Livescribe even caught my wife’s attention, back when it was Fly

Posted under A Geek Dad's Life, Blog Posts, Software Design

A couple of years ago, my wife showed me an article about the Fly Pen, a pen that used the paper on which it was writing as its user interface.  Brilliant.  It used a special coordinate system provided by “micro-dotted” paper to help the pen know where it was on the paper.  Amazing technology from a team led by Jim Marggraff at LeapFrog (makers of the LeapPad).  The FLY Fusion Pentop Computer itself was very cool but never really caught fire as a kid’s toy.  The micro-dot coordinate system went on to be used in LeapFrog’s popular Tag Reading System book products.  (Admittedly, at the time, I thought the Fly pen was just a ruse to sell special paper.)

The idea is simple; cram the computer into the pen, make the pen the computer. Jim Marggraff left LeapFrog and started a new venture to push this idea forward.  His company released the Livescribe 2 GB Pulse Smartpen with some fanfare, and has recently released the more sleek and higher-capacity Livescribe 4 GB Echo Smartpen.  They look like all kinds of “wow.” 

According to the Livescribe folks, “Echo™ and Pulse™ smartpens are functionally the same.”  The older Pulse model uses a proprietary pen cradle for connecting and charging, while the new Echo provides a much more universal micro-USB port directly on the pen (read: no more freak-out if you forget the cradle at home).  You can see their official word on the other differences here.

I really want an Echo, though I’ve been down a similar road before.

I have terrible memory skills; truly atrocious memory skills.  If I don’t write it down, it will not likely be remembered.  I’ll doodle symbols and representations of concepts as mental placeholders to replay my meetings in my head, recounting the journeys to the hard-won conclusions.  Without preserving these epic tales on paper, the previous battles are lost and we are prone to retelling and reinventing the entire process at each meeting, burning my clients’ valuable time and money.  One of my responsibilities as a consultant is to be a good steward of their time and money.  As such, I send meeting recaps/summaries (usually along with my bill).  The more detailed and precise the recaps, the more forward progress we can make and the better I look in my clients’ eyes.

I have wound my way through countless note-taking techniques.  I refuse to type on a keyboard during a meeting because it is impersonal and rude.  Somehow, writing on a piece of paper conveys a collegiate respect while typing on a keyboard conveys a disconnection, as if you’re working on your thesis instead of listening to their wisdom.  Also when I’m talking to my clients on the phone, I don’t want them to hear me typing.  As such, my note-taking is almost always pen-based.  I have tried paper notebooks, note pads, and even pen-based tablet computers with MS OneNote, but they have always crushed me under their redundant effort; either I ended up with mountains of paper to transcribe (and the doodles need to be recreated in Visio), or I was forced to sync the tablet with my desktop and be tempted to use both the laptop and desktop (risking dreaded sync issues).  Also, the tablet computers just didn’t have the resolution, flexibility, reliability, or battery life of a pen and paper.  When you think about it, you just can’t beat the “pen and paper.”

So, the siren song of the Livescribe 4 GB Echo Smartpen is calling me once again to the shore of note-taking paradise.  It’s features are sexy; audio recording automatically linked to your drawn notes, text OCR, bookmarking, search, you can print your own special paper from your (compatible) laser printer, and the note management software looks ridiculously-great.  You owe it to yourself to watch the demo videos.

So, will the Livescribe 4 GB Echo Smartpen be my last stop in my journey for the perfect note taking workflow?  I can only hope.