XPR!

I am working for a couple of months with my Livescribe Pulse pen. The cool moleskine like journal notebooks and the acceptable size of the pen, makes it something that is of practical use. The ability to record sound and playback the drawing session make it special. The potential to upload apps makes it very cool, but apps need to be present, which currently is not really the case.

The potential however is huge, especially when you are professionalizing your drawing skills. If you are confident in your drawing, a recording of a drawing with the Livescribe pen can easily be re-used to publish. Low-fi, but strong for giving insight and sharing knowledge.

A short howto:

1. Draw and record in the Livescribe journal (make sure to record sound, otherwise it will not be possible to playback the drawing session)
2. Upload the drawing to Livescribe Desktop and use a screen record tool or service (I used screenr.com) to make a screenrecord of the playback. Make sure not to record sound if you do not want to.
3. Convert the mp4 file to wmv or avi if needed (I used convertfiles.com)
4. Use a simple movie editing suite (I used MovieMaker) to speed up the playback (I did 4x) and to tweak the brightness to lose some grey lines. You could add some music as well.
5. Done. See me result below.

Any additional thoughts / applications? Would be great to automate the steps described above, but once you know how to do it, it is an easy and quick process.

Ok, we all go through some kind of learning curve before grasping the potential of Twitter. It’s like buying new pencils: after the excitement of the beauty of the pencils is gone, you still have to determine what to draw. The same goes for twitter, as tool in the new information age.

You start with saying “on my way to work”, “heavy traffic”, “coffee is cold”. Then you start asking questions “anyone knows a good restaurant here?”, “what phone should I buy?”. You find out that nobody is answering, because nobody is following. You read @guykawasaki’s powertips and start follow a bunch of (sometimes self declared) twitter guru’s. You become addicted, because a lot is happening, you retweet now and then and people start following you. You are in.

It becomes some sort of part of your normal information space.

But then, interesting things happen. You start conversations, meet other people via twitter, ask questions and get answers, cross link people. You become Social.

And?… You also find out that there is a downside.

From nature, I have a habit of wanting to help people. So if people in my timeline ask a question, I tend to give an answer. Sometimes I put effort in getting this answer to them, by searching info or thinking about it. What I see is that allmost nobody thanks me for it. Not that I am in desperate need of compliments, or something, but I just wonder if they get too much answers, do not read mine, find the answer wrong or just don’t think they should answer.

What is your experience?