Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!midway!linac!uwm.edu!wuarchive!julius.cs.uiuc.edu!psuvax1!rutgers!bellcore-2!bellcore!dduck!duncan
From: duncan@dduck.ctt.bellcore.com (Scott Duncan)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Paperless office
Message-ID: <27695@bellcore.bellcore.com>
Date: 10 Oct 90 11:31:08 GMT
References: <542181945DN5.35B@testsys.uucp> <27575@bellcore.bellcore.com> <137629973DN5.35B@testsys.uucp>
Sender: news@bellcore.bellcore.com
Reply-To: duncan@ctt.bellcore.com (Scott Duncan)
Organization: Computer Technology Transfer Division
Lines: 54

In article <137629973DN5.35B@testsys.uucp>  writes:
>
>What you write and what you say *are* quite different, and writing can
>never replace speaking.
>
>But when e-mail is compared with other forms of writing, on paper,
>transmitted by other technologies, post, courier, FAX, I think e-mail
>comes out quite well.

I agree, but I think email is used as a replacement for spoken communication
more than for written.  That is, I believe people send most email with a more
conversational attitude than they would for a (formal) written document.  In
this sense, the model of what it should 'sound' like on the other end can end
up causing problems because of the lack of other verbal/in-person cues.

>technical capacity is there and there are forces at work in society
>which encourage changes in public attitudes.

>                                               But when a new
>technology, or a new use of an old technology has real practical and
>economic advantages, it tends to advance in popular acceptance until a
>kind of threshold is reached, after which opponents usually accept

>There are many applications for which it is simply the 'best' or
>'only' technology available.

>So the question I guess is: are e-mail and other forms of electronic
>text sufficiently better than paper to do to paper, in the end, what
>the auto did to the horse? My hunch is that they are.

I think your point about "suficiently better" is key.  However, there are some
great industrial and commercial pressures favoring paper that seem to me to be
greater than people's love of horses at the time autos appeared.  If there had
been a serious business pressure to keep horses, then I think autos would have
had a tougher time.  Cars did a job demonstrably bette than horses after a
while and they also did things horses did not do -- despite other flaws.

Speed and immediacy are something email has over paper distribution.  But this
is something we associate with less formal communication, so I think we get
back to what kinds of (written) communication we would expect email to replace.
People suggest email over telephones as well as paper.  So I think the wider
issue is email as "the" means of communication, not just a paper replacement.

However, especially in an office setting, much paper is for "announcements" and
newsy kinds of things, not official documents.  Email could easily replace this
sort of "communication" as most of this paper gets trashed immediately after
it is read.  (Indeed a good electronic form could be directed into a calendar
tool to record times/dates since what many people do is transcribe the notice
on one piece of paper into another paper form:  datebooks.)

Speaking only for myself, of course, I am...
Scott P. Duncan (duncan@ctt.bellcore.com OR ...!bellcore!ctt!duncan)
                (Bellcore, 444 Hoes Lane  RRC 1H-210, Piscataway, NJ  08854)
                (908-699-3910 (w)   609-737-2945 (h))