The Society of American Florists' (SAF) Technology Committee updated the association's Technology Whitepaper during a recent meeting. For each new Whitepaper iteration, the Committee places technologies into three categories: the bus has left, the bus is here and the bus is coming. Just from the labels, you may get the idea but if you're unfamiliar with the categorization, I'll explain as we review each list. The Committee's Fall 2008 Whitepaper update can be found here. My original post about the thinking behind the development of the Whitepaper can be found here.

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The following article is reprinted from the October 17, 2008 Issue of Society of American Florists' (SAF) Floral Trend Tracker. SAF's Floral Trend Tracker is distributed to SAF members as an e-Newsletter and features in-depth perspectives about emerging trends in the floriculture industry.

Think back to 1998. What did your business look like? How did you send and receive orders, stay connected to customers, organize your staff and keep yourself on track? Chances are, you still used pen and paper for at least some of those tasks. Today? You're fully digital, integrated, online... right? Maybe not (yet), but one thing is clear: The creative, hands-on, tactile world of flowers has become increasingly high tech.

For this edition of Trend Tracker, SAF editors tracked down experts - from within the industry and beyond - to talk about what florists can expect to see coming down the technology pipeline, and how they can better prepare themselves for the cutting edge processes, systems and gadgets that soon will be commonplace in shops across the country. For florists struggling to bring in new customers and hold onto existing customers in a tough economy, the stakes are high.

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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.

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