I first encountered the idea of working in a paperless office environment over ten years ago while working in the health care industry. I was part of a contract that offered Medicare supplement insurance and when the contract came up for bid in 1995 a new company took over. Part of this new company's vision for reducing operating costs was the implementation of a company Intranet where all our reference and training materials would be stored. I was part of the T&D department who was charged with implementing this. And, quite honestly, it sounded like a great and timely idea. This was the time of boom in personal computing and the growth of the world wide web. Delivering and consuming information electronically seemed logical, economical, and practical. But a funny thing happened along the way to office of the future. The human element kicked in.
People began to look at paper in much the same way their grandparents viewed land during the great depression. Currency and capital were abstract concepts who derived their solve value from the trust or belief of the marketplace but land was permanent. It couldn't disappear because someone decided they didn't believe in it anymore. Flash forward fifty-odd years and workers had the similar reaction to paper. Paper was tactile. And documents on paper were official. You could wield a document. Use it as proof. Waive it in the air to make a point. And it wouldn't disappear if someone pulled the plug on the network. There was even some research that indicated the use of paper had increased as a result of the office of the future.
At some point in time, I don't recall a specific moment, I resigned myself to the fact that I would always need paper and that I would work in a dual-medium environment. Until two weeks ago.
It was the week after the symposium and I was spent. For those charged with putting it on the symposium is really a nine to ten month event and those last six weeks leading up to it are frantic with activity. For me, I was pretty useless afterwards. Incapable of sustained periods of intellectual activity I decided I would clean my office. If you haven't seen my office it can best be described as intimate. It is literally a converted storage closet. So economy of space is essential (Good thing I'm a minimalist at heart). And that's when it hit me. I was paperless.
Going through my filing cabinets I discovered I had not 'filed' anything in over a year. My weekly reports, vacation requests, projects, etc., were all online. Stored on one machine or another. On one of two external hard drives. And more and more in someone else's database (can you say Google docs?). I was able to recycle 95% of what remained. After all, do I still need that ANGEL 6.3 User Manual? (A 500+ page behemoth). We hadn't been on 6.3 for 2 years!
So I got to thinking, as I packed the Mixed Office Paper recycling bin, how I got to this point. What happened that made saving paper so superfluous? Once the Jell-O that was my mind began to firm back up it dawned on me that it wasn't so much one thin or event that brought me to this point. Rather it was several.
As electronic document creation and storage improved I was able to do more without the need of paper. We all become more comfortable working this way and 'trusting' that bits of data were just as tangible as sheets of paper. The initial promise of the company Intranet had come to fruition in it's promise of how information could be consumed. But it was more than that. I realized my need for paper had decreased because my use of it had become more specialized. Most of what I do now I do electronically. Whether it be on my laptop or even my cellphone. I've come to rely on the text feature of my phone so much I recently bought an env for the flip top keypad. I use paper mostly for very brief notes or scribbles that will grow into something more when I take them online. Because of that, the size of the paper I use has shrunk. My binder sized day planner has been replaced by a reporter's notebook. And it's not just my need for paper to capture the written word. Now the majority of my picture taking is done wit my camera phone on digital camera and again deposited online. And it's not just visual media. Not only have I moved all my music to non-tangible electronic formats. It's also how I buy it. A quick mental check leads me to think it's been two years since I bought a cd at a brick and mortar store and that was because someone had given me a gift card. My movie collection can't be far behind. This 'virtual mentality' has crept into other facets of my life where going digital isn't all that practical. I love books but I don't buy them like I used to. I rediscovered the public library when borrowing a book is much like downloading a file and when I'm finished with it I can return (read delete it). Now I buy only the books that I absolutely covet.
Yes, a funny thing happened on my way to becoming paperless. I became 'possession-less' or 'thing-less'. At least lesser. I became digital.
People began to look at paper in much the same way their grandparents viewed land during the great depression. Currency and capital were abstract concepts who derived their solve value from the trust or belief of the marketplace but land was permanent. It couldn't disappear because someone decided they didn't believe in it anymore. Flash forward fifty-odd years and workers had the similar reaction to paper. Paper was tactile. And documents on paper were official. You could wield a document. Use it as proof. Waive it in the air to make a point. And it wouldn't disappear if someone pulled the plug on the network. There was even some research that indicated the use of paper had increased as a result of the office of the future.
At some point in time, I don't recall a specific moment, I resigned myself to the fact that I would always need paper and that I would work in a dual-medium environment. Until two weeks ago.
It was the week after the symposium and I was spent. For those charged with putting it on the symposium is really a nine to ten month event and those last six weeks leading up to it are frantic with activity. For me, I was pretty useless afterwards. Incapable of sustained periods of intellectual activity I decided I would clean my office. If you haven't seen my office it can best be described as intimate. It is literally a converted storage closet. So economy of space is essential (Good thing I'm a minimalist at heart). And that's when it hit me. I was paperless.
Going through my filing cabinets I discovered I had not 'filed' anything in over a year. My weekly reports, vacation requests, projects, etc., were all online. Stored on one machine or another. On one of two external hard drives. And more and more in someone else's database (can you say Google docs?). I was able to recycle 95% of what remained. After all, do I still need that ANGEL 6.3 User Manual? (A 500+ page behemoth). We hadn't been on 6.3 for 2 years!
So I got to thinking, as I packed the Mixed Office Paper recycling bin, how I got to this point. What happened that made saving paper so superfluous? Once the Jell-O that was my mind began to firm back up it dawned on me that it wasn't so much one thin or event that brought me to this point. Rather it was several.
As electronic document creation and storage improved I was able to do more without the need of paper. We all become more comfortable working this way and 'trusting' that bits of data were just as tangible as sheets of paper. The initial promise of the company Intranet had come to fruition in it's promise of how information could be consumed. But it was more than that. I realized my need for paper had decreased because my use of it had become more specialized. Most of what I do now I do electronically. Whether it be on my laptop or even my cellphone. I've come to rely on the text feature of my phone so much I recently bought an env for the flip top keypad. I use paper mostly for very brief notes or scribbles that will grow into something more when I take them online. Because of that, the size of the paper I use has shrunk. My binder sized day planner has been replaced by a reporter's notebook. And it's not just my need for paper to capture the written word. Now the majority of my picture taking is done wit my camera phone on digital camera and again deposited online. And it's not just visual media. Not only have I moved all my music to non-tangible electronic formats. It's also how I buy it. A quick mental check leads me to think it's been two years since I bought a cd at a brick and mortar store and that was because someone had given me a gift card. My movie collection can't be far behind. This 'virtual mentality' has crept into other facets of my life where going digital isn't all that practical. I love books but I don't buy them like I used to. I rediscovered the public library when borrowing a book is much like downloading a file and when I'm finished with it I can return (read delete it). Now I buy only the books that I absolutely covet.
Yes, a funny thing happened on my way to becoming paperless. I became 'possession-less' or 'thing-less'. At least lesser. I became digital.
I did the same thing after the Symposium -- clean my office I recycled probably 3 years worth of paper. I would love to go paperless, but I find myself needing to print stuff just to get to it. The avalanche of digital to-dos (mostly in the form of email) rolls at me too quickly. If I stop and print notes things seem to get done ... otherwise I tend to only file them away.
That's a great point. I find that I use paper to write down reminders or to-do's so things don't get lost in the digital avalanche. I even keep a journal to write down ideas. (I know you do as well). But for the actual creation process I must be 99% electronic.