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Monday, December 18, 2006

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The balance between a Tablet PC and Pen / Paper

- Rob Bushway

Rob150 Om Malik has a great post on breaking away from the computer with just a notebook, a pen, and his BlackBerry ( just in case ), and it got me thinking about the balance of Tablet PCs with the need to still take notes on paper.

As some might have already figured out, I’m really big on digital notetaking. I’ve been using Tablet PCs since they were introduced four years agp. I believe in the platform and totally rely on OneNote 2007 to take digital notes that I can go back and search. Being able to sign PDFs on the fly without the need of a printer and fax, navigating the computer with a pen, marking up text that I need to work on, generating mindmaps with my pen and ink – a person would be hard pressed to find any negatives about a Tablet PC. In fact, in my opinion and that of many others, utilizing a Tablet PC is almost all about positive productivity.

All of that said, there are many times I actually prefer paper-based notetaking over taking notes with my Tablet PC. For example, when I don’t want to be distracted with technology or don’t want to distract others with my technology, I’ll leave my Tablet PC behind. As much as I have tried using my Tablet PC in church, I have found that I actually enjoy worship more when I just use my regular Bible and paper-based notebook. In my spare time, I enjoy writing and find I do some of my best brainstorming when I sit down with a regular pen and paper-based notebook. Currently, I’m feeling overwhelmed with a lot of back-logged projects and find that I operate better when I remove as much technology as possible from my mind. There is value in not worrying about pressing Start, OneNote, New Page and flipping a screen around, or worry about vectoring issues when writing on a touch tablet. Many times, the value is in just getting what is in your mind out on paper and not worrying about how you are going to do it. Yes – technology, in my opinion, does create some barriers to actually working productively and getting a grasp on everything around you. On my desk right now is a Moleskin notebook with a list of everything I have to do this week. My P1610 Tablet PC is in my backpack, and it will likely stay there all week.

You will never hear from me that digital notetaking can and should take the place of paper-based notetaking. It hasn’t in my life and likely won’t. The value and balance of a Tablet PC solution is in making the technology work for you, when you need it and how you want to use it. The value it brings to the table is in offering a person more flexibility in how they choose to work given their needs, desires, and unique work styles. Having that flexibility doesn’t mean an all or nothing scenario in regards to paper-based notetaking. It means a person now has more choices to adapt their work style to their current needs, and that is definitely a good thing.

Rob Bushway | Editorials | Tablet PC

12/18/2006 11:21 AM MST

The balance between a Tablet PC and Pen / Paper Comments [7] | Digg This | del.icio.us | Citations

Monday, December 18, 2006 2:49:52 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

Interesting comments, Rob. I use my tablet PC 8-10 hours a day, in virtually every facet of my life, and more than once, while reading your excellent posts and watching your ink shows I've wondered: How do these guys install and use go many Beta apps and tools without compromising productivity, stability and sanity?

I've been fortunate enough to live through much of the change and growth in the tabletscape vicariously, through the Gottabemobile team's efforts. I even forced myself to hold off on installing OneNote 2007 until I was sure it was safe and wouldn't cause me any undue stress. Yeah, I anxiously watched you guy (and the community) blaze that particular trailuntil I was certain that installing Beta 2 wouldn't compromise my workflow or cause any stability problems.

So I'm wondering if the desire for a simpler note-taking experience is due in part to the fact that, as part of your job, you're always tweaking rather than settling into a groove? For me, OneNote has become -- dare I say it? -- as simple to use as pen and paper and so much more flexible.

All said and done, thanks for running your tablet PC through all the paces so I don't have too. I don't mean that sarcastically - I really am grateful(:

feralboy

Monday, December 18, 2006 4:24:57 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

I have been using OneNote2003 and now 2007 and have also used the GoBinder until they broke it and yet...
Rob you are so right... Paper and Pen give that fulfillment of simplicity that I also enjoy very much.
The paper and pen do not need batteries, and freedom form constantly thinking that I should not drop it, make it wet, loose it, break it, not back it up etc... is also a very welcome feeling.
Is there actually a pice of software that would allow me to scan my scribbles directly into OneNote2007?
I should post this question on the forum as well.

Montevale

Monday, December 18, 2006 4:45:57 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

This hits home for me. I ordered my first tablet pc and its taking forever to get (yes, the x60). I am nervous because I am just not sure I will like editing documents (primarily long contracts in word format) on the tablet compared to paper. Will it really be more productive for me? I can see increasing productivity if I can edit word documents easily and I don't have to send handwritten edits to my assistant. But if editing word documents on a tablet is more cumbersome or restrictive, then the x60 becomes just an expensive notebook computer because I really don't take many notes...

nervous ned

Monday, December 18, 2006 4:57:00 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

Living in beta and review mode definitely has its issues on productivity, but that really has no impact on the premise of my article. In my mind, I seperated out those issues.

nervous ned: it really depends on how you plan to edit / markup the documents: circling things, making handwritten notes, etc in the same document that you can then email back to your assistant is certainly more productive for you and your assistant than printing, marking up, and handing it off to her. If you are actually making corrections to the document, then I think using something like InkGestures for word - if you are in slate mode, or using your keyboard would be pretty productive. Bottomline, is that the tablet gives you choices on how you want to work, markup documents.

Rob

Monday, December 18, 2006 5:07:08 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

Rob,

I appreciate the quick response. My editing consists of a lot of deletions, moving parts of a sentence around, inserting of words and sentences and moving paragraphs around. I was under the incorrect assumption that you could do such edits directly on a word document (without other software). I checked out InkGestures and that seems to be relatively close to what I thought I could do. But now I am wondering if the keyboard will end up being more productive than using the slate mode with ink for type of editing I do.

nervous ned

Tuesday, December 19, 2006 4:50:26 AM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

One of the key problems with many technologists is that they get very enthusiastic and then have one-size-fits-all blinders on. Thanks for recognizing this isn't the case and telling us an alternate point of view.

Mark Payton

Tuesday, December 19, 2006 6:07:22 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

Good thought-provoking post, Rob. Seems to relate to a question on the forum regarding the level of adjustment a new user must make to acclimate to the Tablet PC form factor. Generally speaking, I believe in making the tool work for you, as well as using the right tool for the job. The Tablet PC is a great tool but not a do-all. I'm sure you were doing fine taking notes at church before you had a tablet. Certainly there is no reason to stop taking notes on paper if it works.

That said, OneNote on a small touchscreen tablet does not sound like a great note-taking tool to me. The small size should work well for someone who is always on the run (or should that be "OnTheRun"), but I wouldn't want to deal with vectoring and limited screen space. Likewise, OneNote is a very powerful and useful app, but that level of power and utility is overkill if you only need pen-and-paper functionality. For that, Windows Journal would be a better choice. Furthermore, I never worried about battery and screen swiveling when my slate Electrovaya Scribbler was still in its prime.

I guess my point (not that I originally had one) is that the discussion can be sliced out even further, not simply finding balance between tablet and paper, but also finding it between different forms of hardware and software. Ultimately it's all about finding the right balance of tools that works for you.

Sumocat

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