RE: filmscanners: real value? paperless office

["Laurie Solomon" <laurie@advancenet.net>]

>Fact is anyone who sends me an mega important doc will always have a copy
>themselves if we ever need it.

How can you count on this if we were actually in a "paperless society" or if
the other person was or was in a "paperless office" like you.  Why would you
expect them to have a copy themselves that they could get to you if you
needed it?  Why couldn't it be possible that they did not have an existent
paper copy and only had an electronic copy but their computer system was
down due to a power blackout, a system crash, a hard drive crash, a virus
attack, a hacker attack, or an accidental erasure of the original file. In
such a case, what if you needed it yesterday but they could not get back
online to get you a copy or locate or get access to the backup copy for
several days.

>There is always a risk with whatever media you choose. Just recently a
>hospital here in Ennis was flooded and lost 3 years of patients records. A
>fire in a local accountants ruined their business. We have a serious daily
>back-up policy in place. Try backing up 2 ton of paperwork.

While what you say has some merit; it does ignore certain types of issues
and situations.  Many people, for reasons of personal security, insist on
having their own personal copies of important files under their exclusive
control for their own personal protection - be it internal office politics
or external reasons.  In many such cases, they do not want said documents to
be on the company server or even on a hard drive on their personal company
workstation, which other higher company authorities can legally access and
which are not covered by personal privacy laws and policies.  For them, hard
paper copy constitutes real, hard, concrete evidence and/or documentation
that is less open to question than an electronic version which may be easier
to alter without leaving any easily recognizable trace of the alteration
 something which will only increase as the digital advances take place.  You
can scientifically test the age of a paper document, identify the
handwriting or typewriter that produced it, determine if it is an original
or a copy, readily recognize any erasures,  whiteouts, cut & pasting, etc.
It is not so with electronic files and documents.

>We have the option to print any of the 20,000 docs if we wish.

I respectfully submit that it is precisely that option which technically
makes an office a "paper office" rather than a purely and truly "paperless"
one. If you - the royal you is intended here - decided on each and every
occasion to exercise that option when reading, writing, or working on those
documents, what would differentiate your office from a traditional paper
based one where there is an electronic option equivalent to the option which
you describe.  In both case, it would ultimately boil down to a matter of
personal convenience of the user or office worker,


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-filmscanners@halftone.co.uk
[mailto:owner-filmscanners@halftone.co.uk]On Behalf Of Richard
Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2001 6:08 AM
To: filmscanners@halftone.co.uk
Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? paperless office


> I would suggest (a) that your office is a rarity,

I suppose it is.

>(b) your office
> technically is not a "paperless office" in that you still receive
invoices,
> receipts, etc. from others that you need to scan in, and

er... obviously, but we then scan it and bin it.

All contractors invoice us by email, we don't accept paper from them.
All correspondence is done by email and Word docs, PDF for the more complex
stuff. All faxes are digital. All bank transactions are conducted on-line
and we have records of accounts for the past 2 years printed into MarcoPolo
from the browser. The VAT and TAX office accept the set-up for storing
receipts etc. Everything is searchable.

Fact is anyone who sends me an mega important doc will always have a copy
themselves if we ever need it.

>(c) most other
> places which are relying heavily on electronic operations still tend to
keep
> paper backup files and archives of their files and records just in case as
> do their workers for their personal security and use.

There is always a risk with whatever media you choose. Just recently a
hospital here in Ennis was flooded and lost 3 years of patients records. A
fire in a local accountants ruined their business. We have a serious daily
back-up policy in place. Try backing up 2 ton of paperwork.

>It is still easier
> for people to printout and read a hard copy version of a 100 page report
> than to read it online or off the monitor - and often more convenient as
> well.

We have the option to print any of the 20,000 docs if we wish.


--

Regards

Richard

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