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2 November 2010

Almost by accident, I came across the web site for The Green Awards 2010 , just a few days after my book was published and just a few days before the 2010 entries closed.

The event takes place on 2 November 2010 in central London and I’m looking forward to being there.

www.thepaperlessexpert.com

Writing the book has been great fun! Writing the proposal for The Green Awards has been even more fun! It made me realise why I wrote the book in the first place. I wanted to share the information with you, and so I’m also taking this opportunity to share the proposal with you - in full!

Proposal

1. The Paperless Expert

Proactive is proactive!

And they are paperless! Yes, totally paperless. And it cost them nothing!

From their foundations in 1997, Proactive was one of those small accounting practices that was bogged down in paper. And having to keep records for six years meant that by 2003 they had racks and racks of files filling entire rooms and stretching from floor to ceiling. The desire for a paperless solution was born. They tried going paperless in 2005 and failed.

Once bitten twice shy, but by 2007 with ever increasing quantities of paper, the need was more compelling. A unique, in-house solution was developed. It was documented, tried and tested, and it was launched in full on 1 January 2008.

Clients demanded to know how it was done! They wanted to replicate it for themselves! And so the book was written. Released earlier this year “The Paperless Expert, the open-source cross-platform cost-free solution for everybody!” shares the secrets.

Get the book from the library for free. Implement the solution for free. Run it on as many computers as you like for free! Nothing like this has ever be seen before! Total freedom from paper, for free!

2. An in-house solution

The Paperless Expert (TPE) is different.

There has been an inherent premise that businesses need to print things, and that being paperless means that we have to scan paper. Both of these assumptions are wrong. We simply have to convey the two-fold message:

• We send out all of our communications electronically.
• We expect our clients and our suppliers to follow suit, communicate with us electronically.

No mention of paper! No need for a scanner!

The difficulty is that nobody has told us how to be 100% paperless from the outset. Until now!

In 2005 Proactive fell into the trap that many businesses fall into and that is the belief that being paperless is all about scanning paper. It isn’t. The scanner isn’t mentioned until chapter 6 of the book, and even then it’s discussed only in the context of a hybrid office.

In 2005 Proactive made the mistake of using a tool like Paperport for scanning and relying on Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to help identify documents. Although hardware and software have improved since then, scanning is still a slow business and OCR slows it down further. With hundreds of documents to scan, there was barely time left to do any work. And, with hundreds of clients having documents containing phrases like “2005 tax return”, pinpointing any one individual document was still a difficult task.

The solution lay, not in checking the contents of every file, but in having a sensible file naming convention so that the file name alone tells us enough about the contents. The 2005 exercise was abandoned as no alternative proprietary software (using a file naming convention) could be found.

The solution lay in the staff and their ingenuity. All computer files (whether scanned or not) needed a consistent and reliable approach to file naming, which included a unique way to convey a message about the contents. The system that developed during 2007 required numeric codes for everything, and perhaps a little narrative too.

Knowing how the system works, both humans and computers can recognise that the file . . .

1234567890 444600 20060401 20070331 20070527 accounts.xls

. . . is a set of statutory accounts for the year ended 31 Mar 2007 for client 1234567890. The single most revolutionary act in the development of TPE was the construction of a list of document codes. That allowed a standard file naming convention to be established.

The preparation of the TPE taxonomy, combined with information published on the company’s Wiki, has enabled all staff at Proactive to quickly and easily adapt to this entirely new way of working. A paperless way of working! Moreover, as the system is based on nothing more than a simple taxonomy, it can be replicated by anybody, anywhere, without buying specialist software.

No proprietary solutions - No lock in - No hidden agenda - No selling!

3. Zero Paper

Before TPE was implemented at Proactive, stationery was ordered on a monthly cycle. In 2010 one single order has been placed and that was for only £48! As this chart shows, the trend is leading towards zero paper consumption!

The true reduction in paper is masked by the inclusion of desktop software in stationery. None the less, even without isolating paper stationery from digital stationery, there has been a 47% reduction in these costs between 2006 and 2009.

More than anything else, the thing that surprised the company the most has been the concurrent savings on motor and travel expenses. These are down by 20% over the same four year period. Whereas in the past the collection and return of paper records were often seen as an excuse for a business meeting, these days the lack of paper means fewer trips out of the office. Telephone calls and e-mails have replaced many meetings, and it’s anticipated that current trials of video meetings on Skype are going to lead to further savings!

4. Green by Accident!

All this has been a bonus. Remember, this whole exercise started out when the company was faced with the prospect (and the cost) of taking on more premises for no other reason than to accommodate the growing mountains of paper.

Proactive has become a green champion by accident. They developed their own internal solution to a global problem. And not only that, they made it work on PCs, on Macs and on Linux machines.

TPE is not software, it’s a methodology. This is not a package that can be bought on the High Street, or on the internet - this is nothing more than information. That’s what makes it different!

A methodology, like knowing how to make bronze out of copper and tin. A methodology, like knowing how to win at chess. A methodology which sets out a route to a truly paperless environment.

When Tim Berners-Lee developed HTML and brought the internet within reach of everybody, he shared that information freely. Proactive has developed TPE. And TPE brings a paperless environment within the reach of everybody.

In the spirit of Tim Berners-Lee, this new information is also being shared freely.

5. The Right Tools For The Job

The author is the first to admit that “The Paperless Expert” is more about managing work flows and less about managing paper. Before paper became widely available, people still managed to do their work! Paper is a tool which has served us well for the past 2,600 years.

Before that, artisans, merchants and farmers still had tools which helped them to do their work. The Stone Age gave way to the Bronze Age, and the Paper Age is now being replaced by the Digital Age. It’s simply a matter of education. The new tools are all around us, but nobody is telling us how to use them.

TPE can be improved upon greatly. It is currently a collection of many disparate (yet open-source) tools. And although they work together and they deliver, they were never originally intended to work this way.

In the same way that WordPress has become synonymous with blogs, themes, widgets and their developers, TPE can become a focal point for a unified paperless solution. It may never be one tool, but it can be one properly engineered toolbox, and an open-source one no less!

6. Education, Education, Education

What we actually have at the moment are big corporates delivering “document management solutions” revolving around scanners and making money out of consumers who don’t know any better! These financially driven Leviathans are the same people who wanted the earliest pioneers of motoring to fit their cars with horse shoes. The world has evolved!

Let’s educate people. Let’s build a following in the open-source community and in the academic community. Let’s take this message in writing, in print, in digital form, and in person to every corner of the globe. If we did nothing more than get a copy of “The Paperless Expert” into every single library on the planet, that could be enough to put this information into the hands of everybody – for free.

7. Blast Off

“The Paperless Expert” has come from a humble background. It is one man’s selfless work. It is an astonishingly open and frank discussion about the development of a paperless solution which none of the big corporates have been able to deliver. Most importantly it is:

• open-source
• cross-platform
• cost-free

In order to establish a firmer foundation from which to deliver this vital message to the world “The Paperless Expert” deserves to win the Grand Prix award this year.