Why paperless office doesn't work

In the era of science and technology, paper seems to be synonymous with outdated. Paper does not have memory or networking. The digital gadgets started to sound. Computers with different models and different functions spread continuously. Papers that used nearly 6,000 years of communication gadgets were still able to seduce new trendsetters.
Some picky thinkers in the digital era began to bury paper. Paul Sappho, director of the Institute of Future Studies in California, said in an article in 1992: “In the future, paper will only appear in the metaphor... 10 years later, digital paper and rollable computers will become commercial. Objective existence."
"Paperless Office": A product that lacks a sense of security Fortunately, people of this era basically know that many predictions would not have been too accurate. Taking paper as an example, although it may be a metaphor in the electronics industry, it still sticks to its true value. The more digital information is circulating around the world, the more people want to print this information. From 1992 to 2002, the global paper and paperboard consumption increased from 250 million tons to 325 million tons.
Some visionaries say: "Paperless office" is actually a product of many people's lack of security. Just as a child sees the world around him is developing like he wants to keep pace. When the value of tech stocks soars, those bosses increasingly want to prove that they “follow the situation”, and to prove that they really do so is to promote the “paperless” view.
The fierce defeat of the "paperless office" Some of them wanted their employees to implement this idea. One of the most dramatic scenes occurred in Chiat/Day. In 1993, the advertising company’s owner, Jay Chiat, came up suddenly on a slope of skiing, thinking that his employees’ ideas were locked in by the work areas they were in and they were locked up. Freeing from those small intervals means liberating their thoughts. As a result, the advertising company renovated and cancelled tables and filing cabinets. There were only sofas and meeting rooms for meetings. In short, there was no place for paper in the office. Of course, no one seemed to need any paper. !
As a result, the employees of the Jiade advertising company were no different from any refugees who had lost their homes after losing their “imprisonment”: they tried every means to rebuild their territory. A female employee bought a red stroller and put her paper documents into the car and dragged it in the hallway. More employees use the trunk of their car as a Table and store their documents and notebooks in the boot of the car. If there is any meeting, they can see that they are walking back and forth between the company and the parking lot. Later, several groups of staff simply occupied the conference room for a long time, and there were more and more simple tables set up in the company. The final outcome of this company was bought by a traditional opponent, and finally everything returned to normal.
Public facilities also had a "paperless" trap. In 2001, the British government spent 200 million pounds (approximately 290 million U.S. dollars) for the implementation of the "paperless school" project. The Baron School of Aston who implemented this project soon re-used pens and pens, heralding the plan's Ultimately dead.
Computers are not as flexible as paper In the past few years, the madness of technology stocks has blinded the eyes of futuristics. With the decrepitation of technology stocks, people are beginning to reconsider the importance of paper as an “old thing”. Richard Harper and Abi Gail Sellen wrote a book recently, pointing out that paper is still of great importance in many workplaces.
For example, the air traffic control industry seems to be able to operate paperlessly—the job responsibility is simply to monitor incoming flights and forecast their next move. This is a job involving measurement and mathematics and seems to be completely electronic. However, paper still plays an indispensable role in air traffic management.
In the United Kingdom’s Department of Air Traffic Control, information on incoming flights is printed on a piece of paper. When the aircraft enters the surveillance area, information such as changes in speed and altitude can be found on this page. It is in accordance with the information listed on this paper that people from different groups in the monitoring department can perform their duties. In some busy times, a group may receive more than 50 such papers. The air traffic management department had thought many ways to replace these papers, and finally found that the most effective way to replace these papers was to reduce the scope of the monitor's work. Because the larger the scope of work, the more complex the matter, it is necessary to record information on this type of paper. This finding also explains some problems that paperless office is difficult to implement: paper can comment more than computer screens; the information recorded on paper is more easily seen by everyone than the computer screen; paper can be passed around, So you can pass more information.
In order to observe how paper and computer influence people's work, Harper and Chi Ling invited 10 people from the World Monetary Fund to participate in their experiments: 5 of them worked with paper and pen, while 5 others only used computers. The job is to sum up numerous reports.
The group of paper and pens put various reports on the table, and if necessary, pass them on and mark them. The group of people using computers also tried to do the same thing. They opened several windows on the screen, kept flipping pages up and down to find what they needed. The whole process was painful. One guy even yelled at his computer. .
Computers separate people's distances In order to computerize everything, managers may undermine what should play a supporting role in the process. The British police encountered such trouble. Because the headquarters required increased efficiency (usually this means electronic), the police ordered the public security police to work with a laptop computer. Trial work included recording the testimony of the crime witnesses. As a result, they found that the quality of the testimony deteriorated. Later they discovered that writing something on a computer caused the police to have a distance with the witness. This is also why journalists do not record directly on the computer because he wants to communicate with his eyes.
Automation has achieved good results in many areas of work. As a result, managers have come to believe that everything can be automated, but in fact, the most important thing in the work is the most difficult to automate. Computers are a good place to play in certain locations, and their most suitable location is to play their proper role on a properly-papered desk.