Archive by Author

Tell me everything you know—in five words or less…

  |  Tue, October 23, 2007   |  Products   4

Be sure to read Dan’s follow-up entry: The Lifework of Dr. Jim Rosscup.

Imagine spending your entire life researching everything you could get your hands on in the one field you cared about more than anything else, then only being able to pass on the tiniest portion of your life’s work to future generations.

Too often that is what happens to so many great men and women of God who set out to write down the accumulated wisdom from a lifetime of diligent study and pass it on to future generations. They get a call from a print publisher and are asked to write an article for a new Bible Dictionary, Commentary, Encyclopedia, or Journal. Perhaps they are blessed enough to have a publisher request a complete book from them—either way, one of the commonalities of the interaction with the publisher is the request to watch the page count, or even word count, of their submission. Paper costs money, printing costs money, storing books costs money, shipping books costs money. The higher the page count, the higher the costs. Keeping page count down is a big deal when it comes to printing on paper.

If you were the author, how would you decide what “not” to say? Which pieces of wisdom, or insight from years of study would you be forced to keep from everyone else? What if the detail you left out was the missing piece everyone was searching for? This is your life’s work! You are so deep into this you can’t bear to part with any of the insights you have garnered. What if you had 3,000 pages of content and had to cut it down to 450 pages total?

Okay, slow down… Don’t throw away print too quickly. There is a tremendous benefit to print publishers and editors being conscious of page count, especially in this day and age of information overload: their fixation on page count produces the condensed version that most of us are looking for. We don’t always want to sit down and read someone’s lifework. We just don’t have time.

…but back to that “Life’s Work” for a moment. Just because most of us like to sit down and read the “Reader’s Digest” version of someone’s lifework, doesn’t mean we want all their years of research to be thrown out the window. What a waste to force the next guy dedicating his life to the study of the same subject, to start all over again just to rediscover 85% of what the first guy already found and couldn’t include in the 450 pages he had to work with.

This is where electronic publishing steps in and opens the floodgates. You have 3,000 pages to write on one topic? Go for it! The more comprehensive the work, the better. Write all you want. It only makes sense to have 100% of your life’s work preserved as a reference for future generations so we don’t miss out on one bit of it.

Where could this take us in the future? Has anyone stopped to think about the possibilities that are now opened up to us for the first time? How could this impact the rapid increase of knowledge? What if a denomination that had 1,000 pastors said “Let’s do a comprehensive topical reference work on the top 100 issues facing our membership today.” They could assign ten pastors to every topic and give them two months to write as much as they wanted on their assigned topic and email it back to headquarters. In two months it’s possible they could be sitting on a 30,000 page reference work, with 10 different perspectives on every topically indexed topic, ready for electronic publication.

Needless to say, we at Logos Bible Software are excited by the possibilities. The more content we have the brighter our software shines. The more comprehensive your electronic library, the more likely it is that you will be able to find fantastic content on even the most obscure of topics or “unpopular” passages you are studying.

Casual reading is one thing, you’re busy and want to read lots of books. Most of the time you only want the highlights from the condensed version. However, when you are ready for serious, in-depth research of a passage or topic, and are wrestling with the text—time isn’t the issue, getting the answers to your questions is the issue, and you actually want to be up to your eyeballs in content. You want to read every last bit of information you can possibly find. Having access to the unabridged 3,000 page life’s work on the topic you are studying will be so much better than only having the 450 page condensed version. So let’s hear it for the unabridged life’s work. Long may it live in electronic form to bless future generations!

Protesting the Postage Rate Increase?

  |  Tue, May 15, 2007   |  Misc   3

Ever since my blog post about saving 10% on postage, I’ve been thinking more and more about the reality of all the postage out there that has never been used.

Then I realized that today is May 15th, the day (according to several mass-emails I received titled “Do not pump gas on May 15th”) that we as a nation are going to show our solidarity and stick it to the gas companies by boycotting the pump for one day. This email explains that if we all get together we can take the gas companies for billions of dollars, and they will choke on their stockpiles.

In a way, the post office has created their own form of stockpiling of postage. The stockpile of collectible stamps has definitely contributed to their bottom line, but will never be used. They know there are collectors out there that need to have a complete collection, so why not make more designs just to sell stamps that will never be used?

Big deal I say. The post office has a good idea. They won’t be more popular by raising rates every week, but they will be popular by releasing more collectibles, and keeping rate increases down by ensuring they sell more postage than is actually used.

Sure, I know I have better things to do than to dream about postage all day, you probably do too – but if you are curious about what is really out there, take a look at what I found out…

I called up my new buddy, Tim, at the local Stamp and Coin shop and asked if there were an industry association for Stamp & Coin stores – sure enough – the American Philatelic Society. After looking over their website I stumbled on the dealer member directory which boasts 1,800+ entries. Now Tim is not a member, and it looks like most of his peers at other local Stamp & Coin shops aren’t either. A quick yellow pages search for Stamp and Coin in Seattle shows eight stores, yet a search for member stores in the APS directory yields only two. If you apply that multiplier to the country you get 7,200 Stamp & Coin shops. Hardly scientific I know, but this is a blog post, not an investigative journalist’s life’s work.

Tim says if you are any kind of stamp store at all, you have to have at least the basic collection of plain old postage issues including five issues of each stamp, mini sheets (which can have 20 stamps), rolls, regular sheets, blocks of 4, and so on and so forth. That can easily run around $5,000 of face value postage for a small mom & pop store – not to mention the bigger stores.

Since Stamp & Coin shops are always buying and selling inventory of stamps, add to that another thousand or two just to make sure you have more of the popular stuff, and an estimated $15,000 to $20,000 face value of old postage that they picked up at estate auctions or bought from the heirs of collectors like I mentioned in my previous post.

Inventory adds up pretty quickly, and pretty soon we are looking at say – $25,000 of face value postage stamps at each little shop, not counting the face value of the collectible stamps that are actually worth far more than their face value and which no sane person would ever dream of using as postage. If we take our conservative estimate of $25,000 in face value and multiply that by 7,200 stores we are looking at $180,000,000.00 in unused postage just sitting around in store inventory. Not to mention millions of dollars in unused postage in private collector’s hands, old desk drawers, lost, you name it.

Let’s add in the private collections. Apparently more than 55,000 members receive The Journal of the American Philatelic Society. Don’t get me wrong. I like stamps. I use stamps. I think they’re great. I’ve always had a roll or book of stamps in my desk drawer, but I’ve never once thought about joining the special stamp club. I figure in order to want to join the APS desperately enough to pay a membership fee and get their journal, you probably have to be pretty serious about stamps.

Tim says if you are pretty serious about stamps you’ve got to have at least a couple thousand in face value postage. Take over 55,000 members and multiply that by a couple thousand bucks and you’re looking at well over $100 million dollars, and that’s just for the dedicated “card-carrying” members. Now you have to believe that if there are more than 55,000 people who want to pay to be members of the APS there have got to be tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands more, that think stamps are cool enough to collect, but don’t want to join the club. For every one person that is serious enough to join the membership club, there have got to be dozens who are interested enough to collect stamps, but not enough to pay to join. Add their collections into the mix.

Now some people may be thinking that this is too hard to believe. Seriously, “hundreds of millions” of dollars in stamps? Come on.

Well how about this for starters: since most “collectors” are by nature not “sellers” imagine how much postage they are holding onto compared to what they have for sale. A quick scan of the APS auditors’ report from three years ago shows that they had almost $14,000,000.00 of members’ stamp books sitting around on consignment waiting to be sold. Who knows what that number is today, and that just counts the stuff that they are trying to get rid of. Most collectors “collect” and don’t sell, so if there is $14 million sitting around on consignment waiting to be sold, imagine how much they have in their private collections.

Any way you slice it, it looks to me like there are hundreds of millions of dollars of unused postage out there just sitting around with no special collectible value. So forget the forever stamp, there are already “forever” stamps out there. Every stamp ever issued in the USA is still worth every penny that it says it is.

Don’t go nuts. Do not send an email to everyone you know that says something like this:
“Protest the postage rate increase! Don’t buy stamps from the post office for the entire month of May! Buy old postage from Stamp & Coin shops and don’t go to the Post Office for the entire month in protest of the postage rate increase! If we all get together we can take hundreds of millions of dollars out of the Post Office’s hands and put it back into the hands of the small business owners.

That will teach the Post Office that we don’t want a stamp hike!”

Oh rats, I forgot. I should have written that in ALL CAPS!

Obviously this won’t work for the same reason not buying gas on May 15th won’t work. As long as there are collectors, and as long as the Stamp & Coin shops keep inventory, they will just go out and buy more. If you don’t stop the consumption nothing changes when you put off purchasing for a brief time.

But what if people realized that the stamps that they were collecting were never going to make them rich? What if people who were sitting on stamp collections decided to take them out of their mint condition books and use them on a letter? Is the Post Office ready to operate on budget with an unforeseen $200 million dollar shortfall in postage sales?

It makes me wonder.

Now seriously, you need to get back to work because this post is way too long, and isn’t even remotely related to how to get the most out of the best Bible Study Software in the world like it should be.

If you are on your day off, and happen to be in the mood for some more crazy rambling, keep reading.

Is the USPS recognizing unused postage as a liability on their books, just like some gift card retailers do?

Does the postmaster general even discuss the fact that there are untold hundreds of millions of dollars in stamps out there that haven’t really been accounted for? They just assume that they will never be used, and they go about their business. Are they held to the same level of accountability that gift card or stored value card retailers are? Or does the government get different treatment?

Over a year ago it was reported that Home Depot Inc. saw $43 million in pretax profit from cards sold before 2002 that went unused. The same report revealed that Limited Brands Inc. had unspent gift cards worth $30.4 million on the books. It would be interesting to see if that same year the postmaster general’s report including a line item for unused postage… Big retailers are raking in tens of millions of dollars in profit on totally unused gift cards that people lose, throw away, collect, or just never spend – and those cards are way more versatile and useful than a sheet of stamps.

But once again we see that the Internet changes the way the world works. Now there are several websites that do nothing but facilitate trading or selling unused gift cards…not to mention eBay. People are already selling unused postage at a discount on eBay and other places.

Will we see new sites popping up selling “Unused postage” (hurry, that domain was still available when I wrote this post) or what about the new forever stamps? The USPS printed 4 billion “forever” stamps already and people are snapping them up like crazy. A quick search of the web shows a lively discussion on the merits of “forever stamp arbitrage” or forever stamps as investments. Since even the new forever stamp will always be worth the price of a first class mail piece, having, oh I don’t know…say 10,000 more stamps than you need when your kids inherit your shrewd investment may still flood the local Stamp & Coin shops with a ton of inventory that they will need to blow out. Of course it will be more convenient to use, so it may be easier to sell, but still – they will be sitting on lots of inventory, and that is a recipe for a discount.

Well, I have to get back to work now, then take some envelopes over to the Stamp & Coin place to get stamped, then run over to the gas station to fill up my car. Hey, I’m on empty, give me a break! :-)

The Secret to Beating the Postage Increase

  |  Wed, May 9, 2007   |  Misc   7


Buy your stamps for 10% off.

Yes, it’s pretty obvious I know, but 99% of the people reading this article don’t think it is possible – “isn’t it against the law for the post office to give discounts on stamps?” So what – you don’t have to buy them from the post office.

I know it sounds too good to be true, I thought so too until I figured out how to do it.

If you are like me, you have spent hours of your life poring over your expenses in every category, trying to find a place to shave off a percent or two here and there. Then you come to the postage category. You look at that solid and steadily increasing dollar amount, shed a few tears, and move on since you know there is no way to save on the actual postage itself. You can’t just stop mailing invoices or statements, and you can’t use bulk mail for them – you’re stuck.

After crying a few of those tears year after year, I read “Chapter 9: You Can Always Find 5%” from my favorite business book Fire Someone Todayand was determined to once and for all find a way to shave something off that number somehow. Everyone said it couldn’t be done – “Everyone knows there are no discounts on postage other than bulk mail.” I was more determined than ever to find a way to shave at least 5% off my postage expenses.

I talked to my post office representative, I called the postmaster, I asked the UPS guys, the mail forwarders, the bulk rate mailers, and everyone else I could think of. Then I called the local “Stamp & Coin” shop and hit pay-dirt.

It turns out that there are thousands upon thousands of people happily stockpiling stamps while completely oblivious to the fact that the vast majority of all stamps are, guess what… used as stamps, and will never be worth more than their face value. They buy every roll or book of postage issued, no matter how mass-produced they may be, hoping they will strike it rich with a bunch of collector’s items someday. Eventually they pass on and their heirs inherit tons of old postage with no special collectable value at all. They can’t use that much postage themselves, so they sell it to the local stamp and coin place at pennies on the dollar.

The beauty of the old postage is that it never loses its face value or expires. While it may be worthless as a collector’s item, it is still worth every penny printed on its face. Just like any other inventory item, the old postage purchased at a discount is often passed on at a discount. The more dollars the local shop has tied up in old postage inventory, the more likely they are to blow it out at a discount.

I went over to my local stamp and coin place and made a deal with them. They agreed to hand-apply the correct postage to my statement envelopes when they had down time if I agreed to buy my postage from them. Sounded like a no-brainer to me. They sold the postage to me for 10% off face value and applied it for free. Now I am saving 10% on all my postage and getting the labor for free in an expense category that I originally thought there wasn’t a penny to be saved in.

As a bonus, it seems like my invoices and statements are being opened more often. When my customers see the rare and often antique hand-applied postage stamps, they know a real person had to touch this envelope and not just a postage-meter or bulk mailer.

Every penny counts. On May 14th the postage rate change is a 5% increase to your competitors’ postage budgets.

Let it be the day it becomes a 10% decrease in yours.

Today’s guest blogger is Dan Pritchett, director of marketing for Logos Bible Software.

Related post: Protesting the Postage Rate Increase?

Advanced Technology for Eternal Truth

  |  Tue, February 27, 2007   |  Misc   4

Today’s post is an excerpt from a recent NewsWire mailing

“The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.” —Isaiah 40:8 (ESV)

I still choke up when I read that verse, and I pray that I always will.

Isaiah 40:8speaks volumes. It conveys more depth and richness of content in fifteen short words than some authors getacross in their entire collected life’s works.This powerfuldeclaration remindsus why we are here at Logos. We believe in this verse with all our hearts, and want to do everything in our power to make sure that during our brief time on this earth,we doas much as we areable to advance the study of God’s Word.

You have probably heard the story behind the founding of Logos Bible Software before: A couple of young Microsoft programmers with their entire careers of high-pay and lucrative Microsoft stock options ahead of them, dropped everything to join a partner and risk it all on pursuing their dream.

They weren’t satisfied with using their skills to help businessmen have access to the latest and greatest in technology just so they could be more productive or do better in business…

They wanted more.

They wanted to use those same skills to help God’s people in every walk of life have better access to the treasures of God’s Word.

They wanted to use the latest and greatest in technology to create tools for taking people deeper into Bible study than they ever thought possible.

“Advanced Technology for Eternal Truth”

Before anything else, we have a passion for God’s Word. In order to help you get the most fromGod’s Word, we relentlessly push technology to the limits, and make sure we are always up on the latest and greatest.

It is that passion that keeps everyone at Logos pushing technology forward. It is that passion that keeps us experimenting with the latest software and tools out there wherever they come from. It is that passion that ensures that your Logos Bible Software will continue to get better and better.

We promise that we will continue to push technology to the limits to make studying the Bible deeper, easier and better in every way possible.

Really, we are serious about this!

The most obvious benefit of our passion to help you get the most out of your Bible study is the ever-improving Logos Bible Software engine (the Libronix Digital Library System).Our passionfor making sure we are up on the latest and greatest technology ensures that you have uninterrupted access to the best Bible studysoftware in the world even when Microsoft releases new operating systems like Windows Vista, and new browsers like Internet Explorer 7.The latest version of Logos Bible Software is ready for both: Get it now.

Honestly, there is no catch!

Keeping up to date with the core engine in Logos Bible Software doesn’t cost a thing. There is no reason not to download the latest versionand stay current. Take a moment and make sure you are using the latest and greatest in technology by updating your engine for free: http://www.logos.com/support/download/30update

Experience just how far our passion has taken us…

There is no catch to the download. You can make sure you have the latest core engine at no cost just like we mentioned above…

…but if you are looking to do more than just keep your software current with the latest operating systems,or you want to see just how far our passion has taken us to create extra tools and add-ins to bring you new ways to dig deeper, read on.

After you update your core engine you should check out the individually customized upgradesale that is about to expire on collection upgrades. Download the update first, then if you want to jump light years ahead in your Bible study and add more great tools, add-ins and resources for pennies on the dollar, you should really check out our custom collection upgrades that are still on sale for just a month or so more at: http://www.logos.com/upgrade

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