Excitement is building. The funny snaps are piling up on Instagram and Twitter around the theme of #WPFD, with people sharing some very witty imagery around the inconvenience too much paper is having on your life! I have laughed out loud more than once at what I have seen out there – and some I have found genuinely thought-provoking too.

What’s #WPFD, I hear some holdouts saying? Well, as I’m sure I don’t have to remind you, the 2015 World Paper Free Day is taking place on Friday, 6th November – check out our dedicated micro-site here. This is the latest version of our popular and successful global awareness campaign to get business folks thinking of other – non paper-based – ways of working with information.

We also see, more each year, actually, more interest at the consumer and individual denizen of Planet Earth level about Paper Free living – with more people at the personal level registering their concern about how much paper is piling up around us all the time.

Paper is great. In its place. I think mainly that’s the museum, in a world full of smartphones and tablets, but I may be an idealist.

But given the availability of modern, highly-functional, affordable scanner and DM technologies, the business of 2015 just can’t say it has no option but to keep laser printers burning through that expensive toner and all those pricey printer cartridges.

The clock’s ticking

The blunt truth of it is that once a helper, paper is now a hindrance.

We’re about to release the full results of our 2015 global benchmark on all this – ‘Paper-Free Progress: measuring outcomes’ – which shows just how.

I can tell you now that we’re about to reveal that a shocking 31% of business executives we contacted admit their office is ‘piled high’ with paper documents.

I’ve seen the study. And I am saddened to say that’s only one of the indicators that we have a long way to go in terms of saving resources but simultaneously improving business efficiency through moving to paper-less, even paper-lite, EDM and DM based workflows.

But I am also encouraged, as we also have some amazing details of some great bright spots in the picture.

That’s a picture made brighter by the fantastic take up of #WPFD 2015.

But – the countdown’s nearly done. Time’s running out.

So can I ask you, to get us over the finish line in the best way we can, to throw your support behind World Paper Free Day if you haven’t already done so?

It’s a great way to show your belief in Document Management – as well as showcase what your company’s doing in the area.

Come on, team – let’s make #WPFD 2015 the best ever!

Thanks, with gratitude, in advance for whatever you can do to help – and have a great Paper Free Day on Friday too, of course!

John Mancini
AIIM

John is President of global information managers community group AIIM

Here at thedmcollaborators, we agree with John and the principles he’s talked about here. So we’d love the UK DM community to get behind #WPFD, as it’s a campaign that promotes business adoption of paper-less working and digital ways of working with content.

The simplest way to do that is for you and your team to ‘sign the pledge’ and agree to go paper-free on November 6. Find out about signing up here. There, you can easily download the logo and automatic updates on what the rest of your paper-banners are up to.

As an added incentive, be aware that each registration means one immediate contribution to this year’s supported charity, One Laptop Per Child, a drive to put tech in the hands of children in the developing world.

If you are feeling inspired by all this – and we hope you are! – then you can go one step further, if you like by entering a fun competition AIIM’s set up with Fujitsu.

If you take a photo that somehow illustrates the hassles that paper creates in your worklife or office, share it on social media with the #WPFD hashtag, and a joint AIIM-Fujitsu team will be looking out for it. Be as creative and humorous as you like, that’s what the competition’s all about – and if you win, one of five of the new lovely Fujitsu ScanSnap iX100 mobile scanners will be on their way to you.

Finally, follow all the #WPFD fun online at all the links below – but don’t just follow it, join in the debate. We want to know things like, How is your company getting rid of paper? What is the business process that’s most benefited from having the paper squeezed out of it? Is paper an issue in your personal or home life? What do you want to see as the lasting result of #WPFD 2015? And so on –don’t be shy about sharing your views.

Twitter #wpfd
Facebook
Google +
LinkedIn
YouTube

See you on the Day – which is, one last time, Friday, November 6, 2015. Good luck to all #WPFD supporters!