Finally: I spent most of Thursday at a large law school here in Southern California, quietly watching how notebooks–not just tablets– were being used in and outside of the classroom. The three big takeaways frommy day in the field watching eaglets is that: Ad hoc workgroups pop up faster than gophers in my orchard; Information sharing and winnowing is incredibly common. i’ve never seen better or faster annotation of subject matter in my life– pulling information store locally or externally; usability and reliability are very important. the students get some knid of freaked if they sense even the slightest system degradation or performance slow down; look and feel may be in the process of being superceded by “touch,feel and see” in the convertible notebook segment. the “heft” of the electronic pen seems to be very important here.Also, digitizer resolution may become the next big thing–particularly for science and technical professionals;Communications options are criticak–the Mac PowerBook is slamed on many campuses because of its WiFI implementation and because of no-built-in modem.
I’m waiting for better blog monitoring tools– a point Dave makes. i’d love to see what sundry communications intelligence intercept people think about this technology and what they are working on to winnow the stream.

Night from my mountain top in rural Escondido

Jim “Johnny convertible seed” Forbes
Were I working for a convertible notebook maker today, I’d be seeding systems at Yale Law, Harvard law, and most med schools, as well as at agencies like the NIHY, UsGeodetic Survey, Army Corps of Engineers and sundry government agencies as well as state universities.

I enjoyed our conversation as well and look forward to meeting you in person in the near future. I could not agree with you more how companies from across all industries do not communicate with their customers. And when they do, it is all just one way communication, they talk, but very rarely listen.. One of the most interesting areas that we have been focusing on with some of our clients is truly opening up a 2 way conversation between company and customer. I hope you are feeling better. Talk to you soon.

It surprises me the extent to which the PC industry, and indeed most industries, have not communicated with customers.

I think Jim makes several very good points. Though I do not think it is a question of HP or any other computer maker not recognizing who their biggest potential buyers are. I think the issue is communicating with that buying segment in places where they congregate both online and offline as well as talk to them in a way that will resonate with them. It is a question of marketing tactics that actually reach and have an impact with the audience that they are trying to connect with, it is truly engaging with your customer base. And specifically in the PC market today, there is no-one, in my humble opinion, who is truly reaching out and communicating effectively with their customers.

Jim