
Screw the environment. Print this email immediately. And then burn it. - gregschlom
http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/17/print-and-burn-after-reading-its-time-to-fight-back-against-the-footer-fascists/
======
iuguy
ISO14000 is a set of environmental management standards. One of the things
that you have to do to be certified is to promote environmental awareness. The
easiest (and most commonly implemented) way of doing this is to put a little
statement in the email footer.

So there you go, it's mostly a box ticking exercise, just like the 'If you
received this email in error you must delete it'.

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narag
I don't print anything, but the other day, someone printed a mail message to
show me something <shrug>. The last page was printed because of the stupid
message.

~~~
wlievens
Silly indeed. I also wonder how much more energy is wasted sending these extra
bytes around, millions of times per hour.

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dkokelley
I could care less about the environmental impact of printing emails on paper.
Using up one of our renewable resources? Go for it. What bothers me is the
sheer inefficiency of a paper-based office. Why in the world do we need to
print out emails, websites, or other bits of information to act on it? For
archival or reference? And emergency backup? It certainly doesn't make
information workflow any easier. In fact, it's a wasteful duplication of
effort. Does anyone have any good modern reasons for why paper is necessary in
today's office? Assume that the employees are information workers who know how
to effectively use computers.

P.S. I understand the creative appeal of pen(cil) and paper. I It's great for
brainstorming, rough-drafting, and early prototyping. Beyond that, I can't
imagine a good reason for it.

~~~
wladimir
Here, paper is still used en-masse to print documents for review meetings.

I agree that is pretty wasteful, especially if you have a lot of revisions of
a large document, and many people are present. You print something to throw it
away an hour later.

I wouldn't know the cost/benefit analysis though, it might be that the paper-
based solution is simply cheaper than giving everyone a laptop. And many
people prefer to read on paper (though e-paper would solve this, but that'd be
even more expensive).

~~~
dkokelley
The mindset needs to change. The thought process should not be "let's replace
paper with laptops or e-readers or iPads so workers can use e-paper". Paper as
a concept needs to die. Not replaced with technology, but literally made
extinct.

Paper is just a medium for information to exist. The medium doesn't need to be
replaced. It should be bypassed. I think it's a habitual crutch workers have,
to print information out, for it to be tangible.

I agree that although horribly inefficient, paper is cheap (even with printing
expenses), and thus attractive compared to buying everyone an iPad. That's
unfortunate because I believe it handicaps workers by acting as an unnecessary
bottleneck when it should be completely removed from the information workflow
wherever possible.

~~~
davidw
As the founder and CEO of <http://73primenumbers.com> I couldn't disagree
more. Here are some advantages of our time-tested Paper and Pencil application
suite:

<http://73primenumbers.com/pencilpaper.html>

Cheap, Reliable, Safe, extremely Portable, 0-minute Installation, compatible
with anything, built in Internationalization.

~~~
dkokelley
I had to read for a while before I realized that there was no product. I kept
thinking "What is this guy actually selling?" Great site :-D

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jarin
I've updated my email footer as an experiment to see if it will be a good way
to weed out the "bad" potential clients (just like telling potential clients
that I used to work at a porn company seems to do).

~~~
dkokelley
That seems like a good way to catch personality conflicts early. If you have a
client who doesn't get along with your personal style and way of doing things,
they might become a clientzilla down the road.

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msie
Save electrons...and your time. Don't read the post.

