The Future of the Document is the Future of Mail by DAM News Staff

In order to understand the future of mail, one needs to first understand the future of the document. The word “document” immediately congers up an image of a written, printed format. That image is too narrow in today’s multi-modalcommunications world that includes information that can be provided printed on paper but also in numerous forms on a computer display or in text-messages, or other format on a wireless smart phone.

At the recent Document forum, Craig Le Clair of Forrester Research illustrated that companies develop three types of documents:Structured documents – identical or nearly identical documents that are sent to a large number of recipients at the same time;

On-demand documents – documents that are created in a way that allow the recipient to receive the document on their own schedule; and

Interactive documents – documents that use personalized information to create a document designed for one person. A fourth type of document, calledTranspromo, represents an interaction between structured and interactive documents. These documents reflect the ability of new digital printers to develop personalized documents but print them as if they were a structured document. As such they neither fit the structured or interactive category but fall somewhat in between.