Has anyone seen the advert where the mother peers out to see her child playing in the next room?
She does a very rapid double-take, and in the blink of an eye the kid is covered in chocolate, crayons and there are toys everywhere?
My desk is like that. I peer at the window to watch the winter rain drip down for an instant. When I glance back, another piece of paper has landed on my desk.
Do Plumbers Always Have Leaky Taps At Home? Do IT People Practice What They Preach?
I have a confession. We have an amazing suite of software that can de-magnetise my desk and allow me to shred all the paper without fear.
But I am absolutely ashamed to say we haven’t re-installed it since we moved office. To be fair, we’ve been focusing on some workflow and helpdesk software. And client needs as we’ve grown of late have always come first.
We can never get an engineer when we need one ourselves!
I was reminded about it today and have vowed to make that our next in-house project.
I saw a client today who is looking to adopt document management proper. We were there to advise them while being pitched by the software suppliers (a bit like the client’s union rep).
And it reminded me how slow we’ve been in prioritising it.
The Mary Poppins Effect: Click Your Fingers And The Exact Piece Of Paper You Need Magically Appears In Your Hands
Even if you don’t know what document management means, many of us have heard of the magical place - the paperless office.
Well it’s a myth. But the less-paper office, now that’s real. And magical.
It brings the electronic and paper world together in a neat little “Google”-like interface.
But it’s the equivalent of clicking your fingers and the paper or electronic document you need will be on screen in less than 3 seconds. And when you’ve finished, one click and it’s filed.
I’ll tell you a little more, but first a quick test for you.
How many pieces of paper arrive in your office each day?
How many times do you retrieve, for example an invoice, each day?
How long does it take you to walk to your filing cabinet?
And walk back?
And when you have finished return to the cabinet to re-file it?
And how often do you drill down a set of folders and sub-folders within “My Documents” or a network folder to find a Word document, Excel spreadsheet or whatever?
Now multiply those numbers by the number of working days in the year. Now multiply that by the number of staff you employ that work to at least some extent with paper?
It’s all too easy to under-estimate how much time is lost.
So What If Each Document Or Piece Of Paper Could Be Accessed In Less Than 3 Seconds? And Then Filed Again Even Quicker?
Today, seeing the software in action again, I kicked myself several times. Not only have I lost all those time-savings by not acting sooner, but I also forgot about the really, really clever bit.
When a document is scanned in (basically, put 5 minutes aside to scan the post each day, then shred it!), each and every letter and word is indexed in a fraction of a second.
The software recognises the text on the page.
It’s a bit like Google - it reads and indexes every word on every page.
So if you had a call from a client you hadn’t heard from in 4 years, and they wanted you to do the same thing again, or buy the same product again, while they were on the phone, just type in their name, and all the documents (paper or electronic) would magically appear on screen. Instant customer service. No call backs while you trot off to the basement store to get the file.
Now this particular client deals with some lengthy documents - 60 pages plus. And they have to check through them.
Instead, they can search for a key phrase and the equivalent of a yellow highlighter instantly marks each word or phrase and let’s you jump through the document on screen. Far faster than reading each page and finding the words you need to check.
So why read something when you can get the PC to do the hard work and cut out the bits you don’t need to see at that moment?
Another kick I gave myself was storage space. We’ve taken a basement unit to store amongst other things, historical paper files. We could have saved ourselves a small fortune, and created more space in the office by simply scanning the lot.
And the scanners nowadays are incredibly fast. About 2-3 seconds per A4 side. And as they are multi-feed, you can stack them and whizz through entire files pretty quickly.
And once done, you can get at it without leaving your chair.
For those who use off-site storage and pay document retrieval fees, instead, if they really need to keep the original (and some professions do), they can choose the cheapest out of town storage, because they will no longer need to retrieve the paper.
If necessary, just print it out, but shred it rather than re-file it - that’s already done.
Now Before Anyone Asks, We Don’t Do Document Managment
Today, we were just there as our client’s advisors. Our bit is easy - make sure they have enough data storage capacity.
But if anyone wants more info, I know a man who does document management. Leave a comment if you want to know more or visit our contact us page to email me.
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10 responses so far ↓
1 Opal Tribble - Vegan Momma // Jan 24, 2008 at 2:49 am
I have a small filing cabinet which I use to keep of information that is sent to me through postal mail or on items I purchase from the store but for the most part everything is paperless. It makes things so much easier, naturally I keep backups of my information.
2 Barbara // Jan 24, 2008 at 3:54 am
Ian,
I want one. Is that a software program and/or office equipment?
I tried a product called “Neat Receipts” awhile back, but the unit was too small for my application. I had to feed one piece of paper at a time. It would be great to have something where you could scan a stack.
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3 Ian Denny // Jan 24, 2008 at 9:51 am
Opal
Thanks for that. I suspect we’ll never really get rid of paper. I think you’re right - that if your volumes or low, or you just run an online business, it’s hard to justify a full document management suite.
Barbara,
There are lots of applications out there. I’ve seen a few, but the one I like best is Invu. Not sure if they have dealers in the US, but their site http://www.invu.net.
We’re recommending a local specialist if clients need it, mainly because they also have a scanning factory so they can convert your basement store or filing cabinets electronic without wading through the scans yourself.
Even if you can’t get it over there, it’s worth looking at the site to see the features of such an application.
So to answer your question, most companies need the softwarte suite and a decent scanner.
Here’s one (may be expensive!) but you’ll get the picture:
http://www.scantastik.com/hardware/fujitsu/fujitsu-scanner-fi-6140c.htm
Hope that helps!
4 CatherineL // Jan 24, 2008 at 9:29 pm
Ian that sounds like my desk too. How expensive are these scanners then?
I’m often tempted to shred the bloody lot but I suppose that would get me into a heap of trouble.
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5 Ian Denny // Jan 25, 2008 at 12:02 am
The one I linked to above appears expensive - probably about £600.
You can get similar, slower models (but faster than you need) for around £400 exc VAT.
The suite I’m recommending here is for serious paper-fiends.
I’m sure a good google may find something cheaper - or possibly in a bundle deal with a scanner that could achieve the same.
A key feature to get if budget allows is the OCR (optical character recognition). In other words it converts the text on the image it scans into searchable text.
There’s a bit more to it - such as indexing. Usually you can choose 2 or 3 customisable fields to index as a secondary method of finding stuff you want.
For example, one field should be “Document Type” whcih you then populate with stuff like “invoice”, “purchase order”, “letter” etc.
Then your second field can have an index based upon your first choice relating to that document.
For example, “Invoice Number” or “purchase order number”.
That really pays off later. Because you can search the actual text of the scanned documents to find something you want, it will then give you a google-like search result.
For example it will break the results down into “invoices”, “purchase orders”, “letters”.
Realising this may sound complicated, it’s worth mentioning that in reality, it takes seconds to retrieve. In terms of scanning, 10 pages would be scanned and indexed within about 3 minutes once you’re in the swing of things.
I’ve seen clients who adopt this take a short while to get used to it before they really start shredding paper! Most of that though is changing the mind-set.
Where you used to hit the save button and then name the file, and put it in a folder, it no longer matters what you call it.
The same indexing you use for scanning applies to everything you save.
So the way Microsoft Word works changes slightly. When you hit save, the 2 or 3 indexes you set pop up as drop-downs. You choose the relevant drop downs, and then in reality it doesn’t matter what you call the document.
They all go into one giant folder. It’s just that you no longer need to use the folder hierarchy on your PC or network. That’s where a bit of mind-set change is needed.
That’s because you just hit a keyword search or type for example an invoice number and the exact document you want pops up even faster than Google. No dredging through folders and sub-folders.
Once people are in the swing of it, they can scan the morning post and then shred it.
Beware though! Make sure your data back-up is good and very regular!
With the good software, it is recognised by most professional bodies and is in fact passed for legal admissability in court as a “true and accurate facsimile of the original document”.
The software has been ratified and written in such a way that the audit trail of a document is tamper-proof.
Sorry for the long answer! I can’t wait to get it up and running myself.
Have you got leaky taps at home?
It’s amazing how long we’ve left it uninstalled!
6 Samuel Driessen // Jan 25, 2008 at 9:08 pm
Nice post! I agree with you that we won’t have a paperless office any time soon. Do you know the book “The Myth of the Paperless Office”. It clearly describes the affordances of paper and that of digital ‘paper’. Furthermore it shows why some affordances of paper will not be possible for digital documents any time soon. Try to make a pile of digital documents, for instance. However there are some interesting trends, like multi-touch interfaces, that give some hope for a paperless office. As for now, I’m happy with both .
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7 Ian Denny // Jan 25, 2008 at 9:51 pm
Samuel,
It’s reassuring to hear that the Netherlands hasn’t yet managed to win the race to becoming paperless!
I’ll have to learn more about multi-touch interfaces.
Thanks for mentioning my article!
8 Barbara // Jan 29, 2008 at 9:14 am
Ian,
Thanks for the reminder to look for a scanner with the OCR. I would have not thought of that.
Great information, as always.
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9 Ian Denny // Jan 29, 2008 at 9:29 am
Barbara,
I didn’t shop around that much. But the Fujitsu range is quite good. If it’s something you want to pursue, it’s worth looking at the bundle to see if they have really clever OCr.
I’d read between the lines of the sales blurb though to make sure it’s what you really want and need.
The application I refer to here really is race-horse calibre, and consequently needs a higher investment.
The bundled software though may suit what you need, so don’t rule it out!
10 hiyakeou jrtk // Sep 6, 2008 at 2:36 pm
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