The critical document that drives technology projects and content at the Society of American Florists (SAF) is the Technology Whitepaper developed by SAF's Technology Committee. I previously posted a blog about the Whitepaper prior to the last meeting this past September but wanted to follow that post detailing the thought process of updating it during the Committee's two meetings every year. Because the Committee is made up of members from the three segments of the floral industry - grower, wholesaler and retailer, the Whitepaper includes a wide variety of technology the Committee recommends these segments should be using in day-to-day operations and tech they may be using in the future.

Just to refresh everyone on the concept of the Whitepaper, it serves as a living document or up-to-date snapshot for floral industry businesses on where they should be with technology couched in the "on the bus" analogy. So, if "the bus has left," these are technologies that you should have already adapted or are most probably losing money or running your business inefficiently as a result. If you see a tech in the "bus is here" list, these are technologies, which are "ripe" for adoption because the price of implementation has lowered and you'd make immediate income and/or become highly efficient once implemented. "The bus is coming" list is tech the Committee views as experimental (for the floral industry, but not necessarily for other industries) which may cost you more time and money to implement to achieve unknown results.

Below is a side-by-side comparison of the old Whitepaper on the left developed during the meeting last Spring and the updated Whitepaper on the right which the Committee submitted this past September during its meeting at The Breakers in Palm, Beach, FL. My comments on the thought processes will be after the list.

You'll see I've added "MOVED FROM," "ADDED" and "REMOVED" tags on the updated list. When the Committee edits the Whitepaper, they would talk about each technology and discuss whether there have been any updates to its status based on adoption and successful implementation by floral businesses. New items in the bus has left and the bus is here sections result from technology the Committee may have not included previously such as laptop computing and digital photo editing software.

Much of the movement happens in the bus is here and the bus is coming categories. This time around, the following items were moved from the bus is coming: remote backup service; VoIP; and biometrics. The Committee believed there has been enough implementations with these specific technologies to no longer label it as a "future" tech. The Committee added a totally new tech not any bus list, Online reputation management, to address the growing requirement for floral businesses to monitor the blogosphere, chatrooms and feedback sites for references - good and bad - about their shops. Considering the Web is such a growing portion of floral business revenue, tagging online reputation management is a given.

The Committee also removed two technologies: Virtualization and Video game consoles. Although Virtualization is hot tech among most medium to larger business as a means of easing manageability, saving space and energy by consolidating servers in data centers, a majority of floral businesses usually have just one server, if at all. Also, the Committee believed Video game consoles should no longer be included since it's a consumer device with no business value.

The following technologies were added to the bus is coming list: micro blogging; social network widgets; solar voltaic panels; hybrid/biofuel delivery vehicles and wind power. Micro blogging and social network widgets were added after I showed the Committee how I embedded "widgets" - small applications on the Web server -  to allow my blog to automatically update my Twitter and Facebook status. They believed there was lots of marketing potential in employing this tech in member Web sites. Sustainability was also a huge topic at the SAF Convention so the Committee believes it should start monitoring "green" tech as well.

If you noticed the strange characters after each tech, the Committee decided to add another dimension to the list. For each tech, the Committee tagged with these characters: # for retailers, @ for wholesalers and % for growers, based on the actual adoption by each segment for each tech. So e-mail has full adoption because it's followed by #@% while blog has no characters showing little or no adoption by none of the segments.

SAF's Technology Committee members include:

Chair, Maris Angolia of Karin's Florist, Inc., in Vienna, VA
Ken Young of Phoenix Flower Shops in Scottsdale, AZ
Bob Aykens of Memorial Florists & Greenhouses, Inc., in Appleton, WI
John Higginson of FTD, Inc., in Downers Grove, IL
Scott Kitayama of Greenleaf Wholesale Florist in Brighton, CO
Chad Kremp of Kremp Florist in Willow Grove, PA
Jim Talarico of Teleflora in Oklahoma City, OK
Pete Vander Lugt of Aldershot of New Mexico, Inc., in Mesilla Park, NM

Just a reminder that this is only the list of tech for the Whitepaper and not the actual Whitepaper which includes definitions borrowed from Wikipedia. I'll be updating this document in the near future and posting it as an update to this blog post. Also, I'll be writing a quick article for ASAE & The Center publications regarding the Whitepaper idea. Please don't hesitate to call me if you have any questions! Or leave a comment if you wish to contribute your ideas regarding the Whitepaper concept to share.

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