Post written by John Federico, a marketing, communications & business development consultant to new media and technology companies. He lives and works in Maplewood and writes about work/life balance and personal technology. You can connect with him on Twitter (he’s “gadgetboy”), LinkedIn and Facebook.

You can have it when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers. Of course, I’m talking about my Livescribe Pulse smartpen.

I’m a marketing, communications and business development consultant. I’m constantly taking notes while in meetings, at conferences and generally just capturing my ideas in notebooks. During a time when Google helps me find just about anything on the interwebs, I’ve been impatiently waiting for the ability to search my handwritten notebooks. With my smartpen, I finally get that - and so much more.

Here’s how I’ve grown to love to my smartpen:

Phone Calls

I use Skype almost exclusively when I’m in my home office. When I have a phone call scheduled with a client, I will direct the sound to my speakers, and then I’ll start recording audio with the smartpen.

The smartpen microphone captures both ends of the phone call beautifully and I can refer back to anything that was discussed during the phone call and of course, search my handwritten text.

My clients know that I’m predisposed toward using gadgets, so they’re fine with my use of the recording feature.

Conferences

I have three goals when I attend industry conferences: 1) to create new relationships; 2) to strengthen existing relationships and; 3) to gather as much information as I can to further my (and my clients’) business.

My smartpen helps me accomplish all three.

I take lots of notes but sometimes, I can’t keep up with the speed in which the speakers are doling out their pearls of wisdom. In this case, the 3D recording feature is priceless. Not only do I get to record the audio from the panel discussions, but the directional nature of the 3D recording even helps me remember which panelist said what based on the acoustics of the room and their proximity to where I was sitting!

Of course, for someone who doesn’t know that the headphones are actually a recording device, it could appear that I’m being rude, listening to music or something. They generally forgive me when they understand what I’m doing.

Then they want their own smartpen.

When I attend a conference, everything that I learn about the people I meet and greet gets written down in my notebook. In the past, I had to make sure that I captured it all in the “notes” field of my contact database otherwise, I would almost never go back to my notebook to find it later - it would be nearly impossible. Now when a conference ends, I still add that information to my contact database but if I forget to add something, it can be found quickly and easily using the Livescribe Desktop software.

Brainstorming

In addition to my strategic work, I do quite a bit of creative work. My smartpen enables me to email my sketches of web page layouts, flow charts, landing pages, ad copy - and even product designs - to my clients and colleagues. No more scanning napkins or sheets of paper. It’s already digital!

I’ll never give up my smartpen. Ever.

Interested in sharing how you use your Pulse smartpen? Email Karen at klee @ livescribe.com.