VisionJar | Passion for visual communication and presentation design

The PresentationZen Way – Video Lessons of Simple Presentation Design and Delivery, organized as a Japanese Bento box, by Garr Reynolds, aka @PresentationZen, arrived yesterday from Amazon. Garr Reynolds writes in the foreword of the beautiful sketchbook that is part of the box about working outside the office with pen and paper, in coffee shops, parks and on trains. Using pen and paper has a more natural connection to the right brain.

Oh how I miss riding the train regularly – there is something about the sounds and movement that makes thinking better and more clear.

The only thing missing for some great presentation planning today is a Japanese bullet train.

I’ve had a Livescribe pen for years and I love it. Not for the feel of the pen itself – it’s pretty heavy to and somewhat clumsy to hold – but for the functions it provide. I bring it with me when I’m attending seminars, doing interviews or for important meetings – meetings where I really want to remember every single word. I record the audio as I write my notes and later, back at my studio or a hotel room if I’m on the road, I can listen to the audio and add to my notes and complete them. Using my Livescribe has challenged me in the way I take notes – because as you record the audio and you don’t have to write things down in full sentences (and you can never write as fast as people speak) – you have to be more visual;  drawing visuals and writing only key words – so that I easily can go back to the notes and find specific passages afterwards if I want to hear exactly what was being said as I took the note.

I alternate between unlined notebooks for more visual notes and lined notebooks for more traditional. Livescribe just released an iPhone/iPad app allowing me to keep my “pencasts” with me on my phone. Not sure how useful that would be – I usually have my laptop with me where I have the Livescribe Desktop installed – but who doesn’t like another app. The pen is still a bit bulky (and I have the previous version, the Pulse and not the new one, the Echo – maybe it’s lighter?) and I prefer to take notes in pencil – but the functionality of the Livescribe for certain types of meetings is great – and after all – I’m a gadget girl. I only wish there were more choices for unlined notebooks – because lined paper really doesn’t make much sense when you’re recording both your actual notetaking and the audio – then you would rather be “free” from the limitations of lines. In sum, it’s a great little gadget in the gadget collection I keep in my laptop bag. 

Clive Thomson (twitter.com/pomeranian99) wrote an interesting article in New York Times on the use of the Livescribe pen in educational settings yesterday: The pen that never forgets.