Paper Doll
Paper Doll Contemplates the Future of Paper: Art, Music and Medicine
Our periodical forays into the future of paper are usually part of the Paper Doll Organizing Carnivals, but I’ve got so many goodies lined up for next week (a time when Thanksgiving travel and preparations will already be dividing everyone’s attention) that it seemed better to focus on the future today, and shiny, happy organizing delights next time.
A MUSEUM FOR PAPER
Just a few days ago, the culture section of the UK newspaper The Guardian ran a thoughtful piece entitled, “Can Paper Survive the Digital Age?” (We should pause a moment pause to recognize the absurdity of a blog — a piece of digital real estate — referencing a newspaper’s digital site, opining on the dubious future of paper. Moving on now.)
The columnist Ian Sansom, author of Paper: An Elegy, is known for reflecting on the paradoxical qualities of paper. After all, it’s both durable (historically) and vulnerable (to the elements and to growing user disinterest). Sansom discusses the role of paper in art, from Matisse to Miro to the modern paper art of Gordon Matta Clark, then digresses into other artistic ventures, including Pixar film creations like A Bug’s Life and Ratatouille. Architecture and literature do not escape his gaze in the evaluation of the future of paper, either.
Various bloggers were uncomfortable with Sansom’s approach, particular his notion that to prove the ongoing relevance of paper, a national or international museum, on the pattern of The British Museum, should be created in homage to paper. Of course, there are already museums for paper, from the Robert C. Williams Paper Museum in Atlanta to Japan’s Paper Museum to the Paper Discovery Center in Appleton, Wisconsin.
The problem, of course, is that for many, museums stultify. They entomb. The bore. To ensure paper the respected role it deserves in international appreciation, something more lively than a standard museum would be needed. Perhaps something along the lines of the remarkable and interactive Newseum in Washington, DC, a living tribute to journalism (including daily newspapers), would be appropriate.
The irony, of course, is that museums grow and strengthen their reach by expanding from the confines of their physical locations via far-flung visitors’ digital explorations.
Finally, I was still captivated by Sansom’s statement that:
We consume more paper, pound for pound, than any other product, food included. We are paper omnivores. We devour it: any kind, from anywhere.
As a professional organizer who specializes in paper, this description prompts me to see the piles of papers that haunt my clients’ spaces in a new light. It’s as though they were culinary masterpieces and sad leftovers, meals in progress and barely-chewed bits hidden in crumpled napkins. It’s vivid, apt and a bit prone to causing indigestion.
PAPER AND MUSIC
Although I love organizing paper, I’m happy for every digital solution that improves upon paper standards. So, I was delighted to read that the Brussels Philharmonic orchestra will be going paperless. The orchestra is replacing traditional sheet music with 100 individual Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet computers loaded with NeoScores music software.
Functionally, musicians can note the music director’s or conductor’s instructions and changes, record personal notes and highlight pertinent information, save the notations and share them with other musicians. No more fine erasure crumbles or illegible scribblings. No more coffee-stained music sheets that curl at the edges or blow off the music stand.
For anyone who has ever been a musician (or loved one), you know that page-turning carries with it the potential for fumbles or catastrophes. But the Galaxy Note has a special concert mode that is likened to “flight mode” on cell phones. The feature allows musicians to program a setting which lets them securely swipe pages without accidentally skipping ahead in the musical piece.
Organizationally, this all means that the orchestra can reduce storage space and costs. And, from a financial perspective, the change from sheet music to digital will save the orchestra close to €25,000, or $35,528.
Of course, I wouldn’t expect your nearest middle school orchestra to jump on the bandwagon. Samsung donated these one hundred Galaxy Notes to the Brussels Philharmonic, which is certainly good marketing for both of them. I imagine getting enough of these for all the seventh-grade tuba-players, violinists and flautists will require more than a few bake sales, so I’m fairly confident that sheet music will be around for a while.
MEDICAL ADVANCES…ON PAPER
In medical circles, the big issue these days is EMR, or electronic medical records. Last December, at the mHealth Summit, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius provided a clear-headed understanding for the need to bring medical practices into the 21st century. So now, doctors who have happily (or grumpily) scribbled notes on paper charts or even dictated their charting wisdom for the benefit of medical transcriptionists are coping with the learning curve required to modernize their electronic charting skills. As the The Washington Post wrote last week,
Technology has changed most industries in recent years, but many doctors’ offices still run as they have for decades, with receptionists requesting faxed paperwork and physicians leafing through thick manila folders with years of scrawled medical history stapled inside. Medical students may now be accessing textbooks on their iPads, but much of “health care has stubbornly held onto its cabinet and hanging files,” as Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius remarked at a conference last year.
Some physicians have jumped at the chance, installing computers in treatment rooms — the best of the touch-typists are able to maintain eye contact with patients as they cursor around the screens, selecting short-hand diagnostic codes and text-expanding pre-created phrases. Other medical practitioners have taken to using tablet computers to keep up with their charting, adding notations as they move from room to room.
However, as the New York Times reported last month, the very issues described in “The Ups and Downs of Electronic Medical Records” are making for a shaky transition. Some of it is surely whining — just as white-color executives in the late 1980s and 1990s bemoaned the loss of secretaries and the obligation to master word processing and spreadsheets on their own, I’m sure some doctors would rather focus more on healing and less on trying to figure out why they’re repeatedly directed to click F7 to resume what they were doing in the first place.
Beyond cranky resistance to change, learning curves take time, and doctors seem to have less and less time these day. And certainly there must be some concern from a medical perspective. Computers, and especially text-expanders, macros and short-cut codes save time, but human error via “fat fingers” are more likely to cause errors that are less likely to be caught than if a physician had to hand-write a long diagnostic explanation in Latin. And, of course, there are, as with anything digital, concerns about privacy.
All this said, Paper Doll has faith that the digitization of medical records will improve medical care and organization of medical information, and decrease health care costs…eventually. Until then, I’m pleased to see paper making new and unusual strides in the medical realm.
Just a few days, ago, David Hill at SingularityHub wrote about the use of an inexpensive, paper-based diagnostic test that can assess liver health in only 15 minutes from a single drop of blood. The test measures the presence of liver enzymes without requiring a lab or medical instruments.
It seems almost amazing that all that is needed is an ink-jet printer loaded with wax ink, which prints a specialized pattern on two sheets of paper. The reagents that react with liver enzymes are printed on one sheet; the other receives dyes that change color if a reaction occurs. Then, the two pieces of paper are heated and fused together, creating “channels” that work like mini test tubes in which the reactions occur. Finally, a plasma filter is added and everything is laminated together and cut into squares.
Once a blood drop is added, the color change can be viewed by the naked eye or scanned into a smart phone for improved accuracy and analysis. Liver damage or disease can be diagnosed or ruled out in a quarter of an hour!
Harvard Professor George Whitesides developed this system, and supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, created the non-profit Diagnostics for All to provide “low-cost, easy-to-use, point-of-care diagnostic devices designed specifically for the developing world.” Among Diagnostics for All’s innovations is a paper-based microfluidic diagnostics kit enabling screening for preeclampsia, anemia, and abnormal glucose levels for the detection of high-risk pregnancies.
These are just some of the many paper-based medical diagnostic advances. The approach started with an older format made from nitrocellulose, where an adhesive plasticky membrane has been used by all kinds of medical researchers to detect antibodies, proteins, and DNA — it’s the basis for store-bought pregnancy tests.
But tech blog Futurity.org explains that there’s a way to coat common paper, the same kind sold at office supply stores and probably sitting in your printer right now, so that while it’s smooth to the touch, it would actually be “sticky” to medically-related chemicals. Daniel Ratner, assistant professor of bioengineering at the University of Washington, developed the method for using an inexpensive industrial solvent, divinyl sulfone, to make paper adhere to “medically interesting molecules.” It’s expected that this new method might be able to inexpensively text for diabetes, influenza, malaria and other medical conditions and diseases.
And there are more breakthroughs in paper medicine. Earlier this year, chemical researchers at the University of Texas developed a 3-D paper sensor that can be printed on a standard office printer, folded, and used to test for things like malaria and HIV…for about ten cents per printout!
2012 Alex Wang
Unlike the pregnancy tests on nitrocellulose described above, these 3-D sensors — created from the simple origami-like folding of the papers — can test for a larger number of chemical substances over a smaller surface area and thus provide results for more complex kinds of medical tests.
While these paper advances would be used primarily in developing nations where hospitals and medical labs are few and far between, the implications are impressive and immeasurable. Without the need for the “clutter” of materials for expensive lab tests, diagnoses will be made more quickly, treatment plans clarified and more lives saved — something that would have been science fiction just a few years ago.
What a cool future for paper!
Organize Your Travel Documents
Last month, I traveled to the MARCPO conference and then enjoyed a vacation up the Eastern seaboard, traveling from Washington, DC to Providence, Rhode Island to Boston and Salem, Massachusetts. During that time, I took four airplanes, two airport shuttle vans, one car and multiple subway trains. In ten days, I stayed in four hotels in three cities. It may seem like a shocking confession for the 21st century, but I navigated them all without benefit of a smart phone or tablet.
Keeping track of travel information these days seems made for digitization. Nifty apps can replace piles of paper printouts. But should they? On the morning of my return flight, a flustered man stood in front of me in the security line, unable to show his boarding pass because he couldn’t get his cell phone to boot up. Power outages, cell phone tower outages, lost chargers, dead gadgets, limited or intermittent web access — they can all wreak havoc with your travel plans if you don’t have a paper alternative.
I strongly recommend the following basic steps for organizing your travel documents and information to minimize any potential catastrophes.
1) Gather and isolate documents as they arrive. As you make your travel arrangements, print out the confirmations, the bar-coded and QR-coded passes, and any other items you need. Collate them and tuck them away in your tickler file for the day your trip is set to start.
2) Use the belt-and-suspenders approach. Yes, you should print your documents, but there’s no reason not to keep electronic copies, too. Convert each confirmation email or web page to PDF, then back it up in any of a variety of ways. Send it to your Kindle or other e-reader. Save it in a Dropbox or Evernote folder marked with the trip name. Email it to Gmail or another web-based account.
For a lower-tech option, snap photos of your documents with your phone or camera. If necessary, access data using the zoom function to get a close-up on whatever you need.
3) Arrange essential documents in the order in which you WILL need to access them.
- Airline tickets and boarding passes — Printing your boarding pass in advance of your flight allows you to bypass lines at check-in and ticketing kiosks. At larger airports, just give your checked luggage (if you have any) to the Skycap, and you’ll be on your way. Even at airports where you need to check your luggage inside the airport, having your tickets and boarding pass available in advance will expedite the process.
- Special air travel documents — If you are recently married and your honeymoon arrangements were made in your new name, but your photo ID lists your maiden name, having a copy of your marriage certificate with you will help things along, especially if you’re traveling internationally. If you’re divorced (or married, traveling without your spouse) and are traveling with your child, or if you are traveling with a child who is not your own (such as a grandchild or your child’s playmate), you will need a notarized Minor Consent Form from a custodial parent.
- Redress number — This is a code granted to certain passengers whose names have been added to the No-Fly list in error. Providing your accurate redress number should eliminate travel difficulties.
- Train reservation tickets/confirmations
- Cruise tickets/confirmation
- Auto rental reservations/confirmations
- Ground transportation (shuttle/car service) reservations/confirmations
- Printed directions or maps if you’re driving yourself
- Subway/commuter train maps and directions
- Hotel reservations/confirmations
- Writing pad for itinerary changes, directions, messages, etc.
Some travel items should be kept separate from your basic travel documents:
- Airport parking ticket — When you arrive at the airport and take your ticket, tuck it into a safe place in your wallet, away from your cash and other items you’ll be rifling through during your trip. (Snap a photo of your parking level/area to find your car easily upon your return.)
- Passport and Visas — These legal documents need to be kept even more securely than the itemized information above. Rather than keeping your passport and visas with your travel information, maintain them on your person with an RFID-blocking, wearable passport wallet.
4) Arrange non-essential documents in the order in which you MAY need to access them.
- Itinerary
- Airline and frequent traveler loyalty contact numbers
- Travel aggregator (e.g., Travelocity, Orbitz) or travel agency numbers
- Credit card company concierge numbers
- Printout of alternative flight options
- Emergency contact numbers at home and at your destination
- Groupons, Living Social, Restaurant.com and other discounts/coupons for dining at your destination(s)
- Envelope for collecting receipts, especially for items that will need to be expensed/reimbursed, checked against a bank or credit card statement, or needed for tax purposes.
5) Contain documents in a translucent document organizer.
Certainly, you could maintain your travel documents in traditional file folders or kraft envelopes. They aren’t optimal, however, because you have to open them to see anything, even the very next item you’ll need, and each opening of the file or envelope risks loss and items fluttering to the ground.
The trick with a see-through travel document organizer is to have the items you know you’ll need in “front,” with the items you may need, located at the “back.” Place the stacks of the two types of items back-to-back. Then, just flip over the whole document organizer, and your itinerary will be easy to read without removing it from the organizer, while items behind the itinerary can be easily accessed should they become necessary.
In the twelve minutes between when I confirmed that my flight to DC was on time and the moment I’d entered the airport, soaking wet, after parking in the last available airport parking spot, my flight had been canceled due to mechanical difficulties. The rumor among the equally-soaked passengers was that we’d be boarded onto a bus to take us to a nearby city’s airport. That option would certainly have caused me to miss my connection.
Flipping my translucent document organizer over, I perused the items in the back. Behind my itinerary, the next two sheets provided what I wanted — Delta Skymiles’ direct number and Travelocity’s schedule of other flights to my destination. In what almost seems miraculous in this age of grumpy traveling, well before I’d reached the head of the line, I’d been rebooked for a flight that got me to my connecting airport only 40 minutes later than originally planned, tidily making my connection. Meanwhile, people who had been ahead of me in line, frantically shuffling and dropping papers, were delayed up to eight hours.
So, Paper Doll is a big proponent of using translucent poly envelopes or pockets to corral travel documents. Some excellent options include:
Smead Poly Wallets are highly durable, four-sided, reinforced wallets which repel moisture, resist tears and hold up to 200 letter-sized sheets.
They come in blue, green and purple, are highly visible and are unlikely to blend in with your surroundings and be left behind. The poly wallets can expand up to 2 1/4″, and feature sewn fabric trim, heavy-duty black cloth gussets, a protective cover flap and an elastic cord for securing the corners. In addition, the wallets have two clear pockets on the front for positioning business cards or keeping emergency information easily accessible. You can clearly read the documents within.
Pendaflex’s Oxford Storage Envelope Plastic Tab Dividers offer a simple but elegant alternative. Coming in packs of three colored envelopes (red, blue and yellow), each with one of three tab positions, these pockets have a fold-over flap with a Velcro dot closure, securing the contents on all four sides. The plastic flap can be closed or tucked inside the envelope to keep it out of the way when you’re flipping through your travel documents.
On the left side (if one holds the envelope vertically), the Storage Envelope Tab Dividers have a three-hole-punched poly extension. Each pocket holds about 50 sheets of letter-sized paper. Use just one pocket for a shorter trip; for a longer one, label the tabs and use individual pockets for each day or leg of your travels. Again, you can read the “top” contents (on either side) right through the Storage Envelope Tab Dividers.
Smead Travel Organizers are made of a clear, acid-free archival polypropylene and have three clear plastic tabbed sheets.
There’s a stiff plastic backing and a Velcro-closure plastic envelope (about the size of a standard #10 envelope) attached to the front divider. The pocket is designed to hold boarding passes and receipts, while itineraries, notes, flat maps and confirmation numbers can be easily slotted in the tabbed pages. To see how it might be customized for your travel needs, take a peek at how Janine Adams of Peace of Mind Organizing personalized her Smead Travel Organizer.
6) Upgrade for extended travels. If you’re going to be traveling for weeks at a time and headed to multiple venues, you might want to consider a three-ring binder and upgrade from standard plastic sheet protectors by using the above-mentioned Oxford Storage Envelope Plastic Tab Dividers.
Or, for creating more categories, look at the Oxford Full-Pocket Plastic Tab Dividers.
These come in packs of five colored pockets (red, orange, yellow, green and blue), each with one of five tabbed positions. The front is clear, while the back of the pocket is translucent colored poly. The pockets are closed along the bottom and left (hole-punched) sides, while the top and right (tabbed) sides are open. A poly corner lock positioned at the juncture of the two open edges keeps documents in place (provided you remember to tuck the corners of your documents underneath it).
Unlike the Storage Envelope Plastic Tab Dividers, the Full-Pocket Plastic Tab Dividers hold only about 20 sheets of letter-sized paper. However, they do feel a bit sturdier than the Storage Envelopes.
Since both styles are already three-hole punched and tabbed, drop them in your binder and color-code for cities/states/countries or use multiple packs, coding red as airlines or blue as hotels at each destination.
Another alternative is the Oxford Pocket Storage Folder with 4 Sliding Pockets. When closed, it appears similar to the Storage Envelopes above, albeit with a larger flap and made of stiffer, more durable poly.
The Oxford Storage Pocket Folder’s divided pockets are clear, while the backing and flap are opaque blue poly. When opened, the four connecting pockets slide apart, vertically as well as in terms of depth, to enable you to view bits of each section simultaneously.
7) Have a human backup. Make sure an always-reachable assistant, BFF or spouse has paper or digital copies of your essential travel information. I always send copies of my trip info to Paper Mommy and to a tech-savvy hero/friend (who blushes if named publicly). So far, so good.
Happy travels!
Feeling Haunted? Be A Paper Doll For Halloween!
Paper Doll isn’t much of a fan of scary things. While I respect Stephen King’s talents, I won’t read his books. Joey from Friends hid The Shining (and later, due to Beth’s death scene, Little Women), in the freezer. Rather than hiding books, I’ve hidden myself, and have been known to hide in the closet when things get too scary, like during the recent premiere of 666 Park Avenue. (Hey, at least the closet is organized enough to make space for me during such tribulations.)
I prefer Halloween costumes to be delightful or punny, rather than terrifying. As a child, my go-to Trick-or-Treat costume was a gypsy fortune teller, though that owes at least as much to Paper Mommy‘s lack of sewing skills as to my fear of gore. (One gold lam top, a full, vibrant skirt and a painted face of exotic makeup, plus one faux-crystal ball, all go a long way towards maintaining peaceful mother-daughter relations without keeping a mommy up until all hours.) Costume creativity was not our strong suit; had our sheets been white rather than pastels, I might have been Casper for a dozen years running.
Even if professional organizers had been widely known in the early 1970s, I doubt Paper Mommy and I would have been able to conceptualize a costume. While everyone knows that superheroes (like Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman) hide their secret identities behind milquetoast, garden-variety guises (Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Diana Prince), we organizing superheroes always look just like everyone else (if a bit more disheveled after climbing around under desks and in the depths of closets).
Even now, the idea flummoxes me. If tiny Trick-or-Treaters came to your door with tickler files in one hand and label makers in the other, would they get fun-sized chocolate candy bars or, like Charlie Brown, coal-like lumps of rock?
Forget Halloween costumes for a moment — paper can be scary all on its own. Piles of unopened mail, haunting us three days after we return from vacation, can terrify the best of us. Bulging files (and filing cabinets) that haven’t been purged in years take on a mustiness as frightening as Miss Havisham’s wedding banquet. And missing VIPs, passports and financial documents — ghosts, basically — might send you screaming into the night!
Who needs the frights of Halloween?
Thus, I hope readers will indulge me today in going slightly far afield by making this Halloween not quite so scary. Rather than paper organizing tips, per se, let’s look at ways your little ones might (inexpensively) emulate a superhero that’s near and dear to my heart.
I submit for your adoration this DIY paper doll costume from the smart people at Spoonful, courtesy of Disney’s FamilyFun.com.
2012 Disney FamilyFun Magazine, Photograph by Ed Judice
I’m also impressed with blogger Sadie of SlapDashMom’s charming $1 DIY Halloween Costume Tutorial: Paper Doll, which helps parents create paper doll costumes based on their children’s favorite outfits.
By the way, SlapDashMom proved to be a treasure trove a resources, including a recommendation for Everyday Sugar’s design for a Paper Mommy-approved take on Robert Munsch’s modern classic, the children’s book Paper Bag Princess. The last-minute costume idea requires about the same (non-existent) skill set as my MARCPO conference flapper design from last week, but with eminently improved results.
2008 Everyday Sugar
And for not-too-scary paper monsters, check out the amazingly creative parenting site Wee Society’s Weeblog how-to’s for creating “Wee Alphas,” a Fantastically (but not too) Frightening Fox, a Jovial Jack O’lion, a Haunting, Hoo-hoo’ing Owl, and my favorite, the Ghoulish & Giggly Gorilla.
Seriously, how scary AREN’T these? 
Not only do you just need paper bags, construction paper, glue and scissors, but the costumes are inexpensive, easy to make and simple to tuck away in a pre-schooler’s knapsack. These paper-bag based costumes are so simple and well-explained, even Paper Doll could make them, which is saying quite a lot!
CoolestHomemadeCostumes.com knows that sometimes costumes are a family affair and shared this adorable user-submitted mommy/baby paper doll costume set.
The instructions are a twinge vague, but you have to give Diane from Texas credit for using old-timey wallpaper to create the image.
2011 Diane from Texas
And finally, for those of us who aren’t so adept at following craft instructions from simple illustrations, this step-by-step video from Better TV.com hits the spot.
So, if work or life or bad weather got in the way, and you weren’t so organized with your plans this year, you may be finding yourself searching, in vain, for an inexpensive, last-minute costume. If you’re child’s panicked howls could wake the dead, see if your kid is willing to play Paper Doll*.
*Label maker not included.
Paper Doll Recaps MARCPO: A Capital Idea
(Andrea Hancock, NAPO-WDC Treasurer and Cris Sgrott-Wheedleton, MARCPO Committee Chair)
Every once in a while, I need to amble away from Paper Doll HQ to mingle with colleagues and find out the latest and greatest in the professional organizing field. Loyal readers are familiar with my recaps of annual National Association of Professional Organizer conferences and expos.
However, last week, I had the pleasure of representing the Board of Certification for Professional Organizers at a new conference. (Well, new to Paper Doll!)
The 14th annual Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference for Professional Organizers, fondly known as MARCPO, was held in Bethesda, Maryland, just a stone’s throw from our nation’s capital. I’d always wanted to attend, so representing the BCPO at the MARCPO Expo and answering questions from novice and veteran organizers about the certification program allowed me to mix business (gaining organizing education) with pleasure (socializing and dining) with more business (sharing the gospel of BCPO).
(Cris Sgrott-Wheedleton, delivering opening remarks, with NAPO-WDC Chapter President Janet Schiesl)
EDUCATION
The educational portion of the MARCPO conference started with a “mega-session” presented by psychologist and author Ari Tuckman, PsyD, MBA. Dr. Tuckman’s “The Psychology of ADHD: Organizing Around a Lifetime of Disorganization” presented some fascinating insights regarding psychological implications of (and solutions for) the neurological condition of ADHD.
I particularly enjoyed how Dr. Tuckman discussed avoidance of challenging or discomforting situations. He noted that uncomfortable feelings are inevitable; the question is, how much power will we give them? He reminded us that “comfort comes after trying something, not before.” In other words, we must be prepared to recognize that action precedes motivation!
Throughout the day, attendees chose one of two concurrent educational sessions in each of three blocks. For me, the highlight of the day was Heather Ahern‘s “Advanced Planning for Your Virtual Afterlife,” from which I hope to share highlights when we discuss the topic in greater depth a few weeks from now. From banking information to Facebook accounts to email and photos, so many of our assets and so much of our personal lives are tied to “the cloud.” But what about when we, ourselves, move to the clouds?
While tangible possessions can be willed to our beneficiaries, most of us give little thought to what might happen with our iTunes or flickr accounts, our blogs and LinkedIn profiles, once we’ve ambled off to that Wi-Fi-enabled Starbucks in the Great Beyond. Heather relayed concepts related to defining digital assets, creating a digital estate plan and even identifying a digital executor.
A substantial portion of the professional organizing experience involves going beyond the tangible to delve into issues of overwhelm and motivation. Susan Samakow presented an enlightening workshop, “Managing Overwhelm: 6 Strategies Your Clients Can Use After You’re Gone” and spoke about identifying strategies to boost confidence, get “unstuck” and move forward towards achieving goals.
Although it wasn’t about organizing, per se, I was intrigued by Sheree Lawlor‘s presentation on “Succession Planning: Do You Know Your Exit Strategy?” Paper Doll hopes to keep Best Results Organizing running in perpetuity, but it was instructive to identify the elements of succession planning, review intangible assets (like business social media accounts and customer community lists) and understand how management culture can impact ownership transition.
In addition to the three sessions I attended throughout the day, other tempting educational options included Jeanne Rossom‘s session on creating a road map for “Getting Better Customers” and Deborah Gallant‘s “What An Organizer Needs to Know to Be Successful in E-Commerce.”
If Heather Ahern’s focus on the virtual afterlife struck a chord in attendees because we all, professional organizer or disorganized soul, must someday shuffle off this mortal coil, Ketura Persellin‘s wardrobe workshop, “Organizing a Clothes Closet? First Unlock Your Client’s Personal Style,” drew attendees who were surely intrigued by more than the idea of helping their clients. We may all pass on, but first, we all hope to look fabulous!
Stephen Kissell‘s closing keynote, “Surviving Life with Laughter,” kept a room full of professional organizers laughing, occasionally groaning, and running in circles. It’s hard to explain how, or why, we ended up costuming our team leaders in newspaper, but Paper Doll must hang a head in shame. My paper 1920’s flapper dress design was soundly thrashed by Abraham Lincoln and the Statue of Liberty.
We were certainly reminded of how humor is an essential element in a professional organizer’s tool kit!
EXPO
In addition to my own table as representative of the BCPO, the MARCPO Expo was populated by a wide variety of local, regional and national exhibitors who provide products and services that augment the organizing experience.
AudioVideoData.com, in business 62 years, is a Washington, DC-based source for multimedia production services. They specialize in restoration and conversion of film, videotape, audiotape and vinyl records to CDs, DVDs and web-based applications.
Partner Estate Sales‘ booth displayed a dollhouse full of treasures (or teeny-tiny clutter, depending on one’s perspective), drawing the charmed attention of each attendee. From total liquidation of households to downsizing assistance, they help with everything from auctions and estate sales to appraisals.
ShelfGenie, a beloved NAPO associate member, custom-designs, builds and installs Glide-Out™ shelving solutions for all types of home cabinetry.
Yuck Old Paint certainly had the quirkiest business name. This eco-friendly company is the first in the Washington, DC area to offer a green service for picking up and removing old cans of paint from commercial spaces, corporate properties and private residences. They’re branching out, so watch for them in your neck of the woods (so you can clear space in your garage or basement and conveniently get rid of those toxic and messy paints).
Creative Home Decor Services‘ Joe Minor and Sally Reinholt deserve a special shout-out from Paper Doll. Without Joe and Sally (and their amazing supply of super-sticky Gorilla Tape), I’d have been lost, unable to figure out how to hang grommeted banners safely in a hotel conference room. Creative Home Decor Services offers everything to make homes aesthetically-pleasing, from decorative paint finishes to installation of ceiling fans, light fixtures and closets, from handyman services to even color consultations. They also displayed some exemplary, stunning photographs from their partner company, Eye 2 Eye Photography.
Clearly Noted rocks! Paper Doll admits bias, as my colleague Jill Yesko owns and founded the company, which creates lovely greeting cards to inspire, encourage, motivate and congratulate people on their organizing efforts. (This one, of course, is my favorite!)
(Jill Yesko, founder of Clearly Noted (and likely inspiration for Disney-Pixar’s Brave), is seen here modeling a luscious Office Candy Jamie Raquel file tote.)
Clear Gear is new, but as an organizational tool that can provide portable, transparent storage while collecting and categorizing everything from toiletries to doll clothes to electronic paraphernalia, it has a bright future ahead of it. These sturdy, heavy-duty bags have nifty little “feet” to keep them in place, and we all agreed we expect to see Clear Gear charming everyone at a full-sized NAPO Expo in future years.
Office Candy has been profiled on these pages before. The Office Candy Gals, owner Laurie Noelle Meek and #1 U.S. Consultant Cara Brook, were on hand to show off the darn-tootin’-est, cutest and prettiest office supplies out there. As a paper-lover, I had a difficult time choosing among the gorgeous file folders, the Jonathan Adler “Note To Moi” notepads, and the Knock Knock Sticky Notes. Office Candy. Yum.
SOCIAL NETWORKING (OLD SCHOOL)
No professional organizer gathering would be complete without noshing. In addition to munching on bagels at breakfast and standing in line for tiramisu after lunch, dining collaborations started early at Guapo’s the night before MARCPO (below) and continued on in the Doubletree Bethesda wine bar, long after the conference ended.
(Casual Mode: Andrea Hancock, NAPO-WDC Treasurer (with adventurous beverage) and Janet Schiesl, President)
(Speaker Susan Samakow and Office Candy Gal-Pal Cara Brooke)
(Cris, again, with Janice Rasmussen, MARCPO Speaker Coordinator)
A good (and educational) time was had by all!
Paper Doll Rolls the Highlight Reel: Removable Highlighter Tape
THE HIGHLIGHT REEL
Highlighters, of course, aren’t exactly new, though they’re more modern than you may have guessed. It’s hard to imagine that prior to the mid-’60s, students lacked the ability to accent text without obscuring it (and annoy nearby students with the squeaking of the lines being drawn).
Introduced in 1963 by Carter’s Ink Company under the name Hi-Liter, the original and its descendants were generally felt-tipped pens, cut on the bias, and filled with water-based translucent ink. In the 1970s, office supply experts Avery Dennison bought out Carter, and added fluorescence. Although the most popular color has always been yellow, highlighters often come in pink, orange, green, purple and blue.
In the 1980s, the squeak was minimized, more brands expanded into the highlighter arena, and cute highlighters in various shapes and sizes were introduced to draw the attention of office supply fans and elementary school artistes. In the last decade, 3M came out with Post-it Flag Highlighters, combining two popular methods for accenting text, and highlighter barrels have been narrowed and grips improved to increase the comfort level of users.
Nonetheless, highlighters hadn’t really changed in a material way in quite some time, and until recently, when I reviewed the Sharpie Gel Highlighter, there wasn’t much new to say. Nanette and I were discussing the mostly fabulous Sharpie Gel Highlighter and our relative experiences.
I assuaged Nanette’s concerns regarding longevity by accenting the not-quite-obvious fact that, as with a lipstick, the base can be turned to advance the gel stick forward. However, we both agreed on one remaining flaw of the Sharpie Gel Highlighter. The cap cannot be firmly stuck to the non-operational end with a satisfying “snap” to ensure the cap won’t be lost.
Still, I noted that it was nice that there was, at least, something new in the world of highlighters, when Nanette dropped the bomb on me. There’s such a thing as removable highlighter tape!
At first, I assumed she meant something akin to correction tape pens, those messy pen/tape combinations which try (but fail) to combine the functionality of Liquid Paper™ with the hands-off convenience of typewriter correction tape.
However, removable highlighter tape is more like traditional transparent Scotch™ tape — it’s translucent, with adhesive on one side, and comes in a roll or on a dispenser — but in fluorescent colors. The low-tack adhesive leaves behind no residue or marks, and you can write on the tape without defacing the item to which it’s affixed. Highlighter tape is available in a variety of widths, so you can highlight one or two lines of text or larger sections of visual focus.
THE MAJOR PLAYERS
There are only a few major players in the world of highlighter tape. Eco-friendly, Minnesota-based Lee Products, in business over 60 years, makes a variety of basic highlighter tapes for office and educational use,
as well as for hobbies and crafting, like Crafter’s Easy See Tape.
The most popular size is three-line tape, which measures 1/2″ wide, and most rolls are 393″ long. Other sizes include 1/3″ and 1/6″ widths. As with traditional adhesive tape, it’s not pre-cut, so you can use the dispenser blade to select the length you want. List price for Lee Products’ traditional highlighter tapes is $3.25/roll (though less via third-party vendors at Amazon). The Crafter’s Easy See tape runs $5.99/roll.
Wrights’ EZ Tape Go Round comes in 1/4″ and 1/2″ versions, with each roll measuring 3 yards long. It runs about $6-$7 for packages of six rolls. Prices vary from $6.50 to $13.
E.Z.C. Fluorescent Highlighter Tape from teacher supply company Really Good Stuff comes in 1/2″ rolls and six traditional colors. Multi-dispenser packs range from $6-$18.
Tempo Tape, from Enterprising Rabbit, measures 12mm wide (slightly less than 1/2″) on 7.5m rolls, and comes in three colors, Sunshine Yellow, Pink Grapefruit and Green Apple. It’s about $7.25 per 3-roll package.
USES FOR HIGHLIGHTER TAPE
Educational
1) Elementary and middle school teachers find myriad uses for highlighter tape. They can highlight vocabulary words, color code to identify different parts of speech, and teach the differences between word parts (like prefixes, suffixes and roots). The bright colors increase interest and improve focus. Similarly, highlighter tape can help in the study of foreign languages, math, geography and all manner of coursework.
2) Novice readers and writers can use highlighting tape to help identify words that present obstacles. Later, they can focus on reviewing the flagged areas with parents, teachers and tutors. Young students can also use the tape to practice tracing over letters and words.
3) Students with learning challenges like dyslexia and Irlen’s (or Scotopic Sensitivity) Syndrome can use highlighter tape to create “tracker” cards and focus on specific lines without distraction. By affixing some highlighter tape to the top of an index card so that most of the highlighting portion extends beyond the card (one layer on each side, so that adhesive sides face one another), the highlighting tape can be used to “track” the sentence currently being read. Creative and insightful blogger Tammy at Confessions of a Fourth Grade Teacher illustrates the use, below:
4) Music teachers, students and musicians can mark specific areas of sheet music to highlight difficult passages or note where careful attention must be paid. Music theory students can color-code particular periods (Baroque, Classical, Romantic, etc.) to improve recall of the eras of musical pieces.
5) College students can use the removable highlighter tape in rented textbooks and in any books which they hope to sell back after the conclusion of the semester.
6) Bible students often find that traditional highlighter pens can bleed through the tissue-thin paper of some Bibles and religious-themed works. Removable highlighter tape can be more suitable for marking words or passages on delicate paper.
Crafting
No matter how creative an endeavor is, it usually requires some degree of measurement and the ability to follow a design or pattern.
7) Tailors, seamstresses and sewing hobbyists, as well as
8) Knitters can highlight sections of patterns and color-code instructions to guide themselves through intricate steps and changes in stitch types.
9) Needlecrafters can use highlighter tape to keep their places in needlepoint and cross-stitch charts. Highlighter tape is an improvement over flags and sticky notes because the tape won’t obscure any elements from view.
10) Woodworkers can use the brightly-colored highlighter tape to mark areas to cut, screw or nail without marking the actual wood with a pen, pencil or chalk.
Work
11) Physicians, dentists, counselors and other medical professionals can use highlighter tape to spotlight allergies, emotional triggers and other vital concerns in a patient’s chart.
12) Attorneys, paralegals and legal secretaries might employ highlighter tape to focus attention on key words or phrases for discussion in court, during depositions and in negotiations.
13) Pilots and sailors may mark their navigational charts with highlighter tape to identify key directional changes and potential obstacles.
14) Overwhelmed workers can prioritize their duties by color-coding tasks and obligations with highlighter tape. (Similarly, parents can help children prioritize tasks on their chore charts.)
Life
15) Cooks must sometimes maneuver through complex or difficult culinary instructions. Highlighter tape provides a way to brightly accent sections of cookbooks with small or hard-to-read printing. Legacy cookbooks passed down through generations tend to have delicate pages, and highlighter tape offers a useful way to both augment and preserve them without scribbling across the blank sections.
16) Visitors with low vision and children who are still learning to read may have difficulty in unfamiliar environments. Accent a mailbox number or the right apartment buzzer with highlighter tape in your visitor’s favorite color.
17) Busy parents and professionals can employ highlighter tape in their paper planners to color code events and obligations; similarly, a color scheme can be used on full-sized family calendars to note activities involving specific family members.
18) Book club members might use highlighter tape to accent passages they intend to discuss at group meetings. Use highlighter tape in books borrowed from friends or the library so you can return them in pristine condition.
In what ways might you use highlighter tape? Please highlight your areas of expertise and share in the comments section, below.
Follow Me