#Paperless2013 Fires The TWEET Heard Round The Print World

Go Paperless in 2013 takes its eye off “Paperwork” and turns its focus on Catalogs

Remember in the Lord Of The Rings movies when the EYE was looking around for Frodo and would fix it’s gaze is one direction until something else distracted it? Well that seems to have happened over the weekend with the Go Paperless in 2013 campaign. Although their raison d’etre is to “take the paper out of paperwork,” someone manning the @Paperless2013 Twitter account (most likely an employee of Hello Fax) targeted the Restoration Hardware Catalog and included a photo of it along with “What is wrong with these people.” THESE PEOPLE.

Let’s go back a little in case you are joining our program, already in progress. Go Paperless in 2013 launched in January of this year with the tagline: Save Time. Save Money. Save Trees. After a bit of public industry pressure, and a very public takeover of the #paperless2013 Twitter stream, by January 13th the tagline was updated to: Take the paper out of paperwork. At this point they were still using “tree” imagery in their channels, but since they removed “save trees” from their call to action, the guerrilla social army ceased fire in the socialsphere – but don’t get it wrong, we NEVER retreated. We have been watching, and gathering intel, and waiting to see their next move. 

Although there have been little flareups here and there from people with agendas and vested interests in “going paperless,” mostly it has been peaceful. The campaign itself has gathered a TON of new sponsors and partners, and even though some of them are still including an environmental reason to go paperless, it hasn’t been public enough to warrant giving them attention, it wasn’t coming from the mothership @Paperless2013, and none of the “paper bad” messaging was aimed at anything else besides paperwork – until now.

Whether the anti-catalog tweet was the act of a rouge employee, or a new policy for the campaign is yet to be seen, but we CANNOT let it go without answer. WE ARE THESE PEOPLE – producers of print, from the paper mill to the mail house. We are NOT anti-digital, and we are PRO printing responsibly when it comes to paperwork and other such desktop situations. However, as I have blogged about numerous times, the inference that “paper is bad” and “digital is good” is a slippery slope, and here is where it leads to.

By the way, since I started writing this post @HelloFax has replied to me… and it’s the FIRST official response ever from the Go Paperless camp. HelloFax is the company behind the Go Paperless campaign.

It is evident that the Go Paperless EYE plans to “rule them all” and extend what they consider waste (aka harmful to the environment) to other areas of print. Phrases such as “these people” communicate a “them vs us” mentality, and in this scenario WE are the us – the bad guys, the tree killers. Unfortunately, it is way easier to show a picture of a 1000 page catalog and rally support from those who are already greenwashed into believing that print and paper don’t have an environmental story to tell, than it is to tell that story in a soundbite manner which can be digested in 140 characters or less.

I am going to make a list of all the Go Paperless in 2013 sponsors along with their social media information. Until that is completed, if you look in the #paperless2013 twitter stream, there are many there you can see yourself. If you aren’t a twitter user, you can still go to twitter.com and search #paperless2013 to see this information. It’s time to get back into their conversation now that they are making it directly about US, and share the FACTS about the sustainability of print and paper from sites such as TwoSidesUS , ChoosePrint and the many others out there.

I don’t like to perpetuate the them vs us thing, and know there is a place in the world for everyone. I haven’t pointed out the exponential and non-sustainable damage that the digital word does to the environment, that one of the Go Paperless in 2013 sponsors is also one of the world’s largest customers of paper and print, or that another has a HUGE magazine publisher behind it. So some of the “thems” are “us-es” – which is why facts, not mud slinging, should be our course of action.

Let’s take the high road, but do not be mistaken, this long and winding Go Paperless highway in under construction and is heading your way. It started at paperwork with an offramp to direct mail, it’s now veering to catalogs, and eventually WILL get to your door. Buckle up!