I went to a startup conference yesterday and something that I saw going on made me feel…well…old. But it also got me thinking.
I don’t know about you, but I like to take notes at these sorts of things. I’ve always done it, even before my brain stopped remembering what is was I had wanted when I’d walked into the kitchen to get something. When you’re getting hit up with a lot of interesting stuff on various topics all at once, I find that notes read later after the heat of battle had subsided help with context and perspective.
So there I sat, pen in hand, paper on lap. I didn’t bring a laptop although, in retrospect, that should probably be my habit in the future since my handwriting gets so little use that it’s deteriorated. It’s now less legible than most physicians’. Maybe that’s because I do use my laptop for notes when I’m in the office.
On came the keynote speaker. Several folks in the crowd looked as I did – pen, paper, and open ears. Other had their laptops fired up. In general, they were younger and geekier than the pen/paper crowd. But then came the phone folks.
As I surveyed the room, each time a slide changed, up went dozens of phones. They were taking pictures of the slides, not of the speaker. In fact, note-taking via photograph seemed to be more the mode than the way I was doing things. Combine those photos with some notes (there are apps that let you annotate the photos with notes!) and you’re all set.
So here are a few random thoughts:
- How many speakers are optimizing their slides for photo note taking? Very few, I’ll bet, yet that was by far the preferred method of note taking in the room yesterday.
- Has anyone studied the differences in remembering and/or understanding when you don’t actually write the notes? To this day, if I want to remember something I write it down. Not because I want to refer to the note but because the act of writing it down makes me remember it.
- Not one speaker offered to email their deck to the room. Obviously, that’s not a big deal if it’s a panel discussion, but there were several presentations. That’s a great way to gather a lot of data – who was there, for example – that might help you sell, hire, or find new connections. Maybe a missed opportunity.
- Kids in schools use computers almost exclusively in some places. I know the schools will sometimes teach Word and Excel (or their non-MS counterparts) but are they teaching One Note/Evernote/etc.? Learning how to learn is awfully important, right?
- Our brains are wired differently here in the digital age than they were 30 years ago. Like everything else, notetaking has evolved, and maybe not for the better. What do you think? How do you take notes?
Consult Keith 