Making new friends and influencing people have always been something that comes to me naturally. But not Saturday. Saturday night I attended a dinner party and didn’t hesitate to tell another guest how his theory about going paperless was bad.

His earthy crunchy theory about saving trees was definitely from the heart, but my feeling was he was taking the move to paperless too far. See, he wanted to completely eliminate paper from his process. No invoices, no paper contracts, no checks, no paper whatsoever.

I’m a huge advocate of technology and I’m also a tree hugger at heart; however, as a business owner I understand the need for paper. Paper is part of normal business practices and processes, and eliminating it altogether would wreak havoc. The first time a shipment is sent without paperwork would cause utter chaos in the warehouse.

There’s a huge controversy in Upstate New York about making that government completely paperless. Creators of the new proposal want to eliminate paper across the board including the paper on which new laws are written. Every contract, law, deposition and legal document would be electronic.

Proponents of the New York state law say it will save forests and free clutter. Opponents argue going paperless will create more work. I suppose, like every new law, it will be written, rewritten, argued and then voted on until lawmakers settle on a happy medium. Until then they’ll probably use reams of paper while they make their decision.

As I was preparing for this week’s article I stumbled across an commentary written by a paper manufacturer. Modern paper, the article stated, is made from trees which have been chosen responsibly to preserve America’s forests. Sustaining America’s forests was the specific goal of this manufacturer. Reading between the lines, I picked up that if they cut down all the trees they’d be out of business.

Changing over to a completely paperless office means making a substantial investment in technology. In addition to a very large server to stash all the stuff that was once paper, companies would need to invest in equipment to create redundancy. Increased usage of computers also means increased chances of failure which in business terms translates to a loss of revenue.

There’s more to paperless than meets the eye. Years ago I made a decision not to go paperless at my stores. Every day I see broken technology and realize it would take away from our profit generating operations if we had a breakdown in our bookkeeping computer. On top of our normal workload we would also have to support our office bookkeeping system. Of course all that takes away from our ability to generate income.

My new adversary Christian (the guy from the party) became really quiet when I asked how he’s going to pay himself and his employees. After fifteen minutes of deliberation he conceded that paper has its place when conducting business. Trying to make an electronic deposit to an employee who doesn’t have a checking account may present a problem.

So this weekend I didn’t make any new friends but I did influence someone. Chances are the phone number exchange we made won’t go anywhere past a nice gesture, but I have yet to see. In the meantime, paper isn’t such a bad thing. A few years ago I read a study that stated offices which made the switch to paperless actually used the same amount of paper they did before making the swap.

(Jeromy Patriquin is the President of Laptop & Computer Repair, Inc. located at 509 Main St. in Gardner. You can call him at (978) 919-8059 or visit www.LocalComputerWiz.com.)