AUTUMN//WINTER 2017 47 A RECENT survey of British office workers came to a surprising conclusion: important but boring meetings could be made significantly more productive if laptops were replaced by pen and paper. The poll, conducted by Wacom, makers of graphics tablets and styluses, found that “63 per cent of office workers felt that taking notes by hand would or does enable them to be more creative and productive.” Laptops create barriers between people and distract their users from the business at hand: “37 per cent of respondents agreed that their meetings would become more efficient and engaging if there was a ‘laptops down’ rule,” the pollsters noted. Smartphones are, if anything, even worse, posing an ever-present temptation to answer messages and catch up with social media rather than pay attention to the speaker. Writing notes has been shown to improve comprehension and recall as compared with typing, but they have a significant drawback – they can’t be emailed to co-workers or stored in databases for future reference. Happily, technology is now available to enable paper notes to be quickly and easily digitised. Once in computer format, many other benefits accrue. Notes can be filed electronically, eliminating the need for shelves full of old notebooks. Once safely in the database the notes are visible to search engines, adding greatly to their future usefulness. Handwriting recognition software can now translate reasonably clear hands into typescript with surprising accuracy, making them even more useful in the digital world. Tech companies have taken two main approaches to the digitisation challenge: scanning and digital pens. Scanning has the advantage that everyone already has access to the technology in the ubiquitous all-in-one printer, but an increasingly popular solution is the scanner that we all have with us at all times – the camera in our smartphone. Apps are available that allow the user to photograph a note, correct the keyhole effect caused by misaligning the phone with the paper, crop the image and optimise brightness and contrast, all automatically. The results can be excellent, especially if the light is good. Digital notes can then be stored in cloud storage such as Dropbox or in apps such as Microsoft One Note and Evernote, where they will be searchable and sharable. SCREEN WRITING STARS 63 PER CENT OF OFFICE WORKERS FELTTHATTAKING NOTES BY HAND WOULD OR DOES ENABLETHEM TO BE MORE CREATIVE AND PRODUCTIVE. Tech journalist CHRIS PARTRIDGE explores the latest devices and apps where digital and analogue collide Rocketbook STATIONERY BIZ