Stu Downes

Am I alone in this dilemma of experimentation?  Lets take a common work pattern for a tablet user.  How should I best use the device to take notes in meetings or conference sessions?

InkSeine?

InkSeine I don’t find to be a great meeting tool note taker.  Its a great research tool as I mentioned in my last blog post.  The reason I don’t like InkSeine for meeting notes (and others may disagree) is that it is a notebook, its got no scroll and hence once you’ve filled the screen you can’t expand the page to add more content, you have to move to the next page. 

OneNote? or Journal?

When I had no other tools on my tablet OneNote was my only tool.  I’ve blogged in the past about how I used it effectively.  However I have been using mindmanager for about 3 months now … and it seems to be replacing onenote as the primary tool.

MindManager?

MindManager allows me to structure notes and do all the additions of content with gestures, including the really valuable ability to sketch:

(so before anyone asks this was one of my ambulance training courses about pulse oxymetry).  Trouble is times onenote is best, and times MindManager is best and that leads to fragmented meeting notes on my tablet.  Anyone any tips to overcome this fragmentation? 

I think pen gestures in Mindmanager are one of the best features.  My tip to all is to spend some time to learn all the gestures you’ll use.  You won’t use all the gestures but you WILL need some of them:

I don’t think there is a correct answer to which is the right tool to use, I’d love to hear how other people overcome these challenges?  Graham has been doing a series of posts on his tools, I find these immensely valuable, links to others content appreciated.