If you really think about it, document management really started in the stone age. Actually it was the first document ever but we have to consider all aspects of that document to understand where we are today and where we will be tomorrow. Your scratching your head now. Hang in there with me, it gets interesting.
This is the earliest example of document management. The documents were stored and conveyed ideas and information. They were shared by inviting other people over to see the document. The first drawings were about 40,000 years ago in Spain. Still surviving today. Do you think they planned for disasters? I guess the biggest downfall of this type of document management is that it is not movable from it’s storage location. My guess is that you can easily identify the limitations of these documents.
A very good example of the next step is Moses and the stones tablets. The first edition was destroyed by Moses. But there came another. Document came in a variety of forms, clay tablets, animal skins, bone carving, metals and then 2,000 years ago, paper. Of course paper became the predominate media for documents and continues to be so today. This is what I call the stone age of document management. Is your company in the stone age? I suspect if you read the rest of this article your company will not be for long.
Lets review some aspects of the first methods of document management.