Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Whatever happened to the paperless office

It's been nearly three decades, and the forest-friendly vision is about as tangible as cyberspace. But don't give up.

By DAVE GUSSOW
Published August 21, 2006

Less than half of Gill's students get paper copies; others access the notes online. Gill, an associate professor in the information systems and decision sciences department at the University of South Florida in Tampa, changed some of his other paper-devouring habits, too.

"The Tablet PC has many of the same advantages of a pad of paper," Gill said. "It's relatively easy to use. It's shaped the way a sheet of paper is. It has plenty of capacity to hold all documents, and you can write on it."

While technology helped curb Gill's appetite for paper, it has not eliminated it. Nor does he expect paper to disappear any time soon, even as technology advances.

"Paper has some big advantages over computers," Gill said. "It's a lot easier to look at. It's a lot easier to carry around. You can scribble on it. If you lose it, you can almost always get another copy. With paper, what you see is what you get."

It has been about 30 years since the term "paperless office" appeared, based on the theory that technology would eliminate the need for paper. But that utopian vision is a long way from reality.

In 1993, U.S. paper consumption totaled about 91-million tons of paper, according to the American Forest and Paper Association. That rose to about 100-million tons in recent years, though the Christian Science Monitor reported that consumption has leveled off, if not fallen a bit.

Helping replace paper are improved databases, computer networks that make sharing information easier and Web-based applications. Driving part of the digital movement are regulatory requirements aimed particularly at the financial services and health-care industries.

And two destructive hurricane seasons have people thinking electronic as a way to preserve and protect their data. For example, the Waveland Medical Center in Mississippi lost its paper records when Hurricane Katrina flooded the building up to its roof, according to the Biloxi Sun Herald. The center has since shifted to an electronic records system.

Some people can survive well with little paper, such as Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, who wrote about his office in Fortune magazine in April. Three big computer monitors are his tools of choice. A search at the Microsoft Web site for "paperless office" turns up almost 1,900 hits.

Yet weaning people and businesses off paper is sometimes a daunting task.

"We've had clients disable their printers in order to teach their employees they don't have to print anything any more," said Jana Wiggins, chief executive of Document Advantage Corp. in Tampa.

Why do people cling to paper?

"It's more of a technology resistance," Wiggins said. "It's more of, 'Oh gosh, this is really difficult.' "

Document Advantage is one of a number of companies that offer electronic record management systems, which essentially help companies take paper documents, digitize them and virtually store them.

Among its clients is Hillsborough County government. The county had an eight-page employment application. Add test documents and other material, and each application could be quite a paper bundle.

But that was only part of it, Wiggins says. Copies of each packet had to be made for the various departments that might be interested in the candidate. Sometimes couriers were needed to deliver them.

On the Web, she says, it's available to all who need it and at a fraction of the cost.

Alan J. Wiessner, president and CEO of Integra Business Systems Inc. in Safety Harbor, which works in electronic document management, says many financial transactions traditionally bound to paper can be digitized: People can apply for loans, sign the applications and submit them electronically.

But many people are not ready to jump that far, even if they sign electronically when they charge something at a store.

They might sign for a loan electronically, or get a copy on a disc, but they'll want a paper copy.

"We're in the transition period between those two worlds," Wiessner said. Technology can be added to the process, but "not just to get stuff out there for the sake of technology and hope people will adopt it."

And paper won't become an endangered species.

"In some cases, it will never make sense to make it all electronic," Wiessner said.

That's not stopping some from trying. USAA, a financial services firm that serves military personnel and veterans, is encouraging members to sign up to get their insurance documents online.

When hurricanes hit Florida in recent years, says USAA spokeswoman Lynne McChristian in Tampa, the company found that many people said they couldn't find their paper policies, which wasn't a problem for those using the online service.

In a recent week, the company signed up 13,000 members for online document delivery.

"We're telling them to think of their online documents as their online filing cabinet," McChristian said.

But there are cost savings, too.

"For every member that enrolls in electronic documents, we avoid mailing 26 documents a year," McChristian said. "It's a real big efficiency, which saves money which we pass on to members."

USAA is digitizing claims documents that come in, eliminating the need to store paper.

"I can't say we love paper," McChristian said. "What we love is the operational efficiency."

Dave Gussow can be reached at dgussow@sptimes.com or (727) 445-4165. Read his blog at www.sptimes.com/blogs/tech.

[Last modified August 21, 2006, 06:20:47]