The Document Work gets done through documents. When a negotiation draws to a close, a document is drawn up, an accord, a law, a contract, an agreement. When a new organization is established it is announced with a document. When research culminates, a document is created and published. Documents are information organized and presented for human understanding.
Documents are where information meets with people and their work.
By bringing technology to the process of producing and using documents one has the opportunity to achieve significant productivity enhancements. This point is important in view of the fact that the derivation of productivity increases and economic value from technological innovation in information technologies has proven difficult. In the past decade we have seen unsurpassed innovation in the area of information technology and in its deployment in the general office. By focusing on the work practices that surround the use of documents we bring technology to bear on the pressure points for efficiency. While the prototypical document of the present may be printed, the document is a technology with millennia of technological change behind it.