PULSE Smartpen is an Ideal Capture Tool for Your Notes
Posted by Ron Harris on Wed, Feb 10, 2010
Does this happen to you?
Is it difficult for you to keep up with the person speaking and take notes at the same time? You are trying to listen carefully so you appear to be paying attention. You are trying to process what is being said so you can respond intelligently, or you are thinking about the next logical question to ask based on what is being said. And, at the same time, you are trying to write a note to remind yourself about a next action to find out information or check on something.
It happens to me all the time. I end up with notes that stop mid sentance. For example "be sure to notify" or "important to show how" and that's it. The key point in my note is missing because something else was said in the meeting or I was asked a question that caused me to stop writing my note and respond directly to what is being said.
I hate it when this happens.
I am quite sure that I have discovered the solution. I purchased a Pulse Smartpen and it has changed the way that I take notes for the better.
The Smartpen captures what you write as you write it. It also captures the audio from the meeting as you take notes. Let's say you ask the question "what problems are you having in the sales area?" and the person you are interviewing list 6 issues with some pretty good detail and examples of what's going on. You are able write down 4 key words, but you miss the last 2 issues. You don't get any of the details or examples. Don't worry, the Smartpen audio is working to capture all that information. After the interview, simply go back and review the audio and fill in your notes so you have a 100% complete understanding of the sales issues.
You use special paper to make your notes so that when you finish your meeting, while you are still in the field, you are able to open the notebook and click the pen tip on any part of the page and listen to the audio that was being recorded at that point during the meeting. Let's say that all you wrote down during the interview was the number 4, for item four of the issues. Click the pen point on the written number 4 and you will hear what was being said at that point.
There are controls on the page that let you jump forward or backward, increase or decrese the volume, speed up or slow down the playback. You just touch the pen point to one of the controls and the pen changes the playback accordingly. There is even a calculator printed on the inside cover of the notebook. Click the pen point on the calculator and see the result in the LED on the pen.
I have the 4 GB pen which gives up to 400 hours of audio. There is a 2 GB pen, also, if you don't want to keep as much audio on the pen. When you dock the pen the Smartpen desktop application opens up automatically and transfers what you wrote and the audio you captured with your notes. What this means is that everything you wrote on the notebook during your meeting is now digitially captured on your desktop application.
With your notes on your desktop, you can click your mouse pointer anywhere on the digital page and listen to what was being said at that moment during the interview. When your pen is full, you can archive the data off the pen and still have all the information on your computer.
One of the neat features of the desktop app is that you can search for content in your notes. I don't have the best handwriting, but I can enter a search phrase and it finds it in my notes. Wow. This is an awesome tool.
Let's say I call the person I interviewed to ask a follow up question to something they said in the interview. If I use the Smartpen to write on the page where my original notes were added, then my new comments are automatically added to the paper and digital notes.
If you don't want to take notes at all, just let the pen record the meeting and then, when you're back at the office, open your notebook and play the notes. Start taking notes in the notebook and these are linked to the page as if you had taken the notes during the meeting. Boy, I wish I had had this tool when I was in school.
The Smartpen is made by LiveScribe. You have to use notebooks and journals made by LiveScribe in order to have these capabilities. Two hardbound journals 5.5 x 8.25 100 sheets each are about $25. They also have spiral bound notebooks (like we had in school) that are 8.5 x 11. This is the only downside, but it's not significant. The paper is a special "dot" paper that the pen uses to know exactly where on the page you are writing.
I hope you find this information useful. I haven't found there to be any downside to using this system. I have a consultant in four days of meetings, designing a new system for a client. He is using a Smartpen to record each design session.
Questions? Visit Livescribe's Website for more information. I would love to hear from you about your experience with the Smartpen.
Ron