As a Red Sox fan, I doubt I am that popular in St. Lois anyway since the Sox swept the Cards in 2004 to win their first World Series in 86 years, but in case there were any printers there who liked me, this story should finish them off as well.

I believe it was 1996, but I could be wrong, when I helped write Xerox' Marketing Partnership Program, their premier sales training tool for digital printing. We had spent months pulling it together and when it was finally done and edited and approved, we went on the road to do six cities and test it out. One of those cities was St. Louis, the Gateway to the West. We were to talk about how to sell digital to a group of printers in the area. At that time, the market was already skeptical, but combine that with the "Show me" attitude of some fine Midwesterners, and we had a tough job going in.

I was speaking with someone back at my office and happened to mention that I was going to St. Louis. "Ah," he said, "the whining capital of the world!" I asked for an explanation and it came out like this:

"You see, Bill, 150 years ago the West was wide open and settlers were moving out from the East. It was a hard, hard ride and by the time they got to St. Louis, they had already endured phenomenal hardship. A significant number of people stayed in St. Louis. They decided to quit the ride, determining that it was too hard. Thus, for the past 150 years, St. Louis has been breeding a group of quitters and whiners." I laughed and quickly forgot this generalization.

A few weeks later I was in St. Louis for the first time. My presentation went well. I detailed the reasons for "going digital" and made my arguments as to why today's printer needed to embrace the technology. When I was done, I asked for any questions and comments. A hand shot up immediately. The man said (you need to read this in you whiniest internal voice), "Gee, I don't know. That sounds awfully hard. I don't think we can do it." I could NOT believe my ears! It was true. I immediately asked the man, "Are you a native of St. Louis" and he replied, "Oh yes, four generations!"

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