2010 will mark a milestone in people going paperless in their daily lives.

“On Christmas Day, for the First Time Ever, Customers Purchased More Kindle Books Than Physical Books” announced Amazon.com in a press release. In addition to record e-book sales, the online retailer reported a surge in Kindle e-book reader sales this holiday season. "We are grateful to our customers for making Kindle the most gifted item ever in our history," said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com.

What does this mean? Whether you have purchased an e-book reader yet or not, it means that a shift is occurring in how people relate to their documents. Digital documents are becoming more elegant, more accepted, and easier to use.

Just as the iPod revolutionized music distribution during the past decade, digital documents promise to change the next. As Bezos said in a recent interview with Dan Lyons of Newsweek: “The physical book really has had a 500-year run. It's probably the most successful technology ever. . . . Given how much change there has been everywhere else, what's remarkable is how stable the book has been for so long. But no technology, not even one as elegant as the book, lasts forever.”

As people progressively grow more comfortable using electronic documents in their personal lives, we can anticipate them becoming more comfortable using electronic documents in their professional lives as well. People who are digitally literate in their personal lives carry those qualities over into the office, creating a grassroots movement towards faster adaptation of digital documents in the business environment.

The technologies used to capture, manage, store, preserve, and deliver professional documents are evolving at a rapid pace. Document imaging technologies that would have been out of reach for any but the largest organizations just 10 years ago are becoming increasingly more affordable for small to medium sized organizations and individual consumers.

i/oTrak specializes in helping organizations of all sizes deal with their specific paper challenges in an easy, open, cost-effective manner. For more information on how we can help make dealing with paper easier in your professional life, contact one of i/oTrak's solution specialists for a free assessment.