Week 2 blog.

Alexandra Samuel, who wrote this article on Harvard Business Review, sounded like she was amazed by the fact that people will still walk in a business meeting with a paper notebook in their hands. "A paper notebook!" she says with a exclamation point. I personally was struck by her statement because I remembered myself walking into my morning meeting with a paper notebook and a pen in my hand. In her blog post called, "Dear Colleague, Put the Notebook Down", she stresses the importance of creating or writing notes in digital form. When I went to my daily meeting this morning, I carried with me a think notebook that I have which has all the notes that I took from my meetings and my training from day one. Sometimes, I have a hard time reading my own hand writing but I often benefit from the context of the notes that I have written in that notebook. However, Alexandra explains that transcribing the hand written notes from every meeting will take to long and it will essentially lessen productivity of one's working time. In this perspective she is right, I often have a hard time trying to look for certain notes that I took on a prior day and I spend several hours a week looking for things. If I were to archive all those notes digitally, I would have been easier off finding those notes, either by a look up function or by key words from the context of the notes. However, in some cases, hand written notes can be more convenient. I work in a hedge fund, thus there several tasks that require me to do calculations or reconciliations. For occasions like this, I found it more helpful to get a scrap piece of paper to quickly write notes or reminders for myself, or make a quick calculation. The scrap paper can be easier discarded once the task on hand is done. Thus, if the notes or writing is not needed to be referred to in a future date or if it's temporary, I feel that a hand written note is more appropriate. I feel like though that Alexandra is talking to this generation as a whole that it's time to slowly get rid of all the papers and pens, and transition into a technologically savvy generation, where everything is mobile and electronically stored. Thus, I felt that she was speaking to the community and the outsiders at the same time. I think she did a very good job doing that. She often sounded like she was bragging about all the mobile devices she has and uses. But she did sound like she knew what she was talking about and I was awfully persuaded by her recommendations.
Because this article was is a blog format, it was more casual and flexible in terms of how she approached her audience. And, she was very consistent in her style of writing through out her post.
Here is it, take a look yourself: http://blogs.hbr.org/samuel/2013/01/dear-colleague-put-the-noteboo.html