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If it’s 10:00 on Friday, I am at this Zen Temple.

Watch for some fun pics and perhaps a video of Phil, Stephen, Susan and me.

I can’t promise any more posts until Monday. Please come back and check out the SOBCon after-action report.

If you found this post useful, please share it with your friends on Twitter using the tinylink http://tinyurl.com/6yvlon. Thanks, I appreciate it! Feel free to comment below, I enjoy discussing these ideas. ~@Stephen

Ryan Rasmussen at Collaborative Ideation: a sandbox for open innovation

Tapping the talent across the counter posted by Ryan Rasmussen @ 7:15 am
Bring your customers to the design table.
PoppingBeaver began a discussion thread on DiyPlanner.com expressing a desire for more varied color selections in our leather notebooks. [ Levenger Colours ] I responded with a pretty open question. “What colors would you like to see?”

The resulting color suggestions have been nothing less than stellar. Several community members have offered very specific tonalities backed with meaningful reasons why they would succeed.

This morning, I was floored by this visual response:

(Giddyfizzorangerings @ FlickR)

Participation within industry-specific communities can lead to significant contributions from its members.

Indeed. Keep’em coming Ryan!

If you found this post useful, please share it with your friends on Twitter using the tinylink http://tinyurl.com/54q43w. Thanks, I appreciate it! Feel free to comment below, I enjoy discussing these ideas. ~@Stephen

My wife and I visited Boston this past weekend, she was working a Bridal Show at the Bayside Expo Center on Saturday and Sunday. Since I am not in that biz any longer, I took a ride on the subway Saturday afternoon to pay a visit to one of my favorite places: Levenger.

I just love this store. I have been a fan of the Circa method of notebook binding for several years now, and I was very excited to visit the store in person and make a sample notebook. That’s right, if you go into the store, you can make a sample notebook with different page types, divider tabs, etc. As they say in Boston, “Wicked cool!”

There is a station set up for this right in the store:

Click the pic to see it larger

I made a letter-sized notebook with 5 divider tabs for my new Project notebook. I am currently using a 5.5 x 8.5 sized Circa-bound notebook for Project notes and planning, but the pages are just too small. I need more room for notes and drawings and stuff.

The new notebook has three kinds of pre-printed sheets: Cornell-style lined, Cornell-style quad-ruled, and storyboard. I thought the storyboard pages looked interesting, with 3 good-sized boxes and some lines for text to the side. It may turn out to be a real creativity-booster.

Click the pic to see it larger

Bill and Bob were staffing the store on Saturday, and they were very helpful in pointing out some of the new products and assisting me with finding the right tools for the things that I wanted to do.

Thank you very much, gentlemen!

If you found this post useful, please share it with your friends on Twitter using the tinylink http://tinyurl.com/4oy6ve. Thanks, I appreciate it! Feel free to comment below, I enjoy discussing these ideas. ~@Stephen

Just kidding.

Actually I will be on a business trip next weekend with my wife to Boston, where she will have a booth at the wedding show. After I help her set up the booth, I am headed across town to the Levenger store to check out the new goodies for 2008 and make a free sample notebook.

Free Circa notebook

That’s right! If you go to a Levenger store you can make a 5.5″ x 8.5″ notebook with a variety of pages for free. It’s like a gateway drug, but better.

Circa: Bringing note-taking to the next level
Our popular Circa notebooks and accompaniments help to unleash your creativity and keep you organized because the pages can be removed and rearranged to suit your changing needs. Receive your own FREE custom Circa notebook when you stop by any one of our stores.

Now that’s excitement.

And here is the fun part: are any of you, dear readers, going to be around Boston on Saturday, 26 Jan? If so, I would love to get together for a cup of coffee, or meet-up at the Levenger store to play with the Productivity Pr0n. I’m thinking about 1:00 - 3:00 in the afternoon. If you are interested, please send me an e-mail ( stephen [at] hdbizblog [dot] com ) and we’ll put a plan together.

Plan to bring your organizer/planner or other productivity tools. I’ll take some pics and post them here next Monday.

If you found this post useful, please share it with your friends on Twitter using the tinylink http://tinyurl.com/6xhdnf. Thanks, I appreciate it! Feel free to comment below, I enjoy discussing these ideas. ~@Stephen