Livescribe Connect is a software solution that works with Livescribe’s free desktop software. With Livescribe Connect, Livescribe Smartpen owners can quickly send Pencasts from paper to applications such as Google Docs, Evernote, Facebook, email, or to their mobile devices including iPhones and iPads.

I’ve been playing with a pre-release version of Livescribe Connect for the past few days and it really is a breakthrough software solution. I was amazed at the simplicity of being able to share notes and audio with my local machine, an email recipient, my iPhone, Evernote, or up into the cloud with Google Docs.

“Millions of pages of handwritten notes are taken daily in meetings, classes, and brainstorming sessions. These notes have incredible value, but are trapped in the pages of your notebook.” Said Jim Marggraff, CEO and Founder of Livescribe.

This Livescribe Connect Overview page on our Smartpen site has additional information including links to (what I suspect will be) Frequently Asked Questions.

Introducing the 2GB Echo Smartpen Starter Pack

The second piece of news is the expansion of the Echo Smartpen range with the introduction of a 2GB version.

We’re taking orders for this pen now with deliveries expected to commence by early next week. There are a number of subtle differences with the 2GB Echo versus other Echo Smartpens – I’ll blog about this later today.

Be sure to post any comments or questions here or on our Facebook Fan Page.

Livescribe Connect is a really exciting development as it presents users with incredible flexibility to send and share content they’ve created to others. As Jim Marggraff commented in the official press release:

“Livescribe is liberating notes and evolving human communication, collaboration, productivity, and learning”

Jim Marggraff, CEO and Founder of Livescribe

The seven connectors can be used in different ways and given we’ve had a few days to experiment with them; I’d like to share some ideas around how to use them.

Over the past few days I’ve had a chance to experiment and learn about each connector and also think about how our customers might be able to use them.

Email Connector

Being able to email content you’ve created opens up a raft of opportunities for all Smartpen users. Some examples I can think of from both education and business include:

• A teacher can set students homework and request it be submitted by email. The student can complete learning exercises and then email a Pencast PDF to the teacher;
• A student can create content from lectures/tutorials and then share this content with fellow classmates;
• A financial planner can take notes and audio that’s created from a client discovery meeting and email this to his or her office. This content can then be saved as a Pencast PDF against the client record in his CRM
• A Partner from an accounting firm can take notes from client meetings around complex issues and share these notes and audio with both the client and internal resources
• A Business Coach can take notes from a one on one session with a client and quickly share this with the client so as to reinforce action items.

Google Docs Connector

I don’t use Google Docs a lot but I do need to share documents and notes with a number of partners and internal resources. The connection to my Google Docs account was simple and I can see how in the future I’ll be able to take notes from partner meetings and share these into the cloud with a simple swipe of my pen and writing the word “Google”.

Facebook Connector

Given the growth of Facebook this connector has huge potential for Livescribe users. Across both the business community and for students and educators, connectivity to Facebook is exciting.

• A CEO can create interactive Pencast PDF’s and take Podcasting to the next level.
• A University Tutor can quickly share new content into their Facebook Fan page – helping create dialogue with students around important study topics.
• Students can create assignment content and then share this with their friends, creating an opportunity for feedback and joint learning.
• A Law Firm can share interviews and law updates with clients and fans via Pencast PDF’s.

Evernote Connector

This connector allows users to send Pencasts to Evernote to play back, store and search the information along with other important digital files. I don’t use Evernote – so if you do use feel free to send me some feedback so I can include it in this post.

Mobile/iPad Connector

I see a lot of business executives using iPads and iPhones – the ability to send Pencasts directly to these devices is quick and simple. What’s exciting about this connector is the user can bring up 1 or many pages on their device and replay the content by taping the screen. This is ideal for iPad users.

• A project manager can bring up Pencasts and quickly review meeting or client content – or even review content that other users may have generated.

MyLivescribe Connector

I use my MyLivescribe account when I want to post a Pencast into this WordPress blog. The process of getting Pencasts into MyLivescribe is now simpler and it means I’ll always have a library of content ready to drop into blog posts.

Computer Connector

The ability to automatically route content into a shared folder has been something ANZ customers have been asking about for a long time.

For enterprise customers, this Connector will allow users to quickly nominate content to be sent to a shared drive. This gets even more appealing if customers are using workflow and knowledge management tools like SpringCM – which can interpret shared drives and move content further into the enterprise.

The other clear benefit here is that users can put content into shared drives that might be part of a company wide back up process – again a simple and important benefit.

Summary

These are some initial thoughts about how we’ll use the new Livescribe Connect application. We’ll be blogging more in the coming weeks as we talk to customers and think of new ways to create and share content.

1. Capture key learning areas in short Pencasts

Pencasts are an easy way to create, store, and share interactive tutorials. A Tutor can focus on key learning areas and easily create a library of content that can be shared with students. Pencasts used properly can become a significant marketing tool for your business as well. Building a library of Pencasts is an excellent way of differentiating your services from other Tutors.

2. Embed Pencast content into blogs, and key social networks

Once a Tutor has created content, it’s then quite easy to repurpose the content and use it in different ways. Briefly, I’d suggest at least the following:

(a)    Embed the Pencasts into blog posts on key topic areas. This is great if you’re communicating with your students on a regular basis.

(b)    Share into Moodle – Moodle’s huge in the APAC education space so being able to share specific tutorials or even longer content pieces that Moodle users can access repeatedly over time.

(c)    Push into Facebook – For Tutors working in the K-12 space, Facebook is a great channel for ongoing dialogue with students and parents.

3. Use the student’s pen to create revision content or penmail’s

If you’re working with a student who has a Livescribe Smartpen it’s logical that you can use their pen to create revision content that they can refer to later. In addition, it’s simple to create short penmail content for a parent with instructions as to what a student needs to focus on or what homework/revision should be completed.

What’s important with these ideas is that Pencasts are a highly interactive form of communication. A student doesn’t need to rely on just notes or just audio. The combination of the two is the real value that a Tutor can deliver.

How are you using Livescribe Pencasts? Have you thought about using your Livescribe Smartpen to share interactive content?

Having known about this for a while we were pretty excited to see the application released and I have to say it does live up to expectations.

From my perspective, being able to have Pencasts on my iPhone is quite handy as I can quickly access and/or share content on an instant, as needed basis. This is particularly handy in a business context where I can access content from previous meetings without needing to worry about which book I wrote in (I use multiple books simultaneously). The other feature I like is that I can access pencasts when talking one on one with people – no need to interrupt the flow of our conversation – just boot up Pencasts and go to the session I want to share.

One feature I wasn’t so sure about but have come to realise the hidden value of is that Pencasts allows me to browse public pencasts. As I noted earlier today, our new Smartpen Facebook store includes content and special offers aimed at our student, parent, and teacher communities. Now I’ve got the additional option of searching public Pencasts that are focused on education (or other industries for that matter) and can quickly review this content and then share it if I feel it will help the Australian Livescribe community.

You can find our Smartpen Facebook fan page here which includes a link to the store.

If you’re a Facebook user, feel free to become a fan. We’ll be introducing Facebook exclusive special offers later this month starting with a very special bundle for students who are graduating high school and off to university.

We’ll continue to evolve how we use our Facebook fan pages including special pages where we share specific content aimed at our education users.

Given we’re doing quite a bit of work with this segment I figured this was going to be a pretty cool day talking to a lot of great people who are doing wonderful things with students who don’t have the opportunity to learn like some of us – and I was right.

The event was very well run and even though I’m not directly involved in Education I thought the speaker line up was first class – the opening address by Professor Ron McCallum was first class and one of the most entertaining speeches I’ve heard in many years of attending conferences.

I was surprised (and a little disappointed) that there wasn’t a greater use of tools like Twitter and Facebook at the event, particularly given the technology focus. I would have thought speakers on technology like Gerry Kennedy, or the reps from Microsoft and Apple would have been encouraging use of these tools.

We had a really busy day with literally hundreds of attendees wanting information about Livescribe. The attendees kept us on our toes by throwing many different types of ‘Can it help if…’ scenarios at us. A common theme was how Livescribe can help students participate and remain relatively independent in the classroom.

I was pleased to meet a number of our existing customers – and we owe them big thanks as they often hung around our stand talking to prospective customers – there is no power greater than an existing customer talking enthusiastically about your product.

Newcastle is the next stop tomorrow. We’ll be Twittering again, sharing photos, and talking to as many people as we can. If you’re coming to the Newcastle event, please stop by.

UK’s Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies are seeking submissions from the education and learning community around what tools we’ve found are our favourite and/or most useful.

To my amazement as I scan the top 100 entries, Livescribe doesn’t get a mention, so clearly we need to mobilise the crowd and ensure Livescribe Pulse Smartpen makes the list – I believe it deserves to be on the list so I’m going to do my bit to make sure others nominate Livescribe

Following the instructions set down by Jane Hart this blog post serves as my submission of my top 10 tools (in no special order of importance):

1. Livescribe Pulse Smartpen 2GB
2. iPhone
3. Microsoft OneNote
4. Confluence from Atlassian
5. Facebook
6. Mzinga Social Learning Suite
7. Google Reader
8. Slideshare
9. iGoogle
10. WordPress

One thing that caught my attention was that the organiser has included informal learning – social learning. We started to really get into this space via our partners at Smart Selling and through some dialogue with luminaries like Denise Wood of Uni of SA and David Wilkins during his Mzinga days – we’ll publish some thoughts shortly on his idea of the XYZ axis of learning.

Whilst I’m not sure which of the 25 categories Livescribe would fit into – I’d really like to see the Smartpen make the list. Make sure you check out the Slideshare presentation on her site also.

With the recent addition of pencasts to the functionality in the Livescribe Smartpen and the existing capability to share Livescribe content into Facebook,  Livescribe is becoming an important tool for educators and students alike.

There are many ways Livescribe can aide borderless social learning. For example, students studying say Japanese in Australian schools might create Pencasts of a lesson tutorial and using Facebook could have this assessed by their peers in Kobe – this is a two way street – so students in Kobe can practice articulating English words and share these Pencasts with Australian students who can then provide feedback and help.

I can see schools encouraging students to create borderless study groups so that a subject or lesson topic could be worked on by students located around the world. So we take this idea of Randy Pausch from Carnegie Mellon breaking down faculty barriers and apply that on an international scale – why should learning be limited to known borders?

If you work in education or are interested in this subject – we’d love to hear from you

The Flip Notepads are priced at $27 (inc GST) for a pack of 4

These pocket sized flip notebooks come in a pack of 4 for AUD 27 inc GST

The Paperblanks Hand Tooled Mini Wrap journals are priced at $27ea (inc GST).

This small and elegant journal is sold individually for AUD 27 inc GST.

Important Notice about Availability.

We only have a limited quantity of the new pads at the moment. If you are interested in the new products please place and order and we’ll hold your back order for priority filling once further stocks become available. If you don’t want to place an order now, please use the comments section of this blog post, or contact us via:

• Our website
• Our Twitter account
• or send us a message via Facebook (note our nice new vanity URL!)

As I’ve commented before, these products are high quality and are a perfect addition to the paper products range.

As I’ve already heard from many of you via phone and email, I’ll address the key questions right up front:

1. When will they be available – I’ll have more info on this in the next 24-48 hours. We need to get stock from the US and also China so it’s not as simple as saying “this date”
2. How much are the new products – we expect to have pricing confirmed in the next week also. As you’re no doubt aware bringing printed products into Australia is not a simple process due to our Customs laws.
3. What colours and styles will be available – this is a tricky one. I’ll know more by next week as we get a handle on what stock is available and how quickly we can get it into the country. As we’ve done in the past we’re likely to focus on a limited selection and then build this as we start to understand what you’d like us to carry.

I’ve had the opportunity to view these products first hand and I have to say they are of exceptional quality. We’ll have these products loaded into our store in the next few days and we’ll start taking pre-orders once we have a confirmed date of availability.

As always, if you have any questions, please comment here, or visit us on Twitter or Facebook.