Birthday Copiers

"Let's wish a "Happy Birthday" to the copier and send it off to a nice retirement."

Did you know that the photocopier, the original Xerox, turns 50 years old this year? Neither did I (maybe because it's older than me). Reading a recent CNN article reminded me of the smell of mimeograph copies we received in elementary school, and being blinded by the flash bulb copiers in my college libraries, and warming up my hands on fresh hot copies from the Xerox machine on my first corporate job. Oh, and I'm sure many of you are familiar with the frustrations of instantly becoming a copier mechanic when the machines broke down.

All great things come to an end... and it's time for the photocopier machine (not the companies that produce them) to go the way of the dinosaurs. The hulking masses of metal, plastic, glass, wire, miles of precious metal circuitry and needless waste of paper and toner ink can all just disappear and this Efficient CEO won't be sad. Not for a minute. The joke in my company is, "Rich printed a document?!? Are you serious???". Why print when you can read a screen. Why duplicate when you can share electronically. Why handle paper when you can do it all online.

Let's wish a "Happy Birthday" to the copier and send it off to a nice retirement. Thank you Xerox for the many wonderful innovations you've helped design, build and bring to market. Our civilization honestly couldn't have progressed without you! It is great to see that Xerox and their many competitors are now doing more to eliminate paper through automation and they too realize the value of retiring their earliest invention.