The Paper(less) Chase... Here are concluding thoughts about the paper battle. As recent Dispatches (Full Disclosure: I Like Paper, May 6, and Paper Is Forever, May 20) have revealed, it's all about balance.

Barney Kinzer with Microsoft Real Estate & Facilities ("Your Workplace - Our Passion") writes: "I think the trends are pretty clear, and the only question is when will real estate reports/fliers be mostly electronic? Displays are becoming larger/lighter/cheaper/better with resolution. Wireless broadband is becoming more and more available. Disk storage capacity is ever increasing. Someday there will be significantly improved batteries (fuel cells?). If you had a device the size of a pad, or perhaps a paperback book that folded open, that was thin, light, durable with high resolution, good battery life, wireless broadband, affordable, and you were able to access most any print media (especially newspapers and magazines), why would you want paper?"

Glenn Murray with Realm Business Solutions writes: "Rather than spending countless dollars trying to displace paper altogether, the real estate industry needs to adopt a system that enables paper while eliminating the costs and delays traditionally associated with paper processes."

Andy Melzer with Grubb & Ellis | BRE Commercial in Carlsbad, CA, writes: "The 'impact' on the receiver of a piece of paper with a message and the recipient's name on the paper is substantially greater than receiving the same message electronically. Paper has to be touched and physically dealt with. ... The electronic message is not taken as seriously as a piece of paper."

Len Scaffidi writes about the "symbiotic" connection between the digital and print media: "A significant component to successful online communications (for both journalism and marketing endeavors) comes from giving the reader the ability to selectively print out all or part of the message. ... In 1989, one of the chief software designers at Apple told me, 'the paperless office will arrive at about the same time as the paperless bathroom.'"

--Peter Pike