[vox] Paperless Office Transition

[Tony Cratz]

Kevin,

On 09/12/2011 08:03 PM, Kevin Schultz wrote:
> Does anyone here work in an environment which has transitioned to a
> paperless (or paper-less, as it may be) office?
> 
> I have been tasked with working as part of a team to transition our
> large governmental agency to a paperless office. :o)
> 
> Curious what opportunities, pitfalls, ideas everyone has. 

	I'm will be saying something which people will say I have a
	very cynical view. Yes, and it is because I have seen what
	I'm about to say happen over and over again.

	Lets start with the big opportunities:

	1) Saving money
		a) Reduction in amount of paper order $$$$
		b) Fewer copies/printers $$$$
	2) Higher security (fewer secretes being printed and put into
	   garbage for some dumpster diver to find)
		a) Reduction in shredding fees due to less paper

	3) Information can quickly be found via an internal web
	server.

	Now the big pitfalls

	1) Dose your company come under SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley)? If you
	are, learn all about the requirements for data retention.

	2) Can be a no-win position. Meaning you could be set-up
	to fail. Reason is in most cases management doesn't really want
	to give up their paper. If management doesn't set a good
	example no one else will follow.

	3) Expect it to be a multi-year change over.

	4) Using the same server for the internal information which is
	used for the external company webs server. There should be an
	air wall between the two servers.

	5) Company too tight with needed funds to buy what they
	may call 'unneeded hardware'.

	I'm sure others will either have more items or disagree with
	me.

	What I suggest is you start at the top of the company. Find out
	how the CEO, CTO, CFO, CIO and all, use paper. Replace each
	and every reports with an computer version. This means not
	only the paper they produce but also any paper report which
	they receive. Start with the reports they receive and convert
	them to computer reports. By getting the top level switch over
	this can be a big win, as it show them you are making progress.
	And as I said earlier, if you don't have their support you
	have failed to begin with. Everyone looks up and well say
	"But the boss isn't paper-less why force me to be".

	Next find who issue all internal memos. Get them to start using
	E-mail instead. Convince upper management to penalize those
	who continue to issue internal memos on paper.

	H.R. will be a hard group to switch over. They and accounting
	are forced to maintain paper.

	Next move down the management ladder and repeat doing away
	with their paper until you get down to the individual
	contributer.

	Do not start with the individual contributer and work up the
	management ladder. You will fail. Always start at the top
	and work down. Each time you replace a report management will
	see it and this is a win for you. Starting at the bottom and
	working up, management doesn't see the change. Nor do they
	buy into it. Get them to buy into it from the start.

	While you are replacing reports, always look for the tonnage
	report. The biggest, thickest report. Replacing that one first
	will be a win.

	The next thing to look for is some person who takes a print-out
	and scan it to an image PDF. Train everyone who generate reports
	to export the file to PDF and not scan a printed version. This
	will reduce the size of the PDF. Images are fat. A text PDF is
	thiner (even if it has graphs included in it). My friend Craig
	is a school librarian and he reports the school office staff
	will scan a paper version to PDF all of the time. Thus making
	it slow as the file is open.

	Any file which gets E-mail to any group of people (more then
	just a few people) should be put online and only mail a URL to
	where the file is stored. The first office staff who mails a
	large PDF to the whole company should be fired just as soon as
	they hit the send button. If top level management does
	something like this, they should forfeit any and all bonuses
	they would receive for the year.

	You should also realized you may never be able to be 100%
	paper-less. But you should be able to reduce the amount of
	paper by a large amount.

							Tony