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I manage several copier related websites. I have noticed that no matter how bad or incomplete your website is, Google will snail mail you a letter to confirm your physical address. Once you enter your code from that letter, regardless of the SEO ratings of your website, a short description of your website will always be on Google maps homepage in your local city area.Originally Posted by Bix
The pandemic of 2020 has produced a myriad of consequences for the legal industry, with courts literally closing up shop and halting new case filings, which in turn caused a significant drop in law firm billings.
By June, Clio, a leading legal technology firm, documented a 27% decrease in billings nationwide, leading firms to layoff more than 64,000 employees across the industry, a nearly 20-year low according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
In addition, the coronavirus has forced many lawyers across the U.S. to learn how to work from home, leaving offices empty, void of the traditional labor and technology that moves the legal information out of reach for them.
The new normal of working remotely hasn’t stopped the paper from coming in. Firms are struggling with how reduced staff can maintain access to critical information, how to digitize the new work coming in, and are obviously concerned with maintaining document security.
WHERE TO START?
Because of COVID, firms are forced to pivot and adapt new technologies to function in “the new normal.” This means taking an aggressive stance in going upstream to digitize information at the point of transaction as effectively and efficiently as possible with state-of-the-art solutions.
A strong hardware and software tool set combined with high-speed scanners offer a range of technology that will capture, digitize and index case data.
Your technology partner, your staff will gain access to a technology infrastructure designed with proven best practices and ease-of-use in mind.
REMOTE ACCESS ISN’T GOING AWAY
As is common with many industries, brick and mortar is a top expense. Costly office space requirements will decline without question.
This will cause firms to reduce their need for storing case files and eliminating the “weigh-station” areas required for processing volumes of paper data such as legal case files and discovery materials. Firms have long sought to eliminate perpetual “hostage fees” associated with storing information in the mines, then having to recall it for research and distribution.
An experienced services team can eliminate those fees altogether by converting any existing paper documentation into a comprehensive, searchable data repository and secure it with appropriate access to any qualified worker at the click of a mouse.
WHAT’S NEXT?
Data security is vital for any firm, as you are literal custodians of your client’s most vital and sensitive information. The legal industry’s has a high obligation to secure client data from electronic data breach or cyberattack.
Solutions, when properly implemented and configured, have proven to be effective in making certain that no client data is left unsecured. In the event a breach was to occur, the solution would require notification to administrators, detail of the breach and a thorough audit trail of the event.
There are ways to minimize risks. Crazy as it may sound, there are cloud faxing solution with the toolset which allows for the transfer of native files of most any size, securely and safely between not only your workforce, but to your clients as well.
With just a few clicks, your team can initiate a notification that data is stored in what’s called a SafeBox. This is an end-to-end encrypted network storage area that holds the data to be transferred.
Using standard email for notification, the data can be secured with two-factor authentication (2FA), allowing coworkers or clients to access as you see fit. All communication around the SafeBox can be secured, with additional tools allowing for collaboration, responses and timing controlled by your team.
The underlying challenge for the legal industry is understanding what choices to make on how best to empower employees to work remotely in these strange times. It’s never too late to make that happen.
The new world of work from Ricoh
Ricoh’s DocuWare Simplifies Employee and Visitor Screening - YouTube
... formalizing who enters a business
... the USA passes an unfortunate new record high of over 100,000 COVID-19 infections in a single day making visitor control more important.
Konica Minolta has activated smartworking in Europe since the beginning of the year. Employees go to the office only when strictly necessary. With MOBOTIX, they automatically detect temperature and accesses.
... not that I know the pricing but if Ricoh is suggesting a customer should install Docuware to manage employee and visitor access to a business space, that is usually an expensive and somewhat complicated solution to install. Remember Ricoh recently purchased Docuware so the video is definitely a self promoting message.
Permanent work from home is here to stay as many of the best and brightest employees want that flexibility to better manage their lifestyles.
Employers who do not offer work from home will have trouble attracting top talent.
Low skilled urban workers who service high skilled workers are facing increased unemployment as skilled workers stay home or move away to less expensive, lower population density areas.
Urban bars, restaurants, retail stores are all facing deep declining revenues due to a double whammy of commuters and locals staying home in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Skilled workers who can afford suitable housing have an advantage over transient people to get full time jobs.
In the USA, 88% of skilled workers want to continue to work from home at least 2-3 days per week. Home is now considered to be the place for concentration on job tasks. The traditional office is now a place for collaboration and communication. Employers are reconfiguring their current office space to optimize that. 68% of surveyed CEOs plan to downsize their office space.
Municipal and state gov'ts that depend upon transit and road taxes to service their infrastructure are experiencing deep shortfalls in revenues as skilled workers no longer commute every day.
Urban offices will continue to need high quality, feature rich, dependable office equipment. Office print volumes have declined but show signs of stabilizing at a much lower level. Largely uncontrolled home office print volumes continue to increase using much more expensive to operate and less secure print devices.
Home office workers will have to be ever more vigilant about information security. Businesses need to protect their intellectual property as the for profit activities of bad actors explode. Hacking attacks can now be launched from anywhere in the world with easily accessible software tools found on the dark web and used by medium skilled workers with criminal intent.
Last edited by SalesServiceGuy; 11-12-2020 at 10:53 PM.
... confirmation of the previous post from US Federal Reserve Chairman Powell.
The economy as we knew it might be over, Fed Chairman says - CNN
The Covid-19 pandemic brought the US economy to a screeching halt, and while it has started its long road to recovery, the economy we knew is probably a thing of the past, said Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on Thursday.
"We're recovering, but to a different economy," Powell said during a virtual panel discussion at the European Central Bank's Forum on Central Banking.
The pandemic has accelerated existing trends in the economy and society, including the increasing use of technology, telework and automation, he said. This will have lasting effects on how people live and work.
While technological advances are generally positive for societies over the long term, Powell said, on a short-term basis they create disruption, and as the market adjusts to the new normal the pain isn't shared evenly.
The post-pandemic economy is also at risk of being less productive: women have been forced to quit their jobs due to child care responsibilities during the crisis, and children aren't getting the education they deserve, Powell said.
For example, it's likely that lower-paid workers, as well as those in jobs requiring face-to-face interactions, such as retail or restaurant workers, will shoulder most of the burden of this shift. These groups, heavily skewed towards women and minorities, have already been among those most affected by pandemic layoffs, Powell said.
Generally speaking, inequality holds the economy back, the central banker said.
"Even after the unemployment rate goes down and there's a vaccine, there's going to be a probably substantial group of workers who are going to need support as they're finding their way in the post-pandemic economy, because it's going to be different in some fundamental ways," Powell said.
Washington has spent trillions of dollars to boost the economy in the wake of the pandemic. But jobless workers are still in a tough spot: some benefits have already dwindled and more are set to expire at year-end. Economists are hopeful that the next administration will manage to pass another stimulus bill to help workers and businesses as the recovery continues.
More work needs to be done
Powell has long said that the economy might need more stimulus from both the government and the central bank to get through the crisis. He again echoed this sentiment on Thursday.
"My sense is that we will need to do more and that Congress will need to do more," he said.
While the prospect of a vaccine is goods news, many questions remain, including the resurgence of the virus around the world.
"The main risk we see today [...] is the further spread of disease here in the United States," he said. Several states have restarted their pandemic restrictions to curb the spread.
The days of 'office-centricity' are over: Shopify president
The days of 'office-centricity' are over: Shopify president - BNN Bloomberg
The mass adoption of remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic signals that the days of “office-centricity” are over, according to the president of Canadian e-commerce company Shopify Inc.
Harley Finkelstein said businesses are shifting away from the idea of the office being the place where everything happens, as COVID-19 has normalized the concept of working from home for many companies.
“There still will be a place for offices, whether that’s for on-sites, or onboarding, or team-building, or white-boarding sessions,” he told BNN Bloomberg’s Jon Erlichman in an interview Thursday. “But in terms of the primary place to organize and to gather being the office, we don’t think that’s going to be the case in the long term.
“We think the days of office-centricity are over.”
The Ottawa-based technology company made news earlier this year when it announced its employees would be able to work from home even after COVID-19 restrictions are lifted.
... I realize that many business do not lend themselves well to working from home such as a manufacturing facility, distribution facility, etc.. Today, I sold a 35 cpm A3 colour copier to a private school. Some employees are in the office, some work from home, some practise distance education.
German banking giant Deutsche Bank is calling for a “privilege tax” to be imposed on people who work from home, to erase their savings from not having to commute or pay for food on their lunch breaks.
“The left will tax anything they can,” he added– hinting at the strange confluence between the objectives of tax-and-spend leftists and the multinational corporate interests which has emerged in the era of “woke capital”.
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/11/13/deutsche-bank-wants-privilege-tax-imposed-on-people-who-work-from-home/
You will have to explain how a bank suggesting a tax has to do with "the left" ? Those look like two different articles that you put together for dramatic effect.
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