Tom's answer was witty, but it ignores some concerns. Sure, passing a piece of paper around is easy/simple, but consider why you need to do this. If there is a formal requirement to maintain attendance records, then the piece of paper will have to be put somewhere that it can be found if the need should arise to confirm somebody's presence at a meeting, or to show that such records are being properly maintained. If the organization holds a lot of meetings, then this means shoving said sheet of paper into an ever-expanding folder in a drawer somewhere. Somebody has to decide on a quick retrieval system and enforce it. What happens when the paper is misfiled? When I try to maintain paper records, I am always shocked at how frequently I misfile things.
Just think of how many ways a good digital solution could improve on this. Maybe the problem is that there have been too many bad digital solutions, sold to clueless managers by quick-buck artists (who, after all, were just trying to make living like everybody else) who then went out of business, stranding their customers. On Sat, Jul 12, 2008 at 12:57 AM, Arnold Kee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi Tom- > I "laughed out loud" when reading your response*. You're right that without > more context, Occum's Razor would suggest passing around a sheet of paper. > In fact, the issue is that the information that needs to be collected from > participants had been on sheets of paper, but that paper was getting lost in > transit between the "sheet-filler-outer" and the temporary worker we hired > to type that information into a database. We could create a scantron form to > make the data collection easier, but an even more economical solution is to > allow students to type it in themselves--during a presentation. > What I'm envisioning is one of our recruiting presenters gathering the > information on a wireless PC, and then uploading it through a wireless > connection onto a server that stores it. > > Betty, thanks so much for the GoBook selection. > > Take care everyone. > Arnold > > *also, an essay could likely be written on the transitional nature of our > generation. When many of us were younger, our first response to answer a > question probably sent us to concrete references--like the Encyclopedia > Brittanica, or another physical source. But now we look to technology, and > more specifically, the internet to answer a question. Likewise, we are more > inclined to look to a digital solution at times when a material or physical > solution is probably the better course of action (like, a sheet of paper). > Then again....this has probably been said more than once. > > > > > > > > ************************************************************************* > ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** > ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** > ************************************************************************* > ************************************************************************* ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *************************************************************************
