The Paperless Office in the 21st Century
by Pete Jaeger (1/3/98)
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Selecting a title was not easy. Alternative suggestions were: "Becoming Paperless in the 21st Century", "The Information Age Sales Consultant", "Sales Reps and the Computer", "Beyond 'E-mail", "The Internet/cyberspace Sales Rep/Consultant" but as the "paperless" concept permeates more than just the salesman/woman in the field "THE PAPERLESS OFFICE..."made sense regardless of where the work place is located; whether it be the front seat of a reps' car or the executive's mahogany paneled office.
It is the intend of the author to point out the rewards of embracing this new technology to the fullest realistic extent possible. It is also laughable to think that what is published here is the definitive "word" on the current IT state! What is "cutting edge" today can and many times is passe tomorrow. My own daughter advised me that the euphemism "cutting edge" should be the "bloody edge" because of these rapidly changing technologies, the upgrades and completely different platforms offered and constantly updated from one version to another.
Speaking of changes there are so many that no one is unaffected. The movies and T-V shows are all subject to real or no-so-science fiction plots and events. Medicine and other sciences are expanding in exponential leaps and bounds. Although those conducting business still observe the basic principles - the outcomes are certainly speedier. This is in large part due to the available information and systems to supply and transmit/receive this data. Everything from Wall Street transactions to product changes decided upon by world-wide video-conference meetings. With the advent of the FAX, e-mail and the Internet there is very little information that cannot be accessed. There may even come a time where there is an over-abundance of Information making it even more important for the professional with time constraints to be able to filter this incoming data.
There is a somewhat hackneyed expression that whatever one can aim for or imagine can actually be achieved! This is almost always true and the only perquisites might be the "time" and "money" necessary to accomplish these goals. Many a corporate "5 Year Plan" has been updated monthly instead of on an annual basis.
It does not take a brain surgeon (they too have been helped immensely by the new technology!) to see the "Information Age" evolve. One can call or fax in orders for almost anything today - from the 3rd Ave. deli, to grocery stores that have an e-mail or fax service with a basic list of groceries that can be ordered ahead and ready and waiting curb-side for a small nominal charge.
The Information Age is changing from a flow of data into the Information Flood! Sometimes it is an orderly flow but most times not. This book will deal mainly with the Internet but the PC industry - home/business use as well. It is interesting to note that at this printing the personal computer available to all of us has only been in existence for roughly 15 years. That is a relatively short period of this when considering the rudimentary start of this "home based" technology. As an adopter or early entrant into this field once remarked, "With the first computer I had at home I would type in information and after about ten minutes a tape would come clicking out with the word 'Hello' ." Bill Gates is smiling! For those of you who "grew up" with "DOS" (Disk Operating System) and learned most of the "ins" and "outs" of managing information on your computer - I applaud you. It was much easier vies a vie Microsoft WINDOWS for the next generation of users.
{The lawyers office with shelf after shelf of expensive bound books filled with legal cases and information is no longer a necessity for the firm as all that information can be downloaded or reviewed via the Internet or CD - the purchase price may be similar but the rows of books are best suitable as background for law firm media ads.}Place this somewhere else!!!!!!!
CHAPTER ONE: The AGE OF PAPER (Crystal Ball)
The PC industry brought with it many accessories. Everything from printers to add-on peripherals to "in the box" bells and whistles. There are a plethora of programs already installed in
"off the shelf" PC’s and available via down-load and as separate store bought packages for installation.
The one thing this fifteen year old industry did not do was to reduce the amount of personal paper products consumed. With every new production product or printer font format developed and sold to the public it seemed as if another few reams of white or colored, plain or tractor fed, lined or unlined, formatted 11" or 14", 20# or whatever weight paper was sold. Viola! Office Max, Office Depot , Bets and the many others to supply the needs of the personal home computer market.
In industry - contrary to what many workers thought - the machine do not replace clerks, typists or multitudes of managers! In fact the personal departments (now human resource) now had to create new job descriptions for the data processing, MIS, and eventual IT departments to handle this new flow of data and paper information. These new people were needed to create meaningful reports, to interpret this new formatted data and to liaison with heretofore non-computer oriented management to explain what it was they were getting from the ( ) computer banks and how to interpret it. Of course this changed as "computer literate" managers took over the positions of those who merely waded in the reams of (mostly) useless information. When the IT team and other PC literate management did in fact team up to ferret out the really important organizational data then this sharing of info became meaningful and a viable tool for management.
An on-going problem in this industry - as was the case in every "industrial" revolution - is to get the leaders of industry (whether that be for profit or non, research, or whatever) to commit the financial resources for information technology development of their "industry"! The attitude of "We've done it this way for years (in most cases) prevails".
Paper. At is a necessary evil! Evil because it accumulates! To some this may not be a problem. But for those who are inundated on a daily basis by "junk mail" from coupons to useless newspapers filled with classified sections and others sec's. never read it CAN be and is a problem. To the uninitiated the disposal of paper and paper products may not seem to be a concern. It is! The final destruction of paper is in fact one of the largest "disposal" problems today. Yes, if everyone recycled the used and reusable paper products then there would be less of a problem. Incineration is the preferred method- again due to SPACE! or rather a lack of it! Landfill space is at a premium and buried paper can last several lifetimes; it is in a compacted state very indestructible.
Of the following items guess which is the hardest to destroy by fire: Wood, Plastic or paper? You guessed correctly if you thought paper! As a clarification - a single sheet of paper might burn faster than a stick of wood or a used plastic cup but when one is dealing in truck loads of refuse this is not the case but the exception. In hospital waste for example there are furnaces (certified to meet the City, County, State, Fed specs) that can cost upwards of a million dollars. These incinerators are very sophisticated and have a "swirling air" flow that tends to separate the paper so that it may be burned - the resulting ash from these furnaces is roughly 80% paper - and although acceptable for the landfill it is nonetheless a paper by product. For the environmentally sensitive please note that these expensive furnaces are also equipped with specially constructed chimneys/stacks that remove ALL the toxic chemical and otherwise unfavorable elements that could go into the air. At those facilities that meet the certifications and standards the only thing going into the air is water - that's what that "white smoke" is - water!
There is another down side to paper. If one doesn't chose to destroy it - or give, donate, sell their unwanted paper - how do they store it? We Americans (perhaps other cultures as well) tend to store STUFF! The (not so old adage) "He who dies with the most stuff -wins!" Is becoming less humorous as the storage issue of predominately paper is of greater expense and concern. Entire industries have been created to deal with the paper stuff of our personal and corporate lives. The amount of archival s-p-a-c-e used by government, education, research, corporate and even personal entities is vast! The local self-storage unit has a document (all paper) storage center -they catalog and will - for a fee - store and bring out of storage and deliver what ever (box) of docs you want. Libraries (in my lifetime) will probably never become extinct - never say "never"! Many of us relish the fine leather bound paper editions that adorn our coffee tables, but these volumes are not the primary concern. It is hard to define paper stuff to the non-stuff hoarder. Stuff can best be described as paper material that has some particular significance to the owner/storer/hoarder. We probably all have stuff but to varying degrees. My father-in-law (as an example of a "professional" stuff handler and sorter) can not discard any piece of mail (junk or otherwise) until it has been thoroughly perused. He is 86 years old. He is on many mailing lists. He gets scads (No I cannot precisely define scads - it is perhaps 1 1/2 pounds of mail 6 days a week!) He does not 'get through' 9 pounds of mail a week. Guess what happens! Many of these pieces of mail get sorted into piles "for future consideration" or for whatever whimsy do not make it to the "round file" to go "down the apartment building chute".
It will be a sad day when one does not have a newspaper, book or whatever paper pleasure item to amuse themselves. It was (I believe) IBM who years ago used a logo that went something like "Send me a man who reads!” and also employed the logo "THINK". One of the primary ways to get people to think is via the printed word- and whether that be comic book or research paper reprint then all the better for today’s society. The primary purpose of this book is to get professionals (whether they be housepersons or business executives) to reassess the PC type products that are available to them today, to be able to access and use them without fear and to lead more productive and happier lives both "on and off the playing field".
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