What is The Cole Group?

An industry and market analysis firm providing independent advice on publishing applications and enabling technologies employed by newspapers, magazines and publishers worldwide, The Cole Group specializes in publishing systems: text-editing, graphics, desktop publishing, photo, library, pagination, classified, display ad and pre-press systems. It has worked since 1989 primarily with domestic newspapers, though it consults with newspapers, magazines and wire services worldwide and works with CPU manufacturers in an attempt to help them understand the editorial function.

The Cole Group offers services including understanding publishing technology, managing publishing technology and creating publishing technology as well as standard editorial services and emergency preparedness planning services. Its primary service is publishing system selection, acquisition and implementation advice.

The Cole Group is completely independent: it works only for publishers, never for companies that have a sales force dedicated to the industry. Clients can be assured that Cole Group advice is not colored by its relationships with companies that sell into the publishing industry.

Since the late 1980s, Cole has consulted with dozens and dozens of publishers ranging from A (Associated Newspapers of London) to Z (Ziff-Davis of New York City). He has helped the Washington Post as well as Arizona's Casa Grande Dispatch; the Wall Street Journal and Wisconsin's Janesville Gazette. As well as dailies, Cole has consulted with numerous weeklies -- Education Week, NurseWeek, Los Angeles Weekly and the Chronicle of Higher Education. For 12 months, while teaching new owners how to run a newspaper, The Cole Group handled all management chores at a 25,000-circulation daily. We've consulted with wire services (Copley News Service, the New Zealand Press Association) and a number of companies outside newspapers (Apple Computer Inc., Electronic Data Systems, Intel Corp., Sun Microsystems and Xerox). We've worked on projects large -- helping publishers replace entire pre-press environments (editorial, advertising, imaging) and small -- we wrote a lot of typesetting code back in the days when typesetting code needed to be written.

The organization publishes two weekly newsletters: The Cole Papers,, which is about journalism, technology and publishing, and NewsInc., which is about the business of the newspaper business.

For more information, contact The Cole Group, P.O. Box 719, Pacifica, Calif. 94044-0719 USA. Phone: (650) 557-9595. Fax: (650) 557-9696. E-mail: .