Office Document Strategies Blog

Why is it in a world where thousands of transactions are handled every minute using the tap of a credit card on a terminal many businesses still cling to manual paper driven processes?  Express Pay speeds up sales processes for vendors and purchasers.

Last week the Pan Am Games got started in Southern Ontario including Toronto, Milton, Hamilton, St. Catharines and Welland.  As a precursor to the the games starting IT World Canada published an interesting slide show featuring innovations in technology that have affected various sports.  These first time uses have morfed into regular part of the sports shown.  

One of the features of the slide show included what components of computer technology the games require.  How about 2400 workstations (desktops and laptops), 2300 monitors, 50 servers and  storage solutions spread across the 40 venues?  That's is a pretty massive collection of tools which are assembled just to keep a short but big event running.

What other things are affected by the Pan Am?  How about the drivers who now have to deal with more and less accessible HOV lanes?  Will the GPS technology that provides real time traffic data to users help them get to work or to event parking be a help?  This is something that gets taken for granted but the technology behind it is pretty impressive.  Google offers similar capability through Google Maps for cell phones.  The system of highway cameras run by MTO will also help. Of course there is also the temporary camera system being used to police the busiest highways to ensure people are following the rules as well.  Watch for the solar panels and the orange boxes along the HOV routes.

Employers are being encouraged to provide flexible work rules so that employees are not forced to be on the roads at the same time as Pan Am fans.  Flexible starting times, closing times and the ability for people to work from home are some of the steps being taken. Each of these has a technology component (information sharing systems, remote computer access, email, chat) that can help facilitate activity and keep people connected even if not in the office at the same time.

Of course public transit is a big part of dealing with the potential crowd issues and we all know that schedules, system operations and consumer information require big technology components to make it possible to handle the volumes of users.  There is a tool available called Triplinx that can help you plan public transit use.

Then there is the ticket process.  Most of those who will attend the many events and venues for the Pan Am Games will have accessed some information site to obtain information, buy tickets or get directions to their chosen sport.  Technology drives the ticket process from beginning to end.

Most of us take the underlying technology that helps our modern society to function for granted.  When major, short term impacts are created like the Pan Am events we can definitely be thankful that it is all there and functioning (usually very reliably) in order to keep our daily activities flowing inspite of the potential increases in volume of people moving.

Enjoy the games.

Lee K

Photo Credit:  Pan Am Games Toronto 2015

One of the biggest issues that many companies deal with when they consider cloud data security is becoming comfortable that their information will be secure and not subject to unauthorized access. 

For many years businesses have been told that they can improve their processes by reducing paper use and going digital in their information flows.  For some reason the paperless workplace still does not seem to have traction in most businesses.  

Certainly there have been steps taken to reduce paper, often in places like invoicing and issuing of account statements.  Sometimes it has been in correspondence since the email has definitely overtaken the formal paper letter for much of the daily correspondence of most operations.  Even with these changes the paperless workplace does not seem to be entrenched however.

I sometimes talk about the less paper office instead.  It seems to me that this is achievable in most operations and with some effort it can lead to a substantial reduction in costs and also it can lead to a reduction in time expended carrying out daily transactions.

In a recent blog article John Mancini asks the question, "Is a paper-free workplace possible?". 

Recent reports indicate that Canadian SMB firms could benefit from being more aggressive about adopting new IT and technology as a means to improve productivity and gain from leveraging these types of investments.

Every once in awhile an article comes across your desk that really capsules a challenging topic for IT operations.  This happened this week when I came across a listing for a recent publication from Europe which summarizes the security benefits and risks that come with cloud computing.  
Even better this publication is targeted directly at SMEs, (Small and Medium sized enterprises).

Over the past fifteen years a revolution has occured in the printing industry.  I can remember when the typical office copier was an analog device with super advanced features like the ability to expand an image to a larger size.