Paper2.0

It was a recent feature extolling the virtues of paper as an alternative to common digital media that caught my attention.

Personally, I’ve long been a fan of a hybrid system comprising a paper notebook; currently an A5 Red and Black, and a selection of applications on my MacBook.

My notebook goes most places with me, I could buy a smart-phone, but they are neither as rugged nor flexible as a paper notebook. Paper doesn’t impose a working structure upon me; I can sketch, write, draw up tables or whatever the occasion requires.

Combined with the camera on my phone; to rapidly capture complex information, I have everything I need to collect data for later processing. This usually takes place on my laptop where I can tag, search, and sync lists and calendars back to my phone.

A number of tips on how to customise your Moleskine notebook, remind me of features found in applications like Firefox.

• Divide sections with tabs could be interpreted as the now ubiquitous tabbed browsing feature.
• Number the pages reminds me of the practice of bookmarking.
• Mount photos – or a business card on the moleskine is one tip for customisation suggesting to me that maybe ‘bCard&trade’ is the new paper version of the common vCard format.

Lifehack is a great advocate of the Moleskine, and I too aspire to one for no obvious reason, but features like these tell me we’re on the verge of a revolution in paper technology… Paper2.0.