A paperless office may hinder knowledge transfer

December 21st, 2009 in Trends    1 Comment

The paperless office is a work-in–progress. Today’s worker is performing more tasks on the computer, and storing more information in the cloud. The growth in data centers in the past decade offers some insight. According to the EPA, “The energy use of the nation’s servers and data centers in 2006 is estimated to be more than double the electricity that was consumed for this purpose in 2000.” So, the migration toward a paperless office is about increasing efficiency and effectiveness of content generation and exploitation, as well as reducing paper usage and preserving natural resources. (more…)

No Longer A Joke, The Paperless Office Is Getting Closer

October 11th, 2008 in Trends    No Comments

The paperless office predicted by futurists decades ago never materialized. As the digital era emerged, people were exchanging ever more information but technology and behavior lagged behind as emails were printed for archiving and word documents for editing by hand. A 2001 book, “The Myth of the Paperless Office,” summed the situation up nicely.

This article notes, however, that the year this book was published was the very year when demand for office paper finally peaked and began its steady decline. A paper expert at Info Trends estimates that office workers in developed countries will continue to reduce their office paper consumption for the foreseeable future. (more…)