Do you remember where you were when you first heard the \u201cS word,\u201d you know, \u201cSolutions,\u201d as it pertains to document imaging?<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t pinpoint my first time, but I have distinct memories of hearing the word at industry events stretching back years. Over time, the word \u201csolutions\u201d has become as ubiquitous as an open bar at an opening night dealer meeting cocktail reception. However, the true origin of the word remains one of the document imaging industry\u2019s greatest mysteries. There is a movement in search of the word\u2019s origins, but whether or not it will be found and verified through carbon dating is anybody\u2019s guess. It won\u2019t be for lack of trying, however.<\/p>\n
As I write this a team of archeologists is combing through the ruins of the old NOMDA museum in Kansas City uncovering treasures such as rusted IBM Selectrics, crumbling Texas Instruments calculators, dusty DEX fax machines, and ancient copiers that were once known to overheat and burst into flames like Moses\u2019 burning bush. Deep within the museum\u2019s recesses are ancient manuscripts such as The Hanson Report and the complete works of Carl Lindquist as well as other scrolls touting new product introductions dating back to the early 1990\u2019s. Industry analysts have been able to decipher the words \u201cdigital\u201d and \u201cconnected\u201d among the hyperbole in some of those yellowed scrolls and manuscripts, but to date have yet to find any trace of the word \u201csolutions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some document imaging industry scholars claim the word \u201csolutions\u201d originated in the Far East in conjunction with the first boxes shipped to this continent that did more than just produce a copy of a document. Another school of scholars say the word \u201csolutions\u201d is as American as baseball, apple pie, and despising the band Nickelback, and was likely uttered at a dealer meeting in some exotic climate by a long-forgotten industry executive in an attempt to make the software that was being sold with the box sound more impressive than it really was at the time.<\/p>\n
That may be when the word first entered my lexicon. To my untrained ears it was a foreign language, but a language many of us would adopt and use in print and conversation even if we couldn\u2019t quite figure out how to define it in a way that made sense.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t until one of the document imaging industry\u2019s ancient seers, Bob Sostilio, stepped forward and told it like it is as he is prone to do. I vividly remember him lamenting how much he despised the word \u201csolutions\u201d and how he completely nailed it when he said, \u201cIt\u2019s software, stupid.\u201d I admit, I\u2019m embellishing his quote for effect because he didn\u2019t use the word \u201cstupid,\u201d but doesn\u2019t his explanation sound so much better with the word \u201cstupid\u201d in it?<\/p>\n
Anyway, the definition was so obvious some of us missed the obviousness of its obviousness.<\/p>\n
I bring up solutions because it\u2019s now an industry standard, and because most of us understand what\u2019s being said when someone uses the \u201cS word.\u201d<\/p>\n