The “Final Frontier” of Paperless Offices
July 1st, 2009 by Ashley Strickland“The office of the future” was predicted in 1975 by a “Business Week” article. The introduction of the personal computer caught the quick-thinking journalists and they believed that with a PC on every desk, the primitive need for paper would be eradicated. However, mainstreamed computers only increased our use of paper until we are nearly drowning in the waste. What happened? Why were these visionary voices silenced amidst a wave of word documents? And why are we still using paper so freely? It’s time to consider the idea of paperless offices as a soon reality.
The truth is simple: we feel that we need paper to survive. Super printers allow us to shoot out multiple copies within seconds and we have freely used this privilege for its convenience. As we continue this trend as a society of convenience, why not make things even easier by having all digital documents? Photos, plans, paper documents and even microfiche could exist in the digital sphere with the use of various types of scanners and copiers. But we are easily restricted by copyright laws, business and government regulations that are slow to accept completely digital documents, as well as our own difficulties reading, receiving and editing electronic “papers.” And there is always the fear of electrical failure and our inability to completely trust computer systems to maintain longevity of memory.
This is all plausible and understandable, but there are options open to those who want a paperless office. With easily transportable technologies on the rise, including the iPhone, small laptops and PDAs, paperless offices would allow us to work on the go and leave behind the disorganization of shuffling multiple papers. We could work from anywhere, on anything. It would eliminate the clutter and criteria of modern offices, including filing cabinets, shelving units and folders. Instead, your office could be anywhere that afforded you a chair, desk and computer. Bosses could dictate to speech recognition software rather than a secretary writing on paper or typing a letter. Email has already replaced most of our snail mail, but enough of it occurs to add to our landfills (because many are too lazy to recycle).
Sponsored links on the Internet offer you the chance to go paperless in 30 days by offering scanning software or other systems. Could this really be your “office of the future”? Perhaps a less cluttered cubicle is in your future; it may even be on your back patio. But all of this talk of a paperless office inevitably leads to another discussion: will we even be using ANY paper in the future? The economy has caused more publications to fold than ever, especially magazines and newspapers that were considered luxuries. Other publications have struggled to survive in print and have reverted to online versions with more content. Amazon introduced their Kindle reader sometime ago, a replacement for the paperback novel.
Some say that online publications are the way of the future. For example, the Grady Journal, an innovative publication of the University of Georgia, is a completely online news source (full disclosure: the author works with the Grady Journal). It has no other outlet, yet has seen great success in its first year. Will we have a future without newspapers and magazines that you can hold in your hand? Only time will tell, but paperless offices are in the very near future.
What do you think about paperless offices? Do you use one or does the very idea terrify you? Let us know at Social Yell!
Ashley Strickland is a senior at the University of Georgia. She is a summer intern for SocialYell and blogs about health, social equity, consumer advocacy, charity, sustainability and just about anything green.
I definitely like the idea of a paper-less office but i also do believe that we have a long way to go. Americans and the entire world are still paper thirsty and love to use it at all times. Teachers are somewhat slowing down on their use of paper at my college but they still print out a mass amount of handouts. We most ceirtainly have the technology to have a paperless office but as Ashley stated we don't like to put our dependence on a machine that could malfuntion and their goes all your files. It will be interesting to see if and when this comes true. Maybe it will be in the next 5 years maybe in the next 3 decaades.. only time will tell
A paperless office is good in theory, but perhaps not reasonable in practice. Many people are extremely reluctant to forgo paper just because it is solid and tangible. This goes beyond the fear of electrical failure; it is a matter of preference. Certain prints are now more popular online, such as photographs, newspapers, and mail. Yet, many other prints remain more popular as hard copies for reasons of ease and comfort. Retrieving a folded sheet of paper from your pocket is easier than setting up your laptop, praying for Internet access, and then browsing through your cluttered inbox.
I see how the paperless office can work but I for one like having paper as to carrying around things like iPhone, laptop, or pda. Most laptop are far to heavy to carry around to everyday needs, too expensive to buy such a good light laptop ($1500 for a laptop that I can just snap into two?) or just silly to carry a 9 inch monitor netbook. Now pda/iPhone might be an interesting idea but you most likely won't be interested in using such devices unless you are the business man/woman that is always on the go and gotten used to staring down on a small screen while zooming in and out.
As a business also forgoing paper copies can cripple reputation or hinder a business deal by seeming not having such luxury of hard print paper. Meetings do happen in slide shows and images by computers but when it comes down to the details, they have a print out of the slides and the key points for their clients and/or investors to give a reminder of the meeting and also allow them to feel the company cares for their business.
What be a cool idea is something like Kindle but you can take notes and such… much like the tablets that seems to be out of style.
I agree with you on the tablet idea and I believe this is something we will eventually more closer to in the future. For now, as Imran says, we are just so reliant on paper. However, one day we may find ourselves so buried beneath paper that paperless offices are the only way out.
Here's an interesting link on organizing your paperless office – http://www.productivity501.com/components-of-a-pa...
The problem is that many people just feel comfortable with their paper books and paper calenders, etc; the feel and ease on the eyes is something that takes adjustment not to have with digital documents. This is probably the main argument against "going paperless," and it will be a difficult task to surpass this obstacle in attempting to get the world to reduce deforestation.
I see the paperless office trend taking off as the percent of people who entered the workforce after the advent of personal computers increases. A majority of the American workforce today did not grow up with computers, getting their news online, communicating via AIM, etc. These same people are uncomfortable absorbing all their information via digital document. In the next few years it will be easier to convince a younger generation of workers to engage in a paperless office.
Comfort and ease of use are important, but so is functionality; you can only do so much when you distrubute and tinker with paper documents. When your office's entire range of papers/assignments/plans/schedules are disseminated digitally myriad options of sorting and searching for documents, visual enhancements, distributing with a variety of personalized privacy settings, and personal customization of reading format will be available. Options and enhancements are always valued, and these are things a paperless, or digital office will provide in abundance. Younger, more tech-savvy generations will jump on the rapidly improving technology of things like the Kindle and PDAs.
Agreed, Adam! I just went with my father last Thursday when he received his physical check-up and his doctor's office, which maintains mostly baby boomer generation patients, has gone almost completely digital. The previous (and tedious) paper work he used to fill out is now on a digital touch pad format with more in-depth questioning, allowing the doctor to completely evaluate his health. Because digital platforms, like this blog, can be more easily updated rather than reprinting hundreds of forms, going digital allows us to be a completely current society. And, we are leaving behind thousands of pounds of paper. But I will say that some of the baby boomer generation seems very disgruntled at using touch pads, which corresponds with your point on younger and more tech-savvy generations using the paperless idea.
There are compliance regulations in Medical, Law etc. for certain documents. Most individuals and corporation don't know the latest advancements that have been made in Paperless Document Solutions.
There is a company that we use – ( United Imaging ) that provides software services to automate scanning,. archive, document security, document OCR , emailing, to organize and instant retrieval. It uses a simple Wizard Interface.
I know this company even comes out and does a free assessment. They are in Los Angels CA.
You should give these experts a call 800-999-0159