Digital Signatures – Grizzly Pear

When I joined the State, we processed physical paperwork.

Vendor mails Invoice to Accounting in Carson City
Accounting interdepartmental mails invoice to Public Works
Public Works admin mails invoice down to Las Vegas
Project Manager mails signed invoice up to Public Works in Carson City
Deputy Administrator mails signed invoice across the street to Accounting
Accounting mails check to Vendor.

Paper shuffled across our state 6 (SIX!) times to pay a simple invoice.

Fortunately, a Management Analyst joined the State the same day that I started. One of his goals was to implement digital signatures.

I eagerly volunteered.

Ten months later, we finally contracted with a vendor. It took another half year of brainstorming and pushing management before we were approved to process invoices on Adobe Sign.

(The vendor emails their invoice to the PM and it takes five minutes to send it out for approvals and payment.) — *The vendor emails their invoice to the PM. It takes five minutes to send it out for approvals and payment.*

A couple months later, COVID happened.

We were fortunate to have gotten past the fear of digital approvals before the pandemic hit. The calamity actually accelerated the adoption of digital signatures for rest of our documents.

*I also discovered that Adobe Sign can automate much of the process — a godsend for complicated agreements which consistently go to the same individuals.*

Being an evangelist for of this initiative has been my most tangible accomplishment within the State.

Sometimes it’s just lucky to be new at the right time!

Hopefully I’ll discover other awesome process improvements to share over my next two decades!

On net, this digital process is an absolute winner for the State and our partners. However, I must note that has resulted in a perverse dynamic where a PM spends more time processing paperwork than in the past. The cloud stole tasks from administrative assistants and put it on licensed engineers and architects.

The next step would be free up the licensed professionals to return their focus on their professional expertise. Cal Newport discusses this issue in his book “A World Without Email”, but the path forward is still murky.

PS: You can “add” email addresses in Google with a “+” (plus sign). If your gmail is “sample@gmail.com” then you can create a limitless sub-email addresses like “sample+vendor@gmail.com” and “sample+chief@gmail.com”… All those emails will just land in your main gmail inbox. It’s an invaluable hack to testing all sorts of digital systems.