Do you remember that term from the late ’90s “paperless office”? I used to hear that, then I’d look around at stacks and reams of paper and copy machines and fax machines, and wonder why people even said that at all.
Of course our most important experiments are edible, but there are a few other experiments going on as well. I’ve been trying to run Clover without paper. Any paper we receive gets scanned and recycled. I have files on my computer that are organized first by type (e.g., Tax documents, vendor invoices), then by date (March). I use a Fujitsu Snapscan multi-page scanner that makes this all possible. And it’s really a beautiful system. For example, when I’m at the Boston Licensing Department, and they say “oh, you need this and that and that,” even though I might not have known I need those things I don’t have to wait ’til the next day because the files are on my computer.
I used to hold everything on my own computer, but that’s not going to work anymore. So John Lee has been helping me figure out how to organize and store all of our information. We’re trying to make sure managers have everything they need at their fingertips, but also make sure a super important document (say our Cambridge License) doesn’t get accidentally deleted.