GLORY DAYS
You know, when I was a kid, once school started each fall, one of the activities I cherished most was my afternoon touch football games. After the final bell, three of my buddies and I would bolt home to engage in a vigorous, street, pigskin battle. The plays weren’t fancy. “Make a button hook in front of the Buick.” “Do a down and out at the fire hydrant.” As the sun dropped below the neighborhood horizon, the only thing that would put a halt to our fun was the pleading call from our mothers to come home for dinner. And if the game was tied, it was a sure bet those words would fall on deaf ears. Until recently, I thought those touch football days were prisoners of my past. But then I discovered the F.D.L., more formally known as the Fourth Down Touch Football League. Every Sunday between September and March, a bunch of middle-aged guys (I hate to admit but, yeah, I’m one of them) gather on a rented soccer pitch in New York City to recapture those glory days. Put it to you this way; my mind is willing but the knees not so much.
Come to think of it, another vestige of my youth appears to have seen its better days. Paper. That’s right, as I stroll the hallways of my offices and those of my clients, I see less and less of it. Of course, the “While You Were Out” pad gave way to email a long time ago. But nowadays, it’s gone well beyond that. Processes such as accounts payable and human resources, which were traditionally and heavily paper-based, have given way to digital workflow. And those businesses that haven’t gone totally paperless (and there are quite a few) are certainly moving in the direction of “paper light”. To help them get there, they’ve enlisted the expertise of information management services companies to provide suitable scanning, hosting and other digital document management solutions. However, I must admit that every once in a while, I witness situations where paper still reigns supreme. For those diehards, those same information management services companies provide cost-efficient, physical records storage and secure, confidential shredding services.
With Sunday now in sight, I can’t wait to get out on that field and mix it up with my fellow, weekend warriors. I even have a few, new plays in mind. But when we get in the huddle, I’m not going to diagram them on an iPad. Or even a piece of paper. I’m going to go real, old school. Dirt.
—Dr. Document