A Plight to Writing Instrument Manufacturers Everywhere
I have been an avid consumer of writing instruments for some time. In particular, I prefer ball point pens that write with bold ink. I wanted to direct a general inquiry to the consumer market underscoring the pen of the future. It becomes all too obvious to realize that in today’s market, staying ahead and instep with technology is crucial for healthy competition. Unfortunately, as far as technological synchronization goes, little has changed as far as the design and manufacture of writing instruments is concerned. Too many writing instrument manufacturers are focused on a single market and little is done to experiment with new technologies when conceptually faced with product hybridization. As a vociferous writer, I produce a great deal of my writing by hand using ball point pen products offered by Pentel, Pilot, and Paper-Mate.
In other words, the vast majority of my manuscripts are handwritten. As consumers become increasingly technologized, traditional methods of writing are becoming increasingly scarce and more eclectic. For the traditional writers that remain out there, the arduous task of digitizing hand written material remains which is tedious, time consuming, and in many cases frustrating. In my case as with many, a great deal of my work has yet to be finalized and is subsequently incomplete. I starting thinking, what if there was a “smart pen” that could write the old fashioned way, but could transfer each line formed on paper into an internal USB device simultaneously? The writing instrument itself could be plugged into a stationary terminal to access content on the USB.
Yes, the bare proposition of such technology exists and in many cases has been fielded, but I feel most of the existing technology to be primitive and rather limiting. Products that are offered originate from one template. Choices of ink, thickness, and product modulations are virtually nonexistent. Traditional writing instrument manufacturers have been staying away from this technology which explains its lackluster performance, at least from a writer’s standpoint. What if there was a variety of writing instruments to choose from, pen or pencil, offered in different colors and thickness of ink/lead, further articulated through options of customer personalization allowing each instrument to fit like a glove? Imagine a product like Pilot’s Dr. Grip outfitted with this technology.
A new software program could be developed specifically for smart pen technology. Where lines formed on paper would be recognized as designated characters in the alphabet going on to create words, sentences, and complete paragraphs. This program could be developed for desktops and smartphones compatible with Windows and Apple operating systems allowing options for editing and further finalization. A program of software character recognition could be applied to direct an area of discernment between text and image recognition making the product accessible to writers and artists alike! Adaptation to foreign languages could be explored and internationalized accordingly. This is of course a rough sketch of what could be.
As it can be inferred, the possibilities are endless and I hope existing pen manufacturers consider getting ahead of this idea in all of its technological applications before a competitor does. The latter will inevitably challenge economic survivability by virtue of adaptability; the two qualities of which will forever signify differences of life or death for select industries.
It is for that reason why eclecticism poses a danger for innovation. We preserve traditions out of stationary habits which affords little to the development of new knowledge. This is not a pitch to reinvent the pen, but to readopt its role in a way where it maintains cultural relevance by allowing consumers to experience the best of tradition and modernity.
Writing the future – will the tablet replace the pen?
-Image is Courtesy of Advertising Specialty Institute-