Blogs

For this year’s World Paper-free Day; I’ll be hosting two tweet jams. For the next two Thursdays (October 18 and 25), join in on the conversation with our panel at 11 am EDT. Please use hashtag #wpfd.

UPDATE:

So, what did we learn during last week's #infochat. A few themes emerged:

• Mobile devices open up tremendous opportunities to eliminate paper and speed business processes—submitting receipts is one simple way to get started.
• We must overcome culture and habit to stop using paper.
• Confusion about legal issues and wet versus digital signatures prevents some processes that could be paperless from going paperless.
• Like BYOD, break the paper habit personally, then bring it to the workplace.
• Capture tools work; even if you can’t go entirely paper free scanning, forms processing, etc. still create fantastic savings.

While I like the name “World Paper-free Day,” that name is a little bit limiting by drawing the attention to “paper.” Paper is only a symptom. The real purpose of WPFD, of which these two tweet jams are a small part, is to draw attention to how you can improve your business by automating manual (paper-based) processes. Paper slows you down. Time to speed up. We’ll talk about how you can make that happen.

For those of you not familiar with Twitter and tweet jams (or tweet chats); allow me to elucidate.

What’s a Tweet Jam
Musicians jam together by riffing off of a common theme; playing off of each other to create something unique and learning from each other as they do. With Twitter, we can do the same, 140 characters at a time. A Tweet Jam is a fast-paced conversation around a topic. simply a time and a place to gather on Twitter around a hashtag topic and learn from each other. Anyone can ask, or answer, a question.

What’s the AIIM Paperfree Jam (#wpfd)?
Simple really: we want everyone to share ideas about how to become more efficient as a business while removing environmentally harmful paper. Your business gets a boost. The planet gets a break. While we know it’s only 140 characters at a time, we want to generate questions and discussions about how to REALLY make a less-paper or paperfree world a reality. We will have questions lined up to kick-start the conversation (our draft list is below). Have a question? Respond to this post, send me a tweet (either @aiimcmty or @bduhon), or email me at bduhon@aiim.org. Can’t think of any? Join us on October 18 and 25 and let the conversation spark ideas for you.

How Do I “Watch?”
It’s easy. Log in to Twitter (or your favorite Twitter front end; I like Hootsuite). Then use the hashtag: #wpfd to follow the discussion. To more easily follow the discussion, you can set up a separate column in Tweetdeck, Hootsuite, or something similar and use #wpfd as your search term. You can also use tweetchat.com. Sign in using your twitter handle, type #wpfd into the box at the top of the screen, and tweetchat will follow the discussion – best of all, without you having to remember to put in the hashtag every time you write a new tweet.

Confirmed Panelists [so far]:

• Ulrich Kampffmeyer
• Dan O'Leary
• Steve Weissman

Questions
Each of the two jams will build on each other. For our conversation on October 18, the focus will be on drawing attention to #WPFD in general. Following on the 25^th, the conversation will focus more on what you can do to automate manual processes and rely less on paper.

Here’s a draft list of questions:

• Why are we still so reliant on manual processes?
• Favorite paper-related fiasco that you’ve experienced/heard about?
• Mobile devices (smartphones and tablets) can be added to business processes. How?
• ROI for simply removing paper from business processes? Time, space, search savings.
• Will the paper-free office ever come?
• Why do we love our paper so?
• ?????? Your question here

Remember to save the date for the next two Thursdays: October 18 and 25 at 11 am EDT. 11-12:30 EST Follow the hashtag: #wpfd.