Throw Back Thursday: Everybody Leads; Everybody Cares

"Likewise, inspire and encourage your teams, “honk” by recognizing and rewarding an employee with a pat on the back, a kudo, a special mention during the daily huddle, it will go a long way to making everyone feel appreciated as well as promote camaraderie and teamwork."

Good Morning Folks,

Whether you have heard this tale before, or are taking it on for the first time, today's "TBT" post will always lift you up.

There was a time when the lone eagle on the mountain was a popular symbol for leadership.  But in a fast-moving organization such as FSO, we should have – MUST HAVE – leaders at EVERY position.  If you want a better metaphor than the eagle, consider the wild and wily Great Northern Geese.

EVERYONE is ALIGNED:  
A flock of Great Northern Geese will fly thousands of miles in a perfect V formation – and therein lies the secret: As each bird moves its great wings, it creates an uplift for the bird following.  Formation flying is 70 percent more efficient than flying alone.  If every associate at every site is aligned and FOCUSED  on delivering the hospitality experience, we will create an uplift for each other to continue delivering white glove service as a unit.

EVERYONE LEADS:  
At a distance, the flock appears to be guided by a single leader.  The lead bird does in fact guide the formation, winging smoothly and confidently through the oncoming elements.  If the lead bird tires, however, it rotates back into formation and another bird moves quickly to the point position.  Leadership is willingly shared, and each bird knows exactly where the entire group is headed.  At FSO, every associate knows where we are headed and can see 2020 clearly.  Each one of our teammates should be able to wing smoothly and confidently through any and all challenges they may face on a daily basis.

EVERYONE INSPIRES:  
Each flock finds its own unique rhythm and spirit.  The pulsating sound of the huge wings beating together excites and energizes the entire formation.  The geese enthusiastically honk from behind to encourage those up front to keep up with their speed.  Likewise, inspire and encourage your teams, “honk” by recognizing and rewarding an employee with a pat on the back, a kudo, a special mention during the daily huddle, it will go a long way to making everyone feel appreciated as well as promote camaraderie and teamwork.

EVERYONE CARES:  
In good time or bad, Great Northern Geese stand by each other.  When a member of the flock gets sick, wounded or shot down, two geese drop out of formation and follow it down to help and protect it.  They stay with it until it is able to fly again.  Then they soar off together to catch up with their flock.  Know that you have easy access to an entire NATION of counterparts that can support you and guide you at any time…  all you have to do is reach out and they will help and support you to soar along with the rest, the best, FSO.

If WE have as much sense as geese, we TOO will share the leadership and stand by each other in difficult times as well as when we are strong.

What a terrific, informative and timely message for all of us at FSO. Absolutely loved the message of unity, leadership and teamwork and I am always amazed how much we can learn from one of God's creatures.

In the spirit of the season.... CHEERS!

Mitchell D. Weiner
Chief Happiness Officer

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . 

"If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more,
do more and become more, you are a leader." 
~~John Quincy Adams

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . .. . .

Throw Back Thursday: In The Struggle For Cell Phone Survival, As With Any Business, Only The Fittest Win

"Change is Good. You Go First, Because somebody's gotta win. It might as well be you."

Good Morning Folks,

"Innovation" is one of those buzzwords you hear all the time. 

I believe complacency is when innovation ends. The advantage every business has, but few in our industry leverage to the advantage that we do, is the ability to innovate and reinvent. So many great companies lose their edge and end up playing catch-up until they're obsolete. That’s not going to happen here.

Dramatic paradigm sights are occurring in every industry, YOUR industry because traditional barriers to entry don't exist anymore. If you don't think a new era of change and creative destruction isn't headed to your door step, you are sadly mistaken. If you want to be on top, you have to look at innovation in a new, interactive way. You have to believe it is worth coin, its worth doing wrong. You have to be willing to try your model, test it, innovate around it, get out, screw up, and then do it right. You have to understand that speed is everything in an electronic realm because you can fix mistakes before anyone realizes that mistakes were made.

We are facing the biggest transformation the way business is conducted since the industrial revolution. If you are willing to innovate, you are taking steps towards crashing your competition.

Just look how the today's "Throw Back Thursday" photo depicting the short history and rapid advancement of cell phone technology.

As an owner and CEO, I am keenly aware that rapid change in business and technology is the “new normal.”  The only way for our company to survive, let alone thrive, is to continuously reinvent and redefine— everything.

This means we can’t go backward, and we can’t stand still. We can’t rest on our laurels and we can’t keep doing what we’ve always done — even if we are doing our best, we need to keep doing it better.

Because at FSO, we never stop rethinking, refreshing and (re)IMAGINING a better future for our clients. 

Yesterday away a case in point. Yesterday at FSO was a great and fantastic day sitting the standard for innovation and perfection in everything we do. 

Over the past weeks our teams have received an amazing shot of passion, inspiration, tools and content supported by the  entire leadership team. We're focused on how to ensure consistency and execution across all of our site openings. 

We are doing some very out of the box and special things for our newest clients and I look forward to sharing our successes in future.

IT IS YOU that makes FSO who we are. Love Life!

Mitchell D. Weiner

Chief Happiness Officer  

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"In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment." ~~ Charles Darwin

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Throwback Thursday: The Evolution of the Office Desk

In the Beginning, Office with clerks working at
slant-top standing desks.
Photo: OfficeMuseum.com

How from the eighties till now our working instruments and habits are changed, visually, technologically and substantially.

Good Morning Folks,

Whether you like it or not, the fact is, we depend on technology more than you know. How has your desk evolved over the last 35 years? Do you still have that Rolodex in front of you? Probably not. What about that clunky dictionary, or the answering machine? Technology (and the cloud) has replaced most of our desktop items.

In this video produced by Harvard Innovation Lab, genuine vintage items were sought after and purchased in order to recreate the look and feel of an 80′s work desk.



Shout-out to the producer of the video, Best Reviews!

I want take this opportunity to thank you for what you do every day to make FSO GREAT!

If know of someone who would enjoy working for or with FSO please do not keep us a secret.

Have a Personal, Passionate & Productive Day!

 

Mitchell D. Weiner
Chief Happiness Officer

Learn more about what DIFFERENTIATES FSO here

Throw Back Thursday: The Origins of The Necktie and Return of the Bow Tie

“You always feel better about yourself when you work to look your best, which means you project that image to others. They take notice.”

Photo: Fashion-forward FSO Experience Director  Shawn Curwen 

opts for the Bow Tie

Good Morning Folks,

One of our most popular posts provides guidance on proper business attire. Then in a Throw Back Thursday post we showcased the history of court attire going way back to customs of white powdered wigs and black robes… still used in the Supreme Court and some countries (such as you've seen if you've been watching the judge to the left in news clips of the Pistorius trial).

What she wears that also distinguishes Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (who remarked in a Katie Couric Yahoo interview today saying when asked if the 82-year old would retire soon, she responded that she's not ready to hang up her Jabot).

Jabot?

Jabots survive in the present as components of various official costumes. The white bibs of judges of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany are officially described as jabots, as are those worn by judges and counsel throughout Australian courts. Jabots are prescribed attire for barristers appearing before the Supreme Court of South Australia.

French magistrate court dress and French academic dress include a jabot, called Rabat. It is usually of plain cotton, except that of academic high officials, which is made of lace.

In the United States Supreme Court, jabots are worn by some female justices, but are not mandatory. Both United States Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor often wear jabots with their judicial robes;Justice Elena Kagan, in contrast, does not.

The Speaker of the British House of Commons also wears a jabot along with a black and gold robe and lace frills.

Jabots continue to be worn as part of the highest formal Scottish evening attire and a former part of Scottish highland dance costumes from the 1930s to the 1970s. They are usually worn with high-necked jackets or doublets (Sheriffmuir or Montrose), often with matching cuffs for both genders and a fly plaid of the same tartan as the kilt, draped over-the-shoulder for men.

But here in the USA,. the necktie still rules. So...

Today we share Jennifer Busch's LinkedIn article "The Origin of the Necktie" -- Jennifer, over to you.

While the tie as we know it is a fairly modern invention, specific neckwear was worn by Romans in a similar way to accentuate and identify the military or in sports today to identify a team or troop. 

Cravat, which has become universal for tie origins are based in the Croatian mercenary’s terminology.  

The Croatian mercenary’s who fought with the French during the 30 Years War wore cloth around their necks both as decoration and to tie their shirts. “Croat” became “cravat” and the origins of the necktie were born. King Louis IV, who wore lace cravats when he was a boy, liked cravats so much he made them mandatory attire at Royal gatherings. Soon enough, the always chic Parisian nobility started wearing them and the cravat craze spread to other parts of Europe. 

The natural progression from the cravat was the bow tie. While the bow tie has evolved over time the early renditions were difficult to knot and easily loosened, making them impractical for men who worked in physically demanding jobs. By the beginning of the 20th century, instead of being tied into a bow, the fabric was knotted to hang down from the neck. This is how the necktie came into fashion. Made from silk, it often had stripes. 

While it was easier to knot than a bow tie, it was hard to keep the fabric straight. 

In 1924 an American tailor, Jesse Langsdorf, tried cutting the fabric at a 45-degree angle across the silk’s grain to see if it would stop the problem of curling at the bottom and give the tie a neater, sleeker look. He also cut the fabric into three sections, two equally long sides and a shorter piece to go around the neck in such as way so that the seams would match. This design also made it easier for men to loosen the tie without it becoming undone. 

What became known as the Langsdorf tie has been the standard for the last 90 years. While patterns, fabrics, lengths and widths have come and gone, the basic cut has not changed. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it and this accessory has seemed to work well for men, and even women, who want to spice up their look.

Speaking of ties, have you seen the 12-year-old 'kidpreneur' who captured the hearts and minds of ABC's Shark Tank panel and has Daymond of FUBU fame as his personal mentor?

This kid named MO has the FSO skip, fire and twinkle for sure and is bound for greatness. 


Moziah Bridges didn't get an investment when he stood before Shark Tank's panel of five angel investors looking for financial help to grow his bow tie business. He got something much more—a mentor.

Daymond John, the founder of the FUBU clothing line. John said that back in 1989, when his company was nothing more than a few hats, he rejected an offer for $10,000 for 40 percent of that company. Ten years later, that equity would have been worth $40 million.

According to his website Mo's Bows, "Mo's Bows is a company I started in Memphis, TN in 2011 when I was just 9 years old. I couldn't find fun and cool bow ties, so one day I decided to use my Granny's scrap fabric to make and sell my own. I like to wear bow ties because they make me look good and feel good. Designing a colorful bow tie is just part of my vision to make the world a fun and happier place." Love it!

Whether MO achieves his goal of bringing back the bow-tie remains to be seen. But some of our most fashionable leaders like Shawn Curwen have already embraced it. As long as I don't have to wear a powered wig and gown to call on a law firm (lol), I'm good with diversity in dress.

And remember even those who are not expected to wear a suit and tie everyday shouldn't forgo all style and fashion sensibility. 

Here are LinkUPs that will help you dress for success:

What IS Business Casual?

3 Tips For Expressing Your Style And Enhancing Your Personal Brand

What You Wear to the Office Still Matters

Have fun kids and you MUST.. ENJOY THE RIDE... we are a blessed and excited group!

Have a GREAT day as I look forward to seeing all of you soon.

Mitchell D. Weiner
Chief Happiness Officer

Throw Back Thursday: Once Upon A Time You Couldn't Do Business Without "White-Out" Correction Fluid

White-out reminds me of that esurance commercial— Beatrice: Instead of mailing everyone my vacation photos, I'm saving a ton of time by posting them to my wall. Friend replies... That's not how this works. That’s not how any of this works!

Good Morning Folks,

A blogger advises newly hired law firm associates...

On your first day at a law firm, you will…
…train with an 18-year-old Harvard freshman who somehow manages to be more put together looking than you are.
…embarass yourself trying to use the unnecessarily complicated “coffee system.“
… go to a two-hour, three-course lunch, at the end of which the associate you ate with will say, with genuine pleased surprise, “hey! only $90 for lunch! not bad!”
…spend two solid hours being trained on the use of Outlook. (Who knew email was so complicated?)
…learn that all summer associates are going to be attending next week’s Beyonce concert in a luxury box, courtesy of the firm.  and...
…walk into your newly-issued office and discover that it is stocked chock full of office supplies, including a glue stick, an “envelope moistening wand”, White Out (now available in legal pad yellow! who knew!), and brand-new, still in their packaging tape dispenser, stapler, and scissors. (The teacher in me nearly swooned.) 

Yes, even in a computer age where word processing programs with spell check have made error correction automatic, White-Out, as it is known, is still used widely.

Directs one law firm to its clients:

When you deliver documents to our office, it helps if you can do the following: 

We rarely need originals.  Please deliver clear copies unless we specifically request the original. 

We want to protect you from identity fraud. Many bank and credit card statements, tax returns, and other documents have your social security number or account number on every page.  Please redact (use White Out) all but the last 4 numbers of any account numbers."

Then again, this is one area of the law where enthusiastic use of White-Out and CIA-grade black highlighters is encouraged.

According to Wikipedia: "White-Out "correction fluid" as it is known generically, is an opaque, white fluid applied to paper to mask errors in text. Once dried, it can be written over. It is typically packaged in small bottles, and the lid has an attached brush (or a triangular piece of foam) which dips into the bottle. The brush is used to apply the fluid onto the paper.

Before the invention of word processors, correction fluid greatly facilitated the production of typewritten documents.

One of the first forms of correction fluid was invented in 1951 by the secretary Bette Nesmith Graham, founder of Liquid Paper.

The best known brand of correction fluid,Wite-Out dates to 1966, when George Kloosterhouse, an insurance-company clerk, sought to address a problem he observed in correction fluid available at the time: a tendency to smudge ink on photostatic copies when it was applied. Kloosterhouse enlisted the help of his associate Edwin Johanknecht, a basement waterproofer who experimented with chemicals, and together they developed their own correction fluid, introduced as "Wite-Out WO-1 Erasing Liquid".

In 1971, they incorporated as Wite-Out Products, Inc. The trademark "Wite-Out" was registered by the United States Patent and Trademark Office on February 5, 1974. (The application listed the date of "first use in commerce" as January 27, 1966.)

Early forms of Wite-Out sold through 1981 were water-based and hence water-soluble. While this allowed simple cleaning, it also had the problem of long drying times. The formula also did not work well on non-photostatic media such as typewritten copy.

The company was bought in 1981 by Archibald Douglas. Douglas, as chairman, led the company toward solvent-based formulas with faster drying times. Three different formulas were created, each optimized for different media. New problems arose: a separate bottle of thinner was required, and the solvent used was known to contribute to ozone depletion. The company addressed these problems in July 1990 with the introduction of a reformulated "For Everything" correction fluid.

In June 1992, Wite-Out Products was bought by the BIC Corporation. BIC released a number of new products under its newly acquired brand, including a Wite-Out ballpoint pen (November 1996) and dry correction tape (1998)."

Today, corporate clients have shifted priorities for law firms. Tired of high hourly rates and a no-bid mentality, corporations are demanding changes in the way law firms bill their clients. And the law firms are responding. There's no room for errors let alone non-billable time spent correcting errors. 

Law firms also are facing the same forces that have driven other industries to become leaner and meaner, namely globalization and technology. Law firms today must compete across borders for business while technologies, such as Internet search engines and online law libraries, call into question the need for legal associates and researchers poring over hard-cover law books and documents.

Once upon a time White-Out was a major innovation and a staple of the legal profession. But today it's going to take more than White-Out to "Wipe Out" competition.

Back office business practices have to change. And though law firms have been slow to change, I think we’re going to see even more innovations in the future. Like outsourcing.

As a result, many law firms are adopting new business models and doing what once seemed almost unthinkable in the industry: cutting hourly rates, bidding for corporate work against rival firms, capping prices, and keeping a sharp focus on the corporate client’s bottom line. In turn, the firms are cutting their own costs in a drive to become more efficient, using fewer attorneys on cases, and moving back-office operations to lower cost,more efficient processes like outsourcing.

I launched FSO with a vision, a dream of changing the outsourcing business in a way that was never done before. At FSO we are driving change and ushering law firms into the 21st Century and beyond. In a sense we are "Whiting Out" the past and delivering the future.

If you’d like to explore how FSO can bring your firm into the digital age, contact me personally at 212-204-1193.

With gratitude to Wikipedia and the Boston Globe for their insights that contributed to this post, and most of all to you for listening.

Have a fabulous, sunny, productive day filled with love and inspiration.  

Hugs all around.

 

Mitchell D. Weiner
Chief Happiness Officer

ABOUT FSO:

• The fastest growing and most successful national onsite outsourcing in the U.S. focused on 1) improving services, 2) reducing costs, and 3) giving employees  an opportunity to grow.
• We outsource functions like: Mail, Copy, Reception, Switchboard, Office Services, Records, Messenger, IT, Concierge, Front & Back Office and much more.
• 1600+ employees, operating in 60+ cities, 225+ operational sites, 98% employee retention & 100% client retention.
• Ranked #24 in Crain’s magazine’s fast 50 and listed to the Inc 5000 list two years in a row.
• We (re)imagine the ways businesses are run.

VIDEO:

Brief "corporate portrait" video shows who we are and what we can do for you HERE

Throwback Thursday: Millennials May Need Their Parents For This One

Stan Krozel and his partner Kevin Ullery founded the business after the real estate downturn stopped their careers dead in its tracks. Instead of capitulating, they looked at reinventing themselves by making an old idea new again.

Good Morning Folks,

Today's photos have been supplied by retired Frager Creative copywriter Elizabeth Cutler who is the real-life inspiration for the character known as Elaine on Seinfeld. Yes she wrote the J. Peterman catalog and also wrote great advertising lines like BMW: The Ultimate Driving Machine and also Archer Management Services: We're Not Business As Usual.

Incredible. Some of these I had not thought about in years. What a trip back in time!!!

The Juke box, Toni hair products, Lepages glue (a k-12 essential), Sealtest ice cream, Crayola and Brunswick Gummed Reinforcements!. The mimeograph machine. The rotary dial phone where the "digits" were a name and digits like "Bigelow 2-3479 and you'd talk to a real live operator for long distance (which could be $39 for a 3 minute call) so some kept 3-minute sand timers by the phone to keep them on budget. 

And who could forget the librarian or the hand-written store receipts with carbon copy for the customer! Or the gas station attendant whop pumped your gas, checked your oil and washed your windows all for 40 cents a gallon while you bought a green coke bottle from the machine for a nickel.

I know I am losing Millennials on this. But for our ALA friends :).... Interesting that what is old is new again. Especially when you can combine hospitality, fun and a personal touch. This recent presentation on Shark Tank is case in point that there are other million dollar ideas on right here on this page... all you have to do is put your (re) IMAGINATION caps on.

Fun Time Express is a unique and memorable trackless train ride that is sure to delight the entire family.

The Shark Tank example: Trackless train-ride provider Fun Time Express on Friday night became the second Chicago-based company this season to come away with six-figure funding from ABC's "Shark Tank" television program. The idea was inspired by the guys seeing an old film where kids were kept busy on coin operated horses and merry-go-rounds when parents shopped at strip malls. Seeds planted in their heads as the above photos could plant in yours.

Fun Time Express received a $125,000 investment from "Shark Tank" investors Lori Grenier and Kevin O’Leary, who will receive a combined 20 percent equity in the company.

Stan Krozel, left, and his partner
Kevin Ullery founded the
business after the real estate
downturn stopped their careers
dead in its tracks. Instead of
capitulating, they looked at
reinventing themselves
by making an old idea new again.

Fun Time Express founders Stan Krozel and Kevin Ullery appeared on the program, taped in September, and asked for $125,000. Just when it seemed like the sharks were losing interest, O’Leary took note of Fun Time Express’ impressive margins — up to 30 percent on 2013’s revenues, which topped $300,000, according to Krozel.

“If we did absolutely nothing [different] next year, that’s $150,000 in net profit,” said Krozel, the majority owner. “That’s passive income.”

Yet O'Leary said he didn't see big enough money in the company. He declared himself out of the running as an investor, leaving Grenier as the only shark not to drop out.

Grenier, a Chicagoan, said she would put up half the asking price and asked O'Leary to put up the other half.

Krozel amended his deal to get O’Leary on board. Instead of a straight exchange for equity, Krozel offered to use 100 percent of profits to pay back the $125,000. The investors then would receive 10 percent equity each.

Fun Time Express operates eight trains in five malls across the U.S. On the show, Ullery said the trains could be used in other arenas, such as at private parties. O'Leary said he had ideas for tweaking the business to gain even better returns.

Be great and (re)IMAGINE!

Love Life!

Mitchell D. Weiner

Chief Happiness Officer  

ABOUT FSO:

• The fastest growing and most successful national onsite outsourcing in the U.S. focused on 1) improving services, 2) reducing costs, and 3) giving employees  an opportunity to grow.
• We outsource functions like: Mail, Copy, Reception, Switchboard, Office Services, Records, Messenger, IT, Concierge, Front & Back Office and much more.
• 1600+ employees, operating in 60+ cities, 225+ operational sites, 98% employee retention & 100% client retention.
• We (re)imagine the ways businesses are run.

ABOUT FSO CEO & FOUNDER – MITCH WEINER:

• Pioneer of the onsite outsourcing business model.
• 20+ years of industry experience.
•  Previous owner of Archer, which he sold to Canon.

VIDEO:
Brief "corporate portrait" video shows who we are and what we can do for you HERE

Throw Back Thursday: In 1961 This Invention Revolutionized Business Documents For Lawyers and Enterprises Everywhere

"By 1986, more than 13 million Selectric typewriters had been sold. For more than 25 years, the Selectric was the typewriter found on most office desks. Leaving today 25 years of paper records ripe for retention innovations."

Good Morning Folks,


It was known as The 'Selectric" typewriter. Members of the ALA remember it. It was revolutionary in its day having memory so you didn't have to retype or use carbon paper (covered here before). 

For me as a young salesperson, it meant not having to wait in line for weeks with 20 other sales folks for getting the basically same proposal template output one at a time. Believe it or not sometimes it took a month to get a proposal. You can only compare the frustration to that of getting a trial or hearing date and all the postponements due to emergencies that come up, absences, few backup employees trained on the technology.

We've come so far from then, yet with the pace of invention, the possibilities of technology and employment and economic models changing all around us, looking back ten years from now on today, one can not phantom what business will become. 

That's why FSO is always looking out to your future. So as I bring you this snippet of history from IBM's 100 Centennial and historical record, our (re)IMAGINE teams are hard at work conceiving of business plans will make a positive and powerful impact on our clients' bottom lines, as well as their employees' careers and lives.

By making the golf ball interchangeable, the Selectric enabled different fonts,
including italics, scientific notation and other languages, to be swapped in

==> Black and white of the Selectric typewriter

.

The Selectric typewriter, launched in 1961, was an overnight hit. “Sales of [the Selectric] in the first 30 days exceeded the forecast for six months. We figured in our branch office that we’d sell 50 or 60 and sold 500 to 600,” IBM salesman John Vinlove told USA Today in 1986 for a story about the typewriter’s 25th anniversary. 




The manufacturing facility expected to make 20,000 Selectric typewriters in its first year. By the end of 1961, they had orders for 80,000. And by 1986, more than 13 million Selectric typewriters had been sold. For more than 25 years, the Selectric was the typewriter found on most office desks.

With 2800 parts, many designed from scratch, the Selectric was a radical departure even for IBM, which had been in the typewriter business since the 1930s and was already a market leader. It took seven years to work out the manufacturing and design challenges before the first Selectric was ready for sale.

At the physical heart of the Selectric typewriter’s innovation was a golf-ball-shaped type head that replaced the conventional typewriter’s basket of type bars. The design eliminated the bane of rapid typing: jammed type bars. And with no bars to jam, typists’ speed and productivity soared.

The golf ball typing element was designed by an engineering team led by Horace “Bud” Beattie. The team members, according to a 1961 advertisement for the Selectric, “began their search by forgetting the past fifty years of typewriter design.” The first type head design had been shaped more like a mushroom, but under Beattie’s direction, IBM engineer John Hickerson revised the type head toward its ultimate spherical configuration.

One other innovation in the design—a changeable typeface—was borrowed from a turn-of-the-century model, the Blickensderfer typewriter. Although it is not documented, it is believed that the Selectric name was inspired by adding this changeable typeface selection to an electric typewriter. By making the golf ball interchangeable, the Selectric enabled different fonts, including italics, scientific notation and other languages, to be swapped in. With the addition in 1964 of a magnetic tape system for storing characters, the Magnetic Tape Selectric Typewriter (MT/ST) model became the first, albeit analog, word-processor device.

The aesthetic design of the Selectric was the responsibility of Eliot Noyes, an architect and industrial designer who served as consulting design director to IBM for 21 years. The elegant, curvaceous form he created followed the Selectric typewriter’s distinctive function: the golf ball, which moved across the page, eliminated the traditional carriage return. That enabled the Selectric to operate in a smaller footprint and opened up possibilities for a new profile. For the Selectric, Noyes drew on some of the sculptural qualities of Olivetti typewriters in Italy. The result was a patented, timeless shape, and a high-water mark for IBM’s industrial design and product innovation. “A writer’s machine if ever there was one,” noted Jane Smiley in Writers on Writing, Vol. II.

Less well-known is the Selectric typewriter’s role as one of the first computer terminals. While personal computers, notebook computers and word processing software may have relegated the paper-based typewriter to twentieth-century artifact, the Selectric was the basis for the keyboard input on the revolutionary IBM System/360. A modified version of the Selectric, dubbed the IBM 2741 Terminal, was adapted to plug into the System/360, and enabled a wider range of engineers and researchers to begin talking to and interacting with their computers.

Yet to IBM computer scientist Bob Bemer, the Selectric represented “one of the biggest professional failures of my life.” Bemer had pioneered the creation of the American Standard Code for Information Interchange, or ASCII, which still defines the alphabet for computers. When prototypes of the Selectric were already being manufactured at IBM’s typewriter plant in Lexington, Kentucky, Bemer reviewed the Selectric typewriter’s specifications. To him, the Selectric would make a natural computer keyboard. He argued that the type ball should be designed to carry 64 characters required for ASCII, rather than the typewriter standard 44. That would make it relatively easy to convert the Selectric for computer input. The response, as Bemer remembers it, was dismissive. As a result, the Selectric never spoke ASCII, instead employing a unique code based on the tilt and rotate commands to the golf ball. While Bemer viewed this as his failure, engineers continued to rig Selectric typewriters to function as the first generation of computer keyboards and input devices.

In 1971, the Selectric II was released, with sharper corners and squarer lines, as well as new features such as the ability to change “pitch” from 10 to 12 characters per inch and, starting in 1973, a ribbon to correct mistakes. The final model, the Selectric III, was sold in the 1980s with more advanced word processing capabilities and a 96-character printing element. But as personal computers and daisy-wheel printers began to dominate, the Selectric brand was retired in 1986.

For those who remember IBM Selectric typing and retyping and previously making "carbon copies" in law firms (and other enterprises too) , it's not a pleasant memory. So while we like to throw back on Thursday, think of it as one of the main reasons everyone is whistling while they work today.

The end of the Selectric ushered in decades of productivity and progress in law firms that their retirees could never have imagined.

On the other hand, with pressure on law firms to cut costs, an obvious starting point is in that expensive real estate you are using to store what may include "carbon copies" that you haven’t looked at in 50 years, nor ever will.

Over time — decades in many cases — the volume of retained records grows, as does the cost of storing them. But by (re)IMAGINING the records retention process, and with a thoughtful policy to change it, law firms (and other enterprises too) who have been pressured to cut costs can find help from professionals like FSO who will help you solve it. 

Have a GREAT Day. Love Life.

I'll be a seeing you soon.

Mitchell D. Weiner

Chief Happiness Officer  

==> Going Paperless 
We recently completed the largest and most successful document conversion in the New York area, migrating over 35 million pages to electronic format. Savings come not just from eliminating each $900 lateral file, but also from not buying or leasing Class A office space to store paper, and reducing the costs of utilities, equipment maintenance and consumables associated with paper copies.

Can your incumbent do this?