In the summer of 1986, the fax machine was one of the hottest pieces of office technology you could buy.
Instead of waiting days for a document to arrive in the mail, businesses could send it across the country in minutes. If your office had a fax machine, you were ahead of the curve.
Imagine telling someone in 1986 that, one day, they'd probably never send another fax.
They would've laughed.
That's how change works. The tools that seem indispensable today eventually become the tools we wonder how we ever lived with.
Sometimes We Don't Replace Old Systems. We Just Patch Them.
Paper schedules are a perfect example.
Instead of replacing them, many businesses simply added another layer. The paper schedule gets photographed and sent through GroupMe, a group text, or Facebook Messenger. The process is still the same. We've just wrapped new technology around an old idea.
- ✓Photograph the paper schedule.
- ✓Send it through GroupMe, a group text, or Messenger.
- ✓Hope everyone saw the newest version.
It's a little like scanning a fax and emailing it. Sure, it works. But are we really making life easier?
There's a Better Way
At Cloxbi, we don't think paper schedules were a bad idea. They made perfect sense for a long time.
But today's teams need real-time updates, instant shift changes, and one place to find the latest schedule. No blurry photos. No endless group chats. No wondering if you're looking at the newest version.
The fax machine had its moment.
Paper schedules did too.