I have no idea how many cases of sketchbooks I have gone through in my life? To solve the clutter issue, I remember in the early 90’s when desktop computers become somewhat reasonably priced where I was using one computer to do voice recognition so I could talk into that and keep notes, another was for typing the ideas in (because the dragon voice software was a joke at that time) and then another computer that I could attach a digitizer to that would allow for drawing and 3d concept sketches. All to create some sort of a database of thoughts and ideas that one could access spatially.
It was faster and must less expensive to just get a new case of notebooks and pens. Also, it was mobile and would allow me to go brainstorm in coffee shops.
Today, I don’t go to coffee shops much, as they have changed from a place where one could go to watch and observe people interacting. I have no reason for “why?” but people were triggers to ideas that would fly out of my brain. One of the rules we had for idea generation was NOT to just go look for the linear progression of what was on the market, but go ask, “what would (name user) want?”
About 10 years ago, I heard a speaker at a SXSW interactive forum that spoke about how ideally this is the way to design, yet, most of the design firms end up just giving the client what they want, not necessarily what they ideally need for their business. On a personal I have been completely amazed at how some design decisions in the boardrooms are made. Aka – the CEO’s wifes nanny’s granddaughter liked it syndrome.
I have heard of Livescribe pens and their need to have special paper. I have never used one, as I simply felt they would behave much like when we were beta testing palm and other tablet devices. Good ideas that were too far ahead of their time. Like my test to talk, type and draw to create one set of documents that could be easily edited later in the day…it has been 20 years and while a few products are really good on the front end with mind mapping, sketching, and doing fast mockup, they still don’t work as fast as a pen and paper.
I passed the article about Moleskin and Livescribe combining to a few people that were engineer and consultant types. I was going to actually purchase one, but I have too many issues with things that don’t work as advertised, or have lag and delay that some people might think, “oh that is just how it is.” But after the world of multiple redundancies and real time operation and no second chances, I confess I am a bit spoiled with having to take time to play with the technology to simply allow me to work on the ideas I want to, not play system fixer.
Thus, I will post this and see if anyone who is an inventor, that DOES NOT WANT their digital notebooks sent up to the Livescribe cloud service for “free” (did they read yesterdays papers about the icloud server hacks with celebrities images?)
Why would an inventor want to put live notes up on the cloud?
So my moment of thrill, and if they want to send a pen to try, I am game, but I don’t really know if the speed, pace, look and feel of how I doodle the first drafts in my sketchbooks (it sort of is like a bomb going off all over) and if they can transfer this into the computer, I am happy to pay.
I don’t need moleskin tablets, while they are nice, I get them for my wife, and she is neat and organized. I could fill a bunch of them up with notes, scribbles and comments i wager only i could decipher. I tend to get inexpensive plain white paper notebooks. I just generate too many ideas, pictures and thoughts versus what I guess normal usage would be?
Here is the article; perhaps it is a useful tool for taking your ideas form sketch into the computer to manipulate in graphic, 3dmodeling or other art programs.
If you use one let me know how you like it? I don’t really goto coffee shops to brainstorm anymore- the world is really funny with everyone just staring at electronic gadgets while ignoring the people right in front of them - the people aren't as interesting anymore? Maybe that was the trigger? people were far more interesting to observe when they were simply enjoying meeting the people in the cafe and enjoying a coffee or reading the paper.
Now i have designed cafes with tables that only have one chair at each. It seems to be the trend with american coffee shops. either you have a clique of locals, complete transients, but it is getting rarer for people to simply go, meet a stranger and talk about anything and everything...just because it is fun.
I might be game for the Livescribe pen. If it actually works in real time as i sketch and write, it would be a welcome blessing after so many years of experimenting how to document brainstorm sessions into manageable data flow that a team could work on.
http://www.designcurial.com/news/moleskine-creates-notebooks-that-can-save-handwritten-notes-digitally-4356512/