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Campaign To Remove Paper From Offices

Posted by Soulskill on from the but-i-like-killing-trees dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A campaign started by HelloFax, Google, Expensify, and others has challenged businesses to get rid of physical paper from their office environment in 2013. According to the EPA, the average office worker uses about 10,000 sheets of paper each year, and the Paperless 2013 project wants to move all of those documents online. HelloFax CEO Joseph Walla said, 'The digital tools that are available today blow what we had even five years ago out of the water. For the first time, it's easy to sign, fax, and store documents without ever printing a piece of paper. It's finally fast and simple to complete paperwork and expense reports, to manage accounting, pay bills and invoice others. The paperless office is here – we just need to use it.' The companies involved all have a pretty obvious dog in this fight, but I can't say I'd mind getting rid of the stacks of paper HR sends me."

8 of 285 comments (clear)

  1. Take care if you do. You could get sued by trolls. by Moray_Reef · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Patent trolls want $1,000â"for using scanners

    http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/01/patent-trolls-want-1000-for-using-scanners/

    --
    If you voted for Nader, THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!!
  2. Project Paperless LLC by tepples · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Will businesses think the startup cost of roughly $1000 per employee is worth it?

  3. Beware the ecological fallacy by betterunixthanunix · · Score: 3, Interesting

    That average probably includes people who work in offices where they print hundreds or even thousands of invoices per day.

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    Palm trees and 8
    1. Re:Beware the ecological fallacy by jedidiah · · Score: 3, Interesting

      ...or law offices where it's all about the production of paper.

      Some fields are just heavy on the documentation. Takei style hysterics aren't going to solve anything.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
  4. I think I might mind by Trepidity · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I can't say I'd mind getting rid of the stacks of paper HR sends me.

    In theory I'd agree, but in practice so far these have been replaced, in my experience, with things that are even worse than receiving stacks of paper:

    1. Far too many emails.

    2. Online systems that are damn near impossible to use. As an example, the former system we used for hiring was that I got a stack of resumes with cover letters, on paper, in my internal mailbox. The paperless system we have moved to, "HR Manager", through some combination of its design and/or our HR department's configuration of it, results in me needing to click through about 6 menus and select a bunch of options just to see the list of people who applied for a position. And then more if I want to actually download PDFs of their resumes and cover letters.

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    10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
  5. I'm all for it ... HOWEVER we need... by Bomarc · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm running into a problem -- Company "A" is good, they use standard 8 1/2 x 11. Company "B" uses something else, and won't scan (or loot right if I do need to print it out). Company "C" will send my information, on pdf, with the email encrypted. Company "D" will encrypt the PDF, with the last 4 of my SS#. Company "E" will send me an email invoice, company "F" will attached a PDF, company "G" expected me to print the invoice/information out from a web page (No, I don't have Adobe Acrobat).

    Can we all just standardize and get along?

    1. Re:I'm all for it ... HOWEVER we need... by betterunixthanunix · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Can we all just standardize and get along?

      You mentioned the relevant standards already:

      • email
      • PDF
      • OpenPGP or S/MIME
      • HTTP

      Imagine a world where instead, you dealt with:

      1. Invoices sent by Facebook messages
      2. Invoices sent via Myspace messages
      3. Invoices sent via LinkedIn messages
      4. Invoices that you had to dial in to an online service to receive
      5. Invoices with EBCIDIC encoding
      6. Invoices sent as MS Word formatted files
      7. Fly-by-night startup of the month's proprietary invoice system, that places contextual ads in your invoices

      So really, be glad that the worst of your problems is that one company uses PDF, another encrypts the PDF, another encrypts the email, and another makes you go to a website on the Internet. We could live in a much worse world.

      --
      Palm trees and 8
  6. Paper Trails cut both ways by tyrione · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Digital trails are easy to destroy. Paper trails are much harder to destroy. They can be your enemy or your ally. Having paper reports is always the ally of an ethical business.