Media, Technology and Society

Does the Paperless Business Exist? VeriFone's Example

Although paperless organizations are nothing new, it is still phenomenal to read about one of the companies which instigated and succesfully demonstrated this capacity before so many others:

"VeriFone, a leading manufacturer of credit verification systems, is well known for its virtual organization. The company was founded in 1981 by an entrepreneur who hated bureaucracy. By 1990, it was the leading company for transaction automation with products and services used in more than 80 countries. VeriFone's office building in northern California houses a nominal corporate headquarters. In several plants around the world, its processing systems are actually made, and its distribution centers facilitate rapid delivery to customers. most corporate functions however, occur at multiple global locations, including Texas, Hawaii, India and Taiwan. The company seeks to put its people in close proximity to customers and emerging markets, which results in about a third of the employees traveling roughly half of the time. This strategy gives VeriFone first-hand information about business opportunities and competitive situations worldwide.

At the heart of the company culture is constant and reliable sharing of information. It is a culture that thrives on the chief executive officers ban on secretaries and paper correspondence. Everyday the chief information officer (CIO) gathers yesterday's results and measures them against the company's plans. Systems post travel itineraries of everyone in the company and track which people speak what languages. Using IS for simulation and analysis, the CIO pulls together information from databases around the company for an e-mail newsletter to everyone in the company." (From Pearlson & Saunders; Managing & Using Information Systems: A Strategic Approach, 3rd ed. 2006)

In contrast, the public-sector organization I work for employs hundreds of secretaries and thrives on paper correspondence. We still use bucketloads of manilla file folders. Manilla file folders. Our departmental database systems don't connect automatically to our ERP. Key business process information is still stored in large part, in the minds of individual employees. Reading about progressive organizations like this is both astounding, especially considering that we are in the year 2006, and there are still organizations that use outdated 1960-style business processes.

While some companies use electronic, online calendars facilitated by any number of applications (Microsoft Outlook, CorporateTime, Google Calendar...) we still print out paper copies of the week's goings-on and distribute them by hand to each staff member. If 6 changes are made to this document, 6 seperate batches of calendars are printed out and distributed. Arguably, this single organization kills more trees than some small countries.

Kim Jong-Il Goes Nuclear in Pursuit of World Attention

Kim Il-Jung's government claims to have tested a nuclear bomb in complete and utter defiance of the international community - one which, this time, includes China (North Korea's principle trading partner). While everyone is loathe to give Kim Il-Jung any more negative attention, as he clearly stokes international fears in order to bolster domestic support and credibility, one wonders what else Kim can do short of actually committing an act of war, before the international community acts.

Kim Il-Jung is a very dangerous person in that rare 21st century society. He commands, apparently without rival, a genuinely totalitarian society in which state power is more or less absolute and militaristic defiance of the international community (especially the US) is ingrained into every citizen's belief system. Propaganda blares from loudspeakers in Pyongyang, constantly informing every citizen of the "Dear Leaders" holiness and their duty to do everything to protect him and the glorious communist state he claims to safeguard. Anyone whose watched any of the very rare footage taken from North Korea is often impressed and dismayed by the terrifyingly robotic hordes of marching soldiers, the discipline and servility with which individual citizens repeat trite slogans, and the utter poverty of the rural areas.

As some of the Chinese businessmen say, who travel to North Korea to conduct their trade - travelling into North Korea is like travelling back in time - to Mao Zedong's communist China.

While some hold out hope that North Korea will eventually collapse under the weight of its own poverty and economic hardship, Kim Il-Jung's military power appears undimmed. How can we counter this threat, without giving Kim the excuse to launch an attack on his neighbours? After all, it is South Korea and Japan that will likely bear the brunt of any military action North Korea might launch. To what extent will nuclear weapons be involved?

Should a preemptive strike with nuclear weapons be launched against North Korea? Can its weapons facilities be destroyed before a retaliatory attack can be launched? Given the earlier failure of its Taepodong missile silos during the summer, this isn't an impossible scenario.

Ultimately, one still has to believe that Mr. Kim's nuclear weapons are the regular person's equivalent of a Lamborghini or Ferrari. He's out to get attention, any way he can. Nobody will believe that you have a fast car if you can't test drive it once in a while, right? He may be a deliriously mad nutcase, but the threat of Mutually Assured Destruction has not gone away. Mr. Kim surely wouldn't give up his "Joy Battalion" (legions of young girls that are called upon to serve the Dear Leader in any way he can think of) just for the temporary delight of blowing up Seoul or Tokyo.

The best thing we can do for Mr. Kim is the same thing we would do with a spoiled child throwing a temper tantrum to get attention: ignore him.

Barack Obama for President?

Speculating about possible presidential candidates is a time-tested occupation of pundits and people that just like to make ridiculously inconsequential prognostications about just about anyone with any possible chance of becoming the USA's commander-in-chief. Btw, doesn't "commander in chief" just sound American, in a way that "Prime Minister" doesn't? Quite. In any case, Barack Obama is a very interesting figure on the US political landscape, and the thought of him becoming president is vastly more intriguing to contemplate than other possible candidates such as John McCain or Mitt Romney.

Supporters say he appeals to black and white voters alike. He is also said to have an ability to connect with white rural and small-town voters - a trait Mr Obama puts down to his family background. (Source).

Why should you care? Obama had this to say on the Iraq war:

"When we send our young men and women into harm's way, we have a solemn obligation not to fudge the numbers or shade the truth about why they're going, to care for their families while they're gone, to tend to the soldiers upon their return, and to never ever go to war without enough troops to win the war, secure the peace, and earn the respect of the world," (Source).

Weigh in on Obama's presidential chances at Mens Vogue...

Why are School Attacks Targeting Females?

Like many, it is easy, and often necessary to distance oneself from the often daily news of violent events and tragic incidents - if for no other reason than to preserve a modicum of psychological well-being. I often think in a dry, statistical way, about whether any particular killing or disaster is anything other than a statistical eventuality. Sometimes it is necessary to read a news story closely and look at the real context of the event in question. What would it be like to be a girl in a school house in rural Pennsylvania, to be seperated from male classmates, herded into a corner at gunpoint and shot? This is unimaginable.

Not only that, but it seems ridiculously improbable - and frightening - that 3 school shootings have occured in the past few weeks - in Dawson College, Montreal (in which 1 female student died, and 19 were wounded) - Park County, Colorado - and now, in Nickel Mines, PA.

"According to a witness, Morrison wanted only female students and forced the male students to leave the second-floor classroom at Platte Canyon High School on Wednesday afternoon in the small town of Bailey, about 55 kilometres southwest of Denver." from CBC.

Strikingly similar to the latest school shooting - in an Amish township of all places?

"The truck driver who opened fire inside a tiny Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania Monday, killing three students, sent the boys outside before tying up the girls and shooting them at close range, police say. The gunman, who shot himself to death, had three guns, a stun gun, two knives and a bag with about 600 rounds of ammunition, police said." also from CBC.

The incidence of female-specific targeting in the latter two shootings raises the spectre of Montreal's Ecole Polytechnique Massacre, in which a self-avowed "woman-hater" took his personal vendetta against "feminism" to an extreme - murdering 14 promising young engineering students.

That attack was a wakeup call for Canadian society, and for many schools across North America. It also highlighted the risks that women in particular still face when it comes to violence perpetrated by men. Why are they being targeted? These latter two stories ought to be fuel for deeper analysis about our culture, or particular male sub-cultures. Why did these men want to punish females in particular?

The "the Montreal Massacre became a galvanizing moment in which mourning turned into outrage about all violence against women." Lets hope these latest attacks remind us that more, not less outrage is needed. How many attacks do you hear about where armed women burst into a school, seperate the males from the females and systematically rape or murder the boys?