Every year ColumbiaSoft, like so many corporations, is eager to extend a cheerful holiday “best wishes” to customers and friends. It’s a way of showing our gratitude and appreciation, and just staying in touch.
But being a developer of electronic document management software, it just doesn’t fit our style to send paper cards the old fashioned way via the post office. We made the jump from paper greetings to electronic holiday cards a number of years ago, and despite some initial apprehension, it’s now so natural that we’d never go back.
Sure, paper cards do still hold some advantage. There’s something to be said about tangible, physical things that can actually be held in hand. It seems more permanent. But the fact is, holiday cards are by-and-large fleeting moments in a day. While the message (hopefully) will be held in the head… most people file, route, or toss the paper card just moments after they read it.
I was reading somewhere that in the United Kingdom alone there are over 1 billion paper holiday cards mailed, and that one tree is needed for each 3,000 of the fleeting holiday thoughts. (That’s over 300,000 trees!). The numbers seem a bit high, and perhaps might be inflated. But regardless what the actual number is… I’m certain it’s staggering.
So… this year again we saved another couple of trees (not to mention several thousands of dollars in printing and mailing) by delivering our greetings electronically. Happy Holidays to you too!
