Smartpens and public meeting

How could a $200 tool dramatically change a public meeting? The tool is Lightscribe's Pulse smartpen. The Pulse is an ink pen that when used on specially marked paper digitally records the text written and the words spoken (actually, any audio within reach of its microphone). What is equally remarkable is that you can use the pen to replay the audio associated with any of the written text at any time in the future. When using this in a meeting you now have

1) an audio record of the meeting with its discussions, dissensions, monologues, etc,
2) a textual record of the meeting, including content such as minutes, notes, illustrations, etc, and
3) a timeline (or living graph) that connects the two.

Here is an example used in Michael Wesch's cultural anthropology classroom: [Show in full screen for best effect.]



Now imagine this tool being used within a public meeting. One scenario is to use it as in the classroom example above, a secretary uses the Pulse to record the meeting. The secretary would use the actual paper of the meeting's agenda [1] to record who and what is said throughout the meeting. A limit of this scenario is that while you hear many voices you can not (digitally) identify the voices and that the textual record is only that of the secretary. (And being a good secretary is a learned skill.) A second scenario is to give each public board member a Pulse and have them record their thoughts on the actual paper of the meeting. Since each member has a Pulse there is no need to record who is speaking. Instead, at the end of the meeting, collect the Pulses and the notes and then use an online tool to present (on the web) all the records as individual records and in combination.

Generally, the audio and notes of a meeting is far more significant than the video of a meeting. And this can be had for $200 and a little creativity.

[1] The Livescript paper is special only in that it has patterns printed on it (in light blue) that the Pulse pen understands as page location coordinates and others as commands. You can purchase sheets of the paper to use with any photocopier. In the future, Livescribe has said, you will be able to print both the agenda (or other "form") and the codes at the same time on normal paper.