Mobility Matters

This summer, I'm conducting a very, and I stress very, informal survey on some of the local campuses to learn about what students think about Tablet PCs. Now before I go on with this entry, I must clarify that the students I've speaking with are definitely not computer savvy. They are not the types of students who would ever visit a mobile computing blog like www.tabletpc2.com or www.gottabemobile.com, and if they knew about www.studenttabletpc.com, they still wouldn't go there.

So while this doesn't exactly sound like a great demographic who could promote Tablet PC technology, after speaking with a few of them, I had a real "aha!" moment for a whole new way to promote Tablets on campus. When I describe the scenario, it may give you an "aha!" moment too...

Just imagine a college freshman coed (you have to be a girl for this scenario) who arrives at the first day of class ready to use her new notebook computer. The young lady starts to take notes on the laptop and as she types; her beautifully manicured nails make an awful clack clack clacking sound on the keyboard. She hopes that no one notices, and she also hopes that the typing does not chip her polish.

Now imagine how noisy it would be if all of the girls in the class with long nails started typing at the same time. According to the students I've spoken with, it is distracting for them and for the professors. And so, in some cases, professors have asked students with long fingernails to refrain from typing in class. In fact, due to the sound and image distraction issue, some professors are completely forbidding the use of laptops in the classroom.

Check out the link below for a very interesting article that we published last October. Now if only the professors who banned keyboards and promoted note taking knew about Tablet PCs...

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/334150_laptops04.html

So my "aha!" moment gives me a great new reason to promote Tablets on campus to a more mainstream student. Now I'm wondering if all of us in the Tablet industry have missed the boat by touting our respective tablets for their speedy processors, screen resolutions, and powerful hard drives instead of emphasizing the basic functionality and convenience factors of the units. Maybe we should be marketing our products to the "average" student, instead of the ~~studious geek~~ student who is obsessed by the latest in gadget and tablet technology. Based on what I'm hearing on campus, I may be on to something.
What do you think?