Governments going Paperless - get the change right!
Posted by Michael Gardner on Thu, Dec 02, 2010 @ 06:19 PM
I wanted to write today about a comment I tweeted about regarding a proposed paperless government initiative in San Francisco that I really dislike. After my tweet I thought it probably deserved a bit more explanation than what was available in 170 characters.
The initiative goes something like this.
In order to reduce the amount of paper and waste being produced by the government, a motion was put forward to ban the distribution of any document over 10 pages in length.
I guess the theory is that this will somehow discourage wasteful distributions, or perhaps encourage double sided printing, but this is no way to take any group paperless in a sustainable and lasting way. If this were to pass I can already see the day when multiple mailouts, each limited to 10 pages, are being sent out, that previously would have been one document. The reality is that silly rules force silly behaviour.
Recombo is largely a paperless company, but I'm proud to say that I've never sent out an email, a directive, or written a single rule that says "today we will be paperless, if you print there will be consequences." The reason why I didn't do this is because I didn't need to. We use our own tools to autmate business processes with digital technology, and it makes paperless easy. You've heard me say this before. If you make it easier than the alternative then people will do it on their own, you won't need to force them.
This is the philosophy we use for paperless insurance applications, paperless loan approval, paperless merchant applications, and for basically every document management and E-signature intiative we are involved with. Making it easy is what makes these initiatives successful.
Just imagine how many hours of effort will be required to trim back SF government documents to just 10 pages...silly. Keep it simple and it will last.