Is "Paperless" a Worthy Goal?

Adam Behringer has taken the time to provide me with a great guest blog post. Adam's own blog Bee Documents Blog is packed with information. Adam has been and is developing some great stuff for the Mac using law office. Also, go to Adam's website www.beedocuments.com. Take a look at Adam's guest post below. Thanks again Adam for taking the time to provide a wonderful post.

Is "Paperless" a Worthy Goal?
by Adam Behringer
Founder and CEO of Bee Documents, Inc.

The "Paperless Office" is a concept that has captured the imagination of many professionals who's desks are covered in clutter. But, is paperless the ultimate way to work? After all, paper is a highly evolved communication medium....

I would suggest that, we take a look at the tasks we are spending the most time working on and find the best technology to make our time more efficient. That technology may be paper or a PDF file or something else.

READING

As an example, let's take a look at the task of reading a long document, like a book from cover to cover. Is it more efficient to read a book in print, or in digital form? Well, this is a task that paper and printing technology is perfectly evolved for. Books are printed at a very high resolution, even the most expensive computer monitors pale by comparison. There is much less eye fatigue looking at a book and it is very intuitive to mark your place with a bookmark when you need to take a break.

SEARCHING

Now, let's look at searching documents. I recently scanned 42 boxes of documents for a fraud investigation team. They had the files organized by there investigations but what if they wanted to see if a person under investigation had ever been investigated as part of another case? It would be next to impossible to go through all the paper document by hand looking for a name. However, once the documents were converted to searchable PDF files, they can be searched in seconds with Adobe Reader or Spotlight. Clearly, digital documents are the way to go when searching is an important part of your work.

TRANSPORTING

Transportation of documents is a really interesting case. Consider taking a 5 page document with you on an airplane or a meeting. What would you rather take, a 5 page paper report or your laptop? Obviously, the paper version is lighter weight, less fragile if you spill your coffee on it, and easy to fold up and put in your pocked. Besides, it is easier to read as I discussed above. However, what if you needed an encyclopedia on your flight? The print version of the WorldBook is not going to fit in the overhead luggage compartment! However, having the encyclopedia on a CD-ROM in your laptop makes it relatively simple to transport.

These may seem like obvious points I am making, but they are only obvious after you stop to think about them. Look at the failure of e-books which were supposed to replace paper books and notepad computers which were supposed to replace paper for the portable review of short documents and for note taking. Some companies (and the customers that buy the hype) are trying to sell technology rather than selling efficiency.

As a creator of document management technologies, these are issues that I have spent a lot of time researching and thinking about. Do you want my prediction for the future? (if not, stop reading now...)

I think the future is a combination of paper and digital document technologies. I believe that the focus of innovation should be on systems which support fluid movement between the various media. For example, a realistic transportation scenario is that you have a paper document which you scan in order to e-mail across the country who then prints it out for reading. Or you have boxes of discovery documents which are scanned, searched for important terms, then printed for team review.

The best document management systems will be the ones that make it really simple to go from paper to digital and back again. Next time you see a sales demo of a document management product, ask them to show you how to print the entire archive or how to print the documents that match a search. Also, think about how easy it is to move back and forth between the media. For example, if you have a paper version of a document, can you easily find the digital version on your hard drive? If you are looking at a document on your screen, how will you be able to find the paper version in your file cabinet?

I'm placing my money on technologies that ease the transition between document types so that people can experience the best of both worlds. Not just scanners and printers, though those are important too, but software that supports a heterogeneous world. I recommend taking a week or so to really pay attention to the ways that you and your staff spend there time. What are the tasks which take the longest? What technologies are best for accomplishing these tasks? Don't be afraid of new technologies. On the other hand, never discount a technology simply because it is old.

Comments

[Luis de la Rosa]

I agree with this, but what is the most efficient way to scan dozens of incoming documents per week? A flatbed scanner is quite tedious and a high-end digital copier is expensive.

Is there a device in-between that would fit a SOHO? Where you could feed in 50 sheets and it could scan both sides and spit out either a TIFF or a PDF, then into something that can catalog/search the documents? Something around $500 for hardware and probably $50-$100 for software?

Luis

[Traverse City Lawyer]

I agree. I scan everything in at the front door of my office. But there is a whole process designed for intake, routing, reviewing, etc. The key is not the scanning but the process that is wrapped around it.

Once you have it scanned, you often need to print it (in color) and work with it. I custom designed and installed shelving units for my walls which allows my to work with a large number of printed pages. You will find a conference table or desk just does not do the trick.