often. These are the people we interact with regularly, and it is often through them that we first learn of proposed changes and other information relevant to our business. And I am concerned that a stripped-down entry process may be detrimental to those relationships. Seeing an entry clerk on a daily basis builds a relationship through regular face-to-face interaction and creates a personal connection. This connection is beneficial to both the mail shop and the postal service. The entry clerks are regularly exposed to the concerns of their mailers, and the mailers are offered an opportunity to better understand the postal regulations with which they must comply.

That kind of personal interaction will decline if mailers are only required to leave their mail on the dock. I understand that for some larger mailers, the benefits of convenience and speed may be significant, which is why I don’t oppose the idea of Seamless Acceptance in general. However, for some smaller mailers it may be more beneficial to continue physical verification, and maintain the relationships that grow from it.

That look, straight from the middle of the 20th Century, is seeping back into vogue now. Midcentury is all over television, with shows like “Mad Men” and “The Hours,” as well as  the upcoming “Pan Am” and “The Playboy Club.” Couches are getting lower and ties are getting narrower. So it shouldn’t be surprising that a series of stamps featuring iconic products from that era is being released now.

In an interesting turn of events, the stamps were designed under the art direction of Derry Noyes, son of Eliot Noyes, who designed the IBM Selectric typewriter pictured in one of the stamps.

But it’s Raymond Leowy who is my personal favorite of the designers honored by the series. Leowy’s streamlined pencil sharpener depicted in the stamps may not be the most compelling object in the collection, but this is the guy who designed the Coca-Cola bottle, the Lucky Strike pack, and the Studebaker Avanti.

And yet, there are so many other industrial designers from the era who didn’t make the cut that I can’t help but hope that the series is expanded in the future. I’d love to see one of Ray Kappe’s prefab housing designs or an Eames Lounge Chair on a stamp too.

So much of what we have today is manufactured. Industrial design has really become the only kind of design with which most of us are familiar. The Pioneers of American Industrial Design collection is a peek into the field’s past innovations, as well as an invitation to learn more about them.

2011 Pioneers of Industrial Design commemorative stamp pane

Raymond Loewy licensed by CMG Worldwide, Indianapolis, Indiana.

KODAK and its trademarks owned by Kodak.

IBM and its trademarks licensed by IBM Corp.

Russel Wright® Russel Wright Studios LLC.

Fiesta® Dinnerware is a trademark owned by The Homer Laughlin China Company.

USPS helps to find mans best friend

The USPS’s new Every Door Direct Mail is generating a lot of interest and excitement from small businesses in our area and beyond. We’ve attended some of the seminars the Postal Service has put together to explain the program to the community, and have seen first-hand the enthusiastic response. Perhaps even more encouraging, we think EDDM may draw people to direct mail who otherwise would not consider it a practical option.
EDDM is a new category of mail that is simpler and more affordable to send than traditional bulk mail, because it eliminates the need for a mailing list and individually addressed mail pieces. The cost of postage and less complicated mailing process of EDDM are most often credited for attracting new customers, however the fact that the USPS is aggressively marketing the new program, and to the audience most likely to be interested, doesn’t seem to be hurting. In essence, by targeting the businesses most likely to benefit from the new program with direct mail pieces inviting them to EDDM seminars, the Postal Service is making use of the same mailing benefits it extols to its customers.
While small businesses are expected to be the core users of EDDM, one story has already emerged about someone who’s found another use for the program. Randi Slocum of Stillwater, NY, used an Every Door Direct mailing to find her missing dog. Slocum’s mother suggested the technique because it was a cost-effective way to get their message to every home in the area.

Easter Greetings from Rome WWII

Ever since modern postal systems developed in the mid-19th Century, mail has been one of the most common ways of supporting troops stationed far away.  A letter from home is one of the few things a soldier in the field can look forward to.  Today, e-mail has eclipsed traditional letters in popularity, but this is not the first technological change in the way our troops have kept in touch with home.
photo credit: Homini:)
V-mail was developed during WWII as a way to literally lighten the load of mail going back and forth by replacing thousands of letters with reels of microfilm.  Correspondence was written on special forms, which were designed to be folded up and sealed to become an integral envelope.  These forms were then photographed on microfilm, with several letters fitting on a single reel.  This reduced the bulk of the mail 37 times and cut the weight by even more, allowing cargo planes to transport more war materiel.

Brother to Brother

Once the reels made it to their destination, they would be processed and the individual letters reproduced at about 60 percent of their original size.  Then the letters would enter the mailstream for delivery to their addressees.
The process offered security advantages.  Secret messages written in invisible ink would not be picked up by the photograph, and thus would not make it to a recipient.  And since the original letter would be destroyed after photographing, secret messages could not be sent on microdots attached to the letters either.
photo credit: Homini:)

Not everything was perfect with V-mail.  Some complained about the forms being too short for meaningful correspondence.  Small writing was discouraged, because the letters would not be reproduced at their full size on the other end, and certain colors of ink did not show as well on the photographs as others.  But it was a creative solution to some of the logistics problems with delivering mail during wartime, and to the people who used it, it sure was better than no mail at all.

USPS Every Door Direct Mail

Retail customers can send up to 5,000 pieces without a permit account. The pieces have to qualify as Standard Flats and weigh no more than 3.3 oz, and they have to be entered and paid for at the post office location that delivers to the area for which the mailing is intended. The mailing needs no addresses, and can be sent to every address in a carrier route, neighborhood or zip code. The sender needs only to add a USPS-specified generic salutation in the address area. Mailers can use a USPS-provided generic permit and pay at the front counter with cash, check or credit card.

The retail option is good for small, local businesses looking to increase their profile, and particularly enticing to those who aren’t used to filling out postal forms and keeping up with the latest rules and regulations. But there’s another side to EDDM, intended to accommodate larger mailings and wider audiences. Sending a campaign this way allows for larger pieces, as well as more of them, but requires the mailer to have an active permit account. Such mailings must be entered at the BMEU much like a regular mailing.

At iPresort, we’re ready to help both kinds of customers realize the advantages of Every Door Direct Mail. Whether it’s inkjet printing the salutation and address line info for a small, local mailing here in the Dallas area, or doing all of the preparation work for a large, national campaign, we know how to make EDDM work for your company.

The lobby at Clampitt Paper offers a selection of samples printed on different paper stocks.

More than just affecting how well your campaign makes it through the mailstream, the paper you choose can contribute to the impression it makes on the customer who receives it.  Your selection can be used to say something about your company or product.

One of the trends that has developed over the last decade has been an increase in the use of uncoated paper.  A heavy, uncoated stock can impart an upscale feel to a piece, and looks contemporary and hip.  But it is important to consider the design and images that will be printed on the piece as well.  For example, photos of clothing tend to stand out on uncoated stock, but metallic images are often muted by the dull finish.

For pictures of jewelry or cars, a glossy, coated stock is usually a better choice.  The shine of the coated stock works well to reproduce these images.  Coated stocks have a harder, sharper look to them and are good for images with lots of detail.  Certain coatings, however, make it more difficult for high-speed inkjet printers to address, which can slow down production of your mailing.

Indeed, some coatings exist to make paper easier to print on, but the method of printing is important to consider.  Modern digital presses don’t always like the same paper as an offset press, or a copy machine.  Finding the right paper for your use means looking into every process your mailing will go through, from the printer, to the mailer, through the post office, and finally, to your customers.

As a mailer,  I use RIBBS as a resource to keep up with the latest changes and updates on all things postal. It is distressing that the site was hacked, but even more distressing to me is the fact that, as one in the mailing industry, I was not notified by any U.S. postal personnel or office that the site was infected.

There is some great information about the malware at Zscaler Research. At first I thought it was someone directly attacking the United States Postal Service but it’s a Blackhole Exploit kit that has been infecting other legitimate sites in addition to the Postal Service RIBBS site.

I hope that they can get the site running clean soon. Do you use RIBBS? If so, how often?

Barney Fiber mascot and logo of Clampitt Paper

Our friends at Clampitt Paper have us thinking about the material that makes mailing possible.  Every year, Clampitt puts together several Paper School events aimed at informing their clients on the subject of paper selection.

It shouldn’t be surprising that the paper stock you choose can have a big impact on your mailing.  It is, after all, what the mail is made of.  While there are several kinds of paper out there, many of them are specialized for different uses.  As a mailer, you can use these differences to your advantage, both to maximize the efficiency of your mail, and to impress your customers.

The physical characteristics of different papers affect how well they mail.  For postcards, you need something that is stiff enough to run through postal machinery without getting torn up, but is also lightweight enough to not drive up your postage costs unnecessarily.  Some papers are sold by thickness instead of weight.  While having a consistent thickness is important, inconsistent weight is literally a dealbreaker.  When your mail is entered at the post office, the piece count is always verified by weight.  Even tiny variations in the weight of individual pieces can add up to a big difference when you’re mailing thousands of them, and if your mailing doesn’t weigh what it is supposed to you will lose any postage discounts from mailing in bulk.

Choosing a paper stock can seem overwhelming at first, thanks to the variety in the market.  But you can narrow your selection by knowing which papers work best for your specific needs.  And those details can help you produce a successful mailing campaign.

We were pleasantly surprised to see today’s Google Doodle. If you love snailmail like we do, then you probably recognize the style of today’s Google Doodle from Robert Indiana, whose work was used to create a “Love” U. S. postage stamp in 1973. Do you have a favorite Valentine card, story or stamp? If so, post a comment about it here or on our Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/ipresort)

Victorian Christmas Card

It’s the time of year when business picks up at the post office as people across the country get into the holiday spirit.  There are gifts and packages to ship, and about 1.9 billion Christmas cards to send.

Greeting cards have actually been around for most of recorded history, going back to ancient China.  Europeans were giving greeting cards back in the 1400s.  But those early cards were hand-made and hand-delivered.  The greeting card as we know it today, commercially made and sent through the mail, did not arrive until the invention of the postage stamp revolutionized mail systems.

Modern commercially printed Christmas cards first appeared in Britain, in 1843, just three years after the introduction of the Penny Black stamp.  Back then, the cards usually did not feature winter scenes, but often had fairly elaborate spring-themed pictures.  The mails were rapidly becoming inexpensive, efficient and reliable, and the industrial revolution caused the migration of millions of people who were looking to work in the manufacturing centers.  As these trends progressed, so did the popularity of sending Christmas cards.

The idea of commercially printed Christmas cards reached America in 1875.  Their popularity waned when the USPS gave up its monopoly on printed postcards in 1898, but resurged in the 1920s and has continued to the present day.

The success of those early commercial Christmas cards contributed to the success of modernized postal systems through a drastic increase in mail volume.  It also inspired an entire greeting-card industry, with cards for nearly every holiday, birthday or occasion.  Yet even today, more Christmas cards are sent than any other type of greeting card.

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John E. Potter

Acting USPS Postmaster General John Potter announced his upcoming retirement back on Oct. 25.  Potter has been postmaster general since 2001, and has led the postal service through challenging times, starting with the anthrax scares immediately after 9/11 and continuing through today’s sluggish economic climate.

Patrick R. Donahoe

Competition from electronic media intensified over the decade in which Potter served as postmaster general, and contributed to a tight financial situation within the USPS.  In response, he sought to streamline operations through updating postal equipment to take advantage of current technology, and by cutting nearly 200,000 full-time positions.  A postal service press release regarding his retirement credits him with saving $20 billion in operating costs during his leadership.

Potter’s successor, Deputy Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe, appears to share his vision of a lean operation as a central component of the postal service’s future.  An article in the Oct. 26 Washington Post describes Donahoe as looking toward improving operational efficiency, an assessment the outgoing postmaster general echoed in the USPS press release.  Donahoe says in the Post article that another issue he’d like to focus on is shortening customer wait times.

Teletype Model 28 Page Printer

The first telephone exchange in North America became operational in 1878.  But like the telegraph before it, telephones required an infrastructure of physical lines to work, and that limited their use to already developed urban areas.  The first “long-distance” call spanned a whole six miles.  It would take decades for telephones to become commonplace.  Meanwhile another invention was on the horizon that would fill in some of the gaps.  Radio was invented right at the turn of the century.  Since radios broadcast over airwaves, they didn’t need physical lines to operate, and this made them useful in areas that weren’t yet well-developed and for shipboard communication.  It also soon became a medium for popular entertainment, and a source for news.  As the technology progressed, receiving units became small enough to be installed in cars, while two-way radios found their way into cabs, police cars, and trucking companies.  They also became an essential tool for the battlefield tactics that were shaped by concurrent advances in mobility.

News agencies owe a great deal of their success in the 20th Century to yet another invention: the teletype machine.  An evolution of the stock ticker, which appeared around 1870, the teletype machine allowed the user to send typed messages over a network of simple wires.  To this day, we call companies such as The Associated Press and Reuters “wire services,” a name which stems from their use of the teletype.  Teletypes were faster than sending messages through telegraphs, and one machine could send messages to several other machines at once.  The receiving teletype would print the message out on paper automatically at around 60 words per minute.

The teletype was an early ancestor of the personal computer, and the network of connected teletypes foreshadowed the way in which computers would soon be connected to each other.  There was nothing personal about the first computers.  They were huge, vastly expensive machines developed to perform massive calculations for military purposes, notably the invention of the hydrogen bomb.  In the post-war years, business found computers useful as well, and began to adopt them.  By the late ’60s, people in the field began thinking about ways to make computers more accessible to the consumer market.  It would take until the late ’70s for the personal computer to hit the market, but once they did they made a big splash, and they soon became powerful enough that business were replacing their mainframe-and-terminal setups with individual PCs.

Right around the time the computer industry was looking into personal computing, the Department of Defense was looking into ways to connect individual computers in a manner similar to the networks employed by teletypes.  The result, ARPANET, would later be recognized as the starting point for the Internet era.

All of these technologies are interconnected, and have built upon each other.  Today, we have smartphones.  Part telephone, part radio, part personal computer connected to the Internet, they offer the user a variety of communication options in a device that fits in one’s hip pocket.  With this kind of access to communication, it’s no wonder people are sending fewer letters than before.  But interestingly, consumers do favor the mail as a medium for certain kinds of messages, such as advertising.  Direct mail is favored by a significant margin over telemarketing and unsolicited e-mail.  The challenge today’s Postal Service faces is to find a way to make use of their strengths to cope with volume lost to other media.