The Pen Addict 493/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	493
Title:	A Guy Named Dean
Release Date:	December 22nd, 2021
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 493
Audio File:	Audio Episode 493
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 493
Length:	7070 min <br />1.167 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 493. Today's show is brought to you by Ooni Pizza Ovens. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi Brad. Hey Myke Hurley, how are you? I'm good. Getting ready for Christmas in a couple of days here?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah. It's like, I want to say things are like winding down here, but you know, my wife's still working, I'm still working, the kids just got out of school this week, so it's like, it's like really came up fast, like I am unprepared.

Myke Hurley: This is basically a bonus episode, this one.

Brad Dowdy: I thought it would be the next one, I thought it would be the next one.

Myke Hurley: I think I would more likely have taken this week off.

Brad Dowdy: This year, maybe, yeah. But it's all bonus from here on out, because we're not stopping until we hit 500, right? Yep. Like everything, everything's a bonus episode. Every single week come... No breaks.

Setup

Myke Hurley: Hella high water, an episode will be released. And then we're going to take a six month break. No, we're not, no, we're not. No, we're not, don't worry.

Brad Dowdy: No, no, no. I need to share my terrible opinions in a much more frequent time frame than every six months.

Myke Hurley: Can you imagine? It would be every six months, but it's 26 hours long.

Myke Hurley: That would be terrible. It's like, it's not like anything doesn't get included. It's just, we just do it once, once or twice a year.

Brad Dowdy: I'm not that organized to keep a six month note file of what I need to talk about.

Myke Hurley: Don't you write every day? Like you're writing down something?

Brad Dowdy: I do. I do. But like, there would be mixed in with like some other stuff, right? Like it wouldn't be separated. I'd have to have like, oh man, this is a whole, this is a whole situation we just created. Like I'd have to have a whole different notebook and a whole different organization structure. Yeah. We can't have a twice a year podcast. That would not work for me.

Myke Hurley: I have a real ghetto, a ghetto like set up today. Oh yeah. Like paper and pen wise.

Brad Dowdy: Oh yeah. Let's hear it.

Myke Hurley: So I'm using the blue Mark one. Okay. Oh, it sounds terrible. Well, that's good, but it's the, it's like, it's kind of basically all what was in my backpack already. And a field notes dime edition. Okay. It was just in my backpack.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I mean, that's a primo setup. That's a, that's a, that's a, that's an A tier setup. It's more, you should see it.

Myke Hurley: This notebook's a bit, it's a bit beat up because it's been in my backpack for like years, I think at this point. And basically I just grab it out and just write down some show notes when I'm recording on the road. I'm on the road today.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So like, you don't think about like what pens or paper you pack. Like when I travel. If it's one. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: No, I mean. Like one thing. Well, I have a, oh man, what's the name of the product? A lookout. That's the three pen, right? Right. And it has this, it has the spoke pen, like the spoke pen, not the fountain pen, just like the spoke pen. Right, right. No, not the, it has a spoke pencil four in it. Oh yeah. Yeah, sure. And a retro 51. Mm-hmm. And the Mark 1. And the Mark 1. All right. That's fair. Yeah. They're like, the Mark 1 was a recent edition because I just wanted to use it on the strip. And I now have like six of them. So I got to start spreading them about a bit. So now this one just lives in my backpack. But the notebook was kind of like, it was just already in the bag. So I'm trying to work out when I started it because I've got some notes here. So I'm just like.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, that's always fun to pick up a half used notebook. And the last entry was from three years ago. Yep.

Myke Hurley: And so I'm trying to work out. Let me see. It's got some notes in it here. And so I'm just like, I'm scrolling through some podcast show notes now to try and work out the date because I didn't, for some reason, did not date this. This goes back to September of 2017. Hey, wow. This notebook. That's probably when the time novel launched. Probably not that. I think that was 2016, right?

Brad Dowdy: Because it launched when we were there. It'll say in the back of the book, like in the back of the bottom when it launched.

Brad Dowdy: But yeah, that makes sense.

Myke Hurley: September 2017. Mm-hmm.

Brad Dowdy: Maybe that's one from the event. Because you would have been traveling, right?

Myke Hurley: Honestly, very likely, because I did buy some.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, because you would have been traveling if it's the same. Yep. Nice. There you go. Is this a show?

Myke Hurley: Yes. Okay. But it's also other stuff, like an announcement from the Delta Pen Company.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I've been asked to mention this or comment on it. And I do find it interesting as an industry watcher. But let me, I think the best thing to do is to kind of read this little PR release from Mayora. So we've talked about Mayora before as a, gosh, offshoot of the original Delta. Like Delta closed down, what, like two years ago? I don't even, I don't have my time frame correct, but something like that. And part of the company left and some of them started Leonardo, which we love so much. And part of them started Mayora, which is another great pen that I enjoy very, very much. So these two offshoot companies. And now Mayora, who has existed in the wake of Delta's closing, has actually bought the original Delta. And when I say that, I mean like literally everything. So this is a short little PR release. And I'm going to read it because it, they go into like all of it in a very short, short timeframe. The Mayora Pen Company of Naples has required, has acquired the rights to the Delta Pen Company. The rights of use have been officially transferred by the new property to Mayora Pen Company and are both tangible and intangible. This is very lawyer-esque. The material rights are all of Delta's goods, all of Delta's materials warehouse, all of Delta's equipment, all of Delta's machinery, and importantly, Myke, all of Delta's furnishings. I want those goddamn chairs.

Brad Dowdy: The intangible assets are the full use of the Delta brand and the use of the Mar Chiaro brand, which I've never heard of. All the patents, which is very interesting, and the entire history, the entire history and images of the Delta company. This is, as they say, Myke, the whole kit and caboodle. And the chairs. Yeah, and the chairs and the window coverings, the window treatments. The whole thing. Soft furnishings. I want the soap dispensers.

Myke Hurley: Give me it all.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. The exclusive distribution in the United States will be by Yaffa Brands. Delta plans to begin production in 2022 and start shipping products by mid-2022. So my takeaway from this is Mayora was an offshoot of Delta. The group that started Mayora has now bought literally all of Delta and is not going to roll it into Mayora. They're going to revive Delta as a brand, which is probably the right decision because it was a very well-loved and respected brand. And they just had a really kind of quick downfall towards their end and just, you know, QC issues, production issues, until they just finally had to shut the door. So it's just interesting. It'll be something to watch that they're going to keep. The best I get from this is that they're going to keep the old Delta intact. And hopefully, hopefully kind of like maybe bring it, bring it up to speed and do some interesting things like they're doing with Mayora already. Like I like what Mayora has done as a brand, you know, launching from the Delta closure. So it'll be interesting to see the people that were involved in Delta are essentially bringing Delta back to life and how, you know, true to the original brand they're going to stay. I think that'll be the real question because now this company has two brands, two, you know, main writing brands, Mayora, which is a new brand and then the classic Delta. So I just find it interesting to be one to watch. I was never like a real Delta fan myself, but I know a lot of people like swear by some of their pen models and their materials are always real popular. When you see like an orange kind of like an acrylic cracked ice material, I think a lot of people in the industry and who have been fountain pen fans for a long time, they go, oh, that's like a Delta. That's like they're very, they have a very popular orange, which of course I love. So there you go.

Myke Hurley: That's the Delta news. I'm not sure how valuable the brand Delta is now. Agree. Like just, I mean, this is in general plus, I mean, if they'll spend launching in 2022, the word Delta has some negative connotations now that it didn't before.

Delta News

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It's interesting. It's going to be interesting to see. And it's an interesting decision that Mayora is going to keep it. The best of my reading of this press release is they're going to keep it the original name and try to revive and resuscitate Delta. And is that the right decision? Who knows? Right. Because like you're saying, like it didn't end on a high note. They didn't go out with a bang. Right. They went out with like technical failures and flawed products and things like that.

Myke Hurley: Well, I just mean more as in coronavirus.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, see, I'm like, that was like, I'm already into the Omicrons, Myke. Like Delta's old news.

Myke Hurley: Delta's yesterday. Look, to be fair, I guess if Corona beer can like keep it going, I'm sure Delta Pan can keep it going too.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So we'll see. I am curious to see what happens. And their timeframe is tight. Like shipping mid-2022, like that's stuff in progress right now. So we'll see. We'll see how it goes. So it'll be interesting to watch. Another brand I'm maybe more interested to watch is Dominant Industry. We've talked about them before, just in how great the name is and how cool these ink bottles are. I finally did my first review of one of their inks and I'm just exceedingly pleased with it. Like I don't have a lot to say. It's really hard when an ink is normal to say how good that is. It just, it's really good. And like not all inks are really good writers from the nib. And like I did this review and we'll link it in the show notes of Lake. The color is called Lake. Number 115 Lake. I don't know what the number is relating to.

Brad Dowdy: But when I kind of, you know, I mentioned in the review that I hit like the perfect like setup with the medium Faber-Castell nib and the paper and everything just worked perfectly out the gate and the consistency of the lines page after page after page. Like I never had to like consider anything as I was writing with this ink and that made me enjoy it even more, even though there is a, you know, it's a, it's kind of a simple ink, right? It like, it has a little bit of shading and you know, it's, it's just good. Like it, it was hard. It was easy to review because the bottles are cool and the story's cool and it looks cool, but like nuts and bolts, it just worked. And sometimes that's enough. And sometimes that says a lot about a product where sometimes inks just don't work. Right. And I just felt like I want to try more of this ink because of just how quality and consistent the output was. And I, I guess why I'm like stumbling over my words on that is it's, it's not always that way. Right. Like it's not, sometimes I have to think about the ink and then what I have to do to manage the ink as I'm writing. Right. Is it too wet? You know, do I have to have a, like a blotter paper? Is it not flowing well from the nib? You know, do I have to like prime it, you know, between paragraphs or something like that? And this one was just nothing. I just wrote and I never stopped and it was kind of fun. And like, I forget that sometimes.

Myke Hurley: Their inks look really cool, but you have to be careful with them though. Right. You can't just buy whatever ones you want.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. That's a good point. So they, they, like they first popped up in my timelines and like on Instagram because they make like this holographic ink and all of these like really pearlescent inks that are designed for dip nib pens. Right. So, but the bottles look exactly the same. Right. You're, you just have to be careful that you're ordering. I'd say, you know, it's probably like 80%, 20% fountain pen inks versus dip. On your Seca Stationary's website.

Myke Hurley: Cause they sell it, right? Yeah. They actually say in the description of the product, what it's for. Like if it's for dip or dip and internally filling pens is what it says.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. So you need to be careful when purchasing, like if you're going for the hologram, which is like the hot ink.

Myke Hurley: I just found another one, which is, so the Pearl one, it says that can be used with both dip and internally filling pens in medium and broad sizes to prevent clogging. So it gets even more complicated.

Brad Dowdy: Pass. Yeah. Like if I, if I, if that's my, my, uh, my caveat, like I'm just going to, I want the all fountain pen ink or I want the all dip nib ink. I don't want to like, well, kind of, sort of fountain pens if you use it in this certain way. Yeah. So yeah, like I'll, I'll, I will skip those. Like I'm pretty brave and we'll like put, you know, all kinds of fountain pen inks and all kinds of pens. But if there's like, kind of like maybe I'm like, I'll pass. Right. Like I'll put iron gall inks in anything. Right. Yeah. But if I have to use a certain nib size to ensure that the flow is going to be well, I'm just going to pass. And I'll say, I guess. So they could be good for, uh, my drill log. Yeah. Oh, a hundred percent. You know, that's, I mean, that's, I, that's essentially a dip nib, right?

Myke Hurley: So did you see that they were delayed a little bit?

Brad Dowdy: Um, I didn't because I'm staring at a box that delivered yesterday to my house. So, um, mine's here. I don't care about anyone else.

Myke Hurley: But they were struggling with, um, paperwork. Look, so they, they made another update yesterday to show that they are shipping them out. Um, but they was, uh, this was like earlier in the month and I understand like there was a really nicely written thing actually. Like, look, we've never really done this before. And there's like a ton of paperwork that we don't understand, but we've got our head around it now and we're on it again. So I would say like they have actually delivered or like, you know, started shipping way faster than I thought they would. I didn't think there was any way they were going to get them out before the end of the year. And they did. So bravo, Drew. Like, I'm really excited about getting mine. I can't wait to play with that thing.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So mine showed up yesterday while I was streaming. I have not opened it yet. So somehow mine, mine snuck out, uh, in whatever earlier shipments they have. But like, this is a universal shipping problem right now. Ben, Ben Walsh. The Brad Dowdy special. You think I got, uh, in, in, uh, in stack one for a reason?

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Come on. You never know. You never know. Until there's a letter in there when I open up the box and say, Hey, Brad, we got yours out.

Myke Hurley: Hey, Brad, we made sure.

Brad Dowdy: And then I have to go, okay, whoops. I guess.

Myke Hurley: Hey, Brad, we decided we'd take any of the potential fines that we might have to pay for this one.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep. Yep. So, uh, we sent yours, sent yours by carrier pigeon first, but yet, like I was, you know, talking to Ben Walsh, you know, like a month ago, he had the same situation, you know, halfway around the world where it's not a physical issue as much as it is, is like a paperwork and coordination issue. And it just costs people months of time, like literally months for paperwork shipping issues. So yeah, that's a whole, it's a whole different podcast. So, but yeah. Um, so yeah, that would be good. Holograph would be good for your drill log. Um, assuming the, the, um, it, it attaches to the nib properly. Like, you know, the drill logs a little bit particular that way, but I'm sure these, these more dip nib, uh, inks would work well. So yeah, be careful when you're buying dominant industry, just pay a little bit of attention there. Um, if, and know what you're going to be using them for, because like, again, the hologram is like the hottest ink on the market, but you don't want to put that in your fountain pens.

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Brad Dowdy: Oh, 100%. Now, I have the koda 16 uni sent me a long time ago and I actually haven't used it in a month or two. And now that we're having them on the show this week, I was like, well, it's Christmas this weekend and I'm really not doing anything this weekend. And it's going to be like the perfect time to crank this pizza oven up. The whole family will be here and we can just like all make our own pizzas and make a whole little event out of it. It's kind of like the perfect little holiday cooking adventure and we get some awesome pizza out of it. And everyone loves the uni every time we use it. It's like the coolest thing ever.

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Pen Addict Census Introduction

Brad Dowdy: All right, Myke. All right, bro. The results are in for the 2021 Pen Addict Census. You ready to go over this today? Sure am. I am so excited. I am really, really thrilled that Michael Harris and Catherine Palmisano, our doctors, our PENADDIC doctors and residents, put their time and effort into making this census. This is the second year that they've done this. The first year, it was really cool to see how everyone replied and responded. You know, it's just kind of the general idea is just kind of get a demographic overview of the community and then just some general ideas of what the community uses as far as products. You know, how many pens they have, what brands they like, you know, what are some of their favorite, you know, kind of high level things like a nib size, things like that. So, there's two parts to this that our listeners can play along with. One, there's a PDF download of all the slides.

Myke Hurley: Can I put both of these in the show notes?

Brad Dowdy: Yes. So, both of these are going to be in the show notes. So, the slides can go in the show notes. And then they, Michael and Kat did a video that's on YouTube and it was set to private just for us to review first and, you know, get a first look at before we launched it. But once this goes live, we're going to let Michael know he's going to turn the video to public. Can I just say that Kat and Michael did just a fabulous job on the video presentation. It's great. Going through all the slides. I just wanted to thank them so much. I'm going to keep bragging on them the entire time I do this because I was just so happy hearing them and the commitment they have to this and, like, the understandings they're trying to gleam from this information and just the support that everyone gave them for building this because, you know, it's a lot of time and effort on their part to put all this together and then analyze it and, you know, build out the slide deck and put up the video. So just thank you so much to Kat and Michael for doing this. And they did just an outstanding job. So raw numbers, Myke, from last year to this year. Last year, we had 154 respondents. This year, if you had to guess, like, it's probably unfair to make you guess. What would you have guessed? You know, even with us, like, promoted, we promoted it on the podcast a bunch. I promoted it on the blog. I would have guessed, like, 400 and something. Maybe 500 on a good day. I would say five.

Myke Hurley: That's probably where I would go. If you were to ask me, I'll probably go five.

Brad Dowdy: 909 total respondents. I was shocked isn't the right word. I was happy. I was thrilled. I was like, wow, that is really, really great. And now it's just like, okay, I'm already thinking about, wow, can we do that again next year? That's immediately how my mind works. I was like, man, if we do this again, can we do more? And it's like, I don't know. So the first several slides, we're going to go through a lot of these slides. I won't profess to go through all of them, but Michael and Kat do on the video. So the first handful of slides is kind of laying the groundwork for the demographics of the people who answered, like, the later questions. So, like, you have your age breakdowns, right, and you have your gender breakdowns, and you have your region breakdowns. So, you know, there were some good tidbits in here. So, like, Kat made a good point that, you know, 33% of the community that replied to this were identified as female, which I thought was a good percentage. I would obviously like to see more. And then, you know, Michael and Kat both discussed, like, the overall white maleness of this survey, you know, that we would like to see more diversity in this. Like, I think we hit some good diversity numbers, but that is definitely one thing that I flagged that I can work on personally as someone who has a voice in the community to help build a more diverse community of pen addicts. And just, if you're just picking up this episode today and you haven't really, don't have a real background in the podcast or in what we're doing, I do want to clarify that this is just from, mostly from the pen addict Slack members. So, that it is kind of not... It's a self-selecting group of a self-selecting group? Thank you. Yes. So, self-selecting group there. So, you know, keep those things in mind as you're going through some of the responses. But, yeah, I would like to see, you know, the demographics change a little bit. And that's something, the diversity that I would like to work on personally. And I know you're on board with that as well. As well as, like, the region scope. I was a little shocked there wasn't more outside of North America and Western Europe representation as much as I thought. I thought there would be maybe a little bit more. I mean, I know it definitely skews heavily to North America and Western Europe. And, you know, I found that interesting. I was not sure what to expect there, but, you know, maybe, you know, we are a worldwide community. And I would love to see that participation thrive up even further.

Brad Dowdy: Handedness, Myke. I know this is something that you take seriously as a lefty. How do you feel being in the 11th percentile? I mean, that's pretty much your worldwide percentile, right? We hit kind of along the lines. I think it's around, what, 10 percent, I think, was the universal left-handedness.

Myke Hurley: I have no idea, but this is the best 11 percent. Although I like the both. You know, I do consider myself team both. Not in handwriting, but in other things. So what do you do right-handed? What do you do right-handed? Everything except writing. Really? Mm-hmm. This has come up before. Maybe that's why.

Brad Dowdy: Maybe, yeah, yeah. Maybe that's why I don't notice when we're together that you're even writing left-handed because I'm just not used to seeing you just do everything right-handed.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, like if you were to hand something to me, I'd grab it with my right hand. Mm-hmm. Stuff like that, you know? Mm-hmm.

Brad Dowdy: One of the reasons this survey exists in the first place, being that Catherine and Michael are both doctorate-level education, they were wondering at the time when they started doing this, you know, is there, there seemed to be like a thing, if you will, that it seemed like, you know, wow, we're talking to like a lot of like people that have gone through higher education. So there are some education-level slides in here. A lot of bachelor's, master's, and doctorate degrees in here. Um, and then they even did the breakdown of degrees.

Myke Hurley: You see, Brad, this is going back to that self-selecting part? Yes. That's way too high, I think.

Brad Dowdy: For, for in relation, so they actually have a in relation to slide on this one because it is such an outlier, right? Um, so you'll see like the inset on that slide as y'all are going through this, um, compared to the broader world, or at least, okay, to the broader US. Um, this is a very, very outlier, but I think it's informational, right? Even though it is self-selecting.

Myke Hurley: It's not a problem.

Brad Dowdy: I'm not saying it's a problem. No, no, no. You just have to understand the context of the overall survey. Yes. Um, and then we have, you know, what fields people are in, right? You know, what, you know, if they, um, were in their, in their education, their highest degree level, like what were they studying? You know, medicine, history, you know, finance, education, lots of things like that. So it's just good information. And then we have a current occupation list, which I thought was pretty cool to see. And then we had a fun, they had a fun little, um, little, um, field where you could type in, what is your current job title? Myke, how would you have filled out or how did you fill out the current job title? Or what would you say?

Brad Dowdy: Founder. Founder. So you would just go with founder.

Myke Hurley: Because I don't have one other one.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So like, I don't have a job title. I think I, I don't know what I put. I think I might've just put pen addict on there.

Myke Hurley: Like, like, I'm not going to put like. So if I have to fill out official documents in the UK, it's director. Cause like I am a company director. Gotcha. And that is a profession, unbelievably, um, which doesn't make any sense because company directors can do anything. Uh, but yeah, so I would, if I, but given a form like this, I would probably write like founder.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I, yeah, I don't know what I would put. So I'm pretty sure I put pen addict. Um, I'm not going to put like content creator. That's one of my least favorite terms. Um, but like, you know, I, yeah, I talk about pens on the internet. What is my job? Like small business owner.

Myke Hurley: You're a professional communicator.

Brad Dowdy: Professional communicator. Uh, I'm doing a poor job right now, probably. Um, but let's look at a couple of these job titles, Myke. Um, system engineer and ground and mission systems for space applications. That's kind of dope. AP ARIST. That was my favorite. Yeah. Do you know what that is? It's beekeeper, right? Beekeeping. Yeah. I love that there is a, an AP ARIST among us. I loved mom to be perfectly honest. I thought that was a fantastic job title. I love that. Officer United States space force. Um, I'm not sure if that's accurate.

Job Titles Discussion

Myke Hurley: Uh, kind of like space, space ninja. Always out of context. Fun for me. Dean. Right. Just like the word Dean.

Brad Dowdy: Just boom. Dean.

Myke Hurley: Like, what if it's just a guy named Dean?

Brad Dowdy: That could be me too. Like I could have just put Dean. Like I am the Dean of the school of Penant. Brad.

Myke Hurley: What is your profession?

Brad Dowdy: Brad. Or like I could be a nail. Uh huh. Um, domestic goddess was, uh, is a great one. So yeah, lots of fun current job titles. In the, in, um, Kat and Michael's, uh, YouTube, basically their point was, with this whole job thing and education thing is we're all a bunch of nerds. Right?

Myke Hurley: Like, well, I mean, yes, because most of the education and employment stuff is in computers. Like they're the biggest single things. It's this, which is interesting. And again, it's like, I just, cause I feel like it's important to put the context. That is not the Pen community. That's this slice of the Pen community. You know what I mean? It's like, and even then, like the type of person who would fill in, in a survey that originated in a Slack is the portion of the Pen Addict audience that is more computer focused. Yes. Which even though like to listen to a podcast, you have to understand a little bit that there's then this like subset again, you know?

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm. And some of that, that realization comes up later. Um, and, and you'll see in, in some of these slides where there is like a huge gap. It's like, okay, we do have a lot of this nerd level crossover, but then we'll have like a big gaps of like, Hey, I don't listen to podcasts, which is like totally cool. It's like a, but you know, like a huge percentage will, why answer that? We'll get to that in a minute. Yeah, but I don't understand those people.

Myke Hurley: So we'll get there. We're going to have to talk about that when we get there because I don't get it.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, oh, uh, Kat and, and Michael made a very, very valid point about your commentary on that last year. Um, so we will get there. Uh-huh. All right. Next slide. Time collecting pens. Again, you know, this is, this is, you know, based on the people taking the survey. Let's see. Well over half started since 2011. So in the past decade, um, the majority of users, I'd say over 50%. So what's that? Yeah. 514 users for, from 2011 to the present. But the, the biggest category was 2016 to the present, which I thought was pretty interesting. I thought it might've been 2011 to 2015, but I like seeing the shortest timeframe having the biggest bar here in the chart. Like that, of course makes me happy. And then we have a really big group that have been doing it since before 1990, which that was a surprise to me. Um, so there, there's a large pre-1990 group was 122 respondents. Like that's, that's a big chunk. Time spent on the pen addict slack per day. Um, there's two groups, none or all. Well, actually, uh, none is not a member of the slack, which was good. Like we took this outside of slack to get a broader subset of answers. Right. So not a member of the slack. 417 was a bigger, big respondents. That's a good place to be. I'm going to be honest to you. Um, the next biggest was 306 respondents in less than an hour a day. Um, that's a healthy place to be. Um, you always open people or dawn till dust people like need to check yourselves a little bit. Right. Like that's, that's a lot of slacking. Um, um, I am in the less than a minute a day. Probably. I just, I get, if I get in there, I get lost. Right. So sometimes I just avoid it unless I get like a message and then I jump in. So, all right, next up size of fountain pen collection. So this is broken down from, uh, the first 50 or like in groups of 10. So less than 10, 10 to 20, 21 to 30, 31 to 44, one to 50. Then we have 51 to a hundred. And then we have the bulk categories, 101 to 200, 201 to 300, 300 plus. And then the last one more than I tell my partner, we did have four people who have more than they tell their partner. So what category do you fall in? Do you know? I don't have an accurate number. I think I have a guess.

Myke Hurley: I don't know, but I reckon I'm probably 51 to a hundred. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: And this is just being fountain pens, right? Yeah. Size of fountain pen collection. Yeah. Mine is probably the 101 to 200. I'm probably like over, I'm probably closer, close to 200. I would bet, but I would need, I've never counted. Like I've really never counted on that. So I, that would be my guess. And I don't remember what my answer was, but that's, I think where I fall. But, um, I'm honestly, I'm really happy. The two, there was a pretty good spread in this, right? So less than 10, 154, 10 to 20, 176, 21 to 30, 138. And then once you cross the 30 threshold, you're getting up in the hundreds threshold, right? So it was a, it was a, the, the 31 to 40 and 41 to 50 were smaller in, in respondents than, than some of the larger numbers, which was interesting. So it's kind of the just getting started or I only need one or two things or give me all of them, right? Like it's a, it was pretty telling usual number of pens inked at once.

Brad Dowdy: Where do you fall on this one, Myke? Probably 51 plus.

Brad Dowdy: So, um, you know, you got a special shout out. I think we just need to call this, we need to like give you like an honorarium for this category, right? Just call this like, um, you know, the mic slide or just have a category. Like you can check it says like usual number inked at once. One of them is all, um, one of the responses is clean question mark. Um, so, and, and 11 people are with you, Myke or that or all.

Myke Hurley: Oh, that's what that means. Okay.

Brad Dowdy: Like, yeah. What do you mean clean pens? I think we should just call it Myke. Yeah. Um, they'll just have the category, uh, called Myke. So, uh, Kat, Kat and Kat and Michael, uh, you know, uh, enjoy picking on you there as I always do just, uh, because I like to give you a hard time. I fall, I want to be in the six to 10 pens inked at once. I am always in the 11 to 20, um, just by default. It just happens that way. I'm never ever more. When I get more than like 12 or so inked, I start just like freaking out. I don't like it at all. So the majority here is, is one to five was 373 respondents. Six to 10 was 268 respondents. So, um, anything greater than 10, like it, it, it ratcheted down like pretty quickly, which makes a lot of sense. Ink collection size. I'm actually curious about your response in this. So ink collection size, including samples, the, the buckets are a little bit broader here. So less than 10, 10 to 30, 31 to 50, 51 to a hundred. And then we have some greater ones. Do you know where you fall?

Myke Hurley: Hmm. Hmm.

Myke Hurley: I would say probably 10 to 30. I think, I think that's it for me. Okay. Okay.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I'm, I'm well into the, the 101 to 250, but like in the two, I gotta be in the 200. I don't think I cross into the 251 to 500 category, but I'm, I gotta be like around 200 or something like that. That's again, very confident counting that.

Myke Hurley: I have more than 10. I, I don't think I have more than 30.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. That's pretty good. Yeah. Like that's a good place to be. I think. We had 22 respondents at 501 plus. Yeah. I don't, I don't know, but that's surely not. Surely not. Right. No. Really? No. Bottles and samples. So again, we can just go to.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Yeah. That's, I feel always forget the samples. This is the last time I remember.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. We can just go to fountain pen companion and look at the leaderboards and probably most of those people filled out this survey. Like I know most of those people at the top of those boards. That doesn't surprise me, but it's a big number. All right. Next up, we get into like the, the really fun stuff. This is one of the, one of my favorite slides. I think one of universally, one of the favorite slides of, of everybody. Favorite fountain pen brands. So I'm going to break this down. Um, and I'm just going to read the numbers and then we'll, we'll discuss it. So number one, Pilot Namiki at 487. Again, this is something I missed when we were talking about this the first time around. You can pick multiple in here, right? So we had 909 respondents, but you can pick, you can have a multiple selections for this. So the numbers won't add up to 909. So favorite fountain pen brands, Pilot Namiki, 487 votes. Number two, Myke Twisby, 382 votes. We will circle back to that. Number three, Sailor, 355. Number four, Lamy, 325. Number five, Platinum, 270. Number six, Pelican, 260. And then, uh, seven through 12 are Franklin Christophe, Kaweco, Leonardo, Shone Design, Nakaya, and Montblanc. Like, so this list, I could spend an hour on. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: This is madness to me, like in a good way and bad ways.

Brad Dowdy: Where do you want to start with? Where do you want to start with?

Myke Hurley: So there's just like, I don't even know. So like, Shone Design is really interesting to me in this list. It's just, I, I wouldn't have thought to put it in the list.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, to me, it was Shone and Leonardo were the two that, surprise. Yeah. Surprise isn't the right word, because like, those are two of my favorite brands. The volume of selections was interesting.

Myke Hurley: Of the 900 people, 129 of those 900 put Shone Design in their favorite. It's just like an, it's like a much larger proportion of the respondents than I would have assumed like that for. And then similarly, like what is so interesting to me is that it is above Nakaya and Montblanc. Mm-hmm. That, like, it's, all of this stuff is, is, is interesting to me.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Like, I can see Nakaya not making the list, honestly. I thought Montblanc would be a little bit higher. Mm-hmm. But it's a, it's a particular, Montblanc's actually a particular subset, right? You're really, there's either only one Montblanc pin in existence or you're a Montblanc super fan, right? Right, right, right. You don't kind of dabble in Montblanc. You either have one or you're a super fan. The one I found interesting, and I guess this is just a personal thing, which is, I guess that's what this is about. Kaweco is pretty low. I thought that would be a top five favorite brand. Although, you know, maybe that's not people's favorite, right? I think everybody has one. Secondary or tertiary type of brand.

Myke Hurley: No one's putting it in there, like, well, not no one, but like, for the people that own them, I would say most of the people, a large proportion of the people who answered this probably own a Kaweco. Mm-hmm. But it didn't go high. But then, then this is where my own theory starts to fall apart. So, Pilot, Twisby, Lamy, right? Mm-hmm. So, my theory on these three is everyone kind of likes them, you know? Yes. They're...

Brad Dowdy: They have a broad spectrum of offerings.

Myke Hurley: That are, especially in Twisby and Lamy, and even Pilot to a point, fairly priced, readily available, work well.

Brad Dowdy: They encompass, like, a lot of the best options in the realms that they live in.

Brad Dowdy: Like, you know, Michael mentioned in the video how I had mentioned before about Pilot being first. Like, it's because, like, one of my theory is that Pilot can run the gamut from the entry-level pen to the highest of high-end pens. And people love those products equally for what they are. Like, from the Pilot Metropolitan can have just an enormous amount of love because it's that good of pen. And you can go all the way up to, like, the Namiki, you know, like the Namiki Yukari Royales, which are thousands of dollars. And they have, you know, that level of pen. And they hit every price point in between. Where Twisby doesn't do that, but what Twisby executes well is the beginning to middle range, like, better than anyone, right? So a lot of people dabble in that range and find something that they love.

Myke Hurley: It's still just interesting to me that over half of the people that answered the survey put Pilot in their favorite pen brands.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. I agree. Like, I agree. Like, I'm not surprised that Twisby is number two. Actually, I kind of love that. Yeah. I am.

Myke Hurley: I'm trying to figure out Lamy. Well, because Sailor above Lamy then breaks down.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: One and two, right? So, like, if we like Pilot and Twisby, oh, yeah, everybody loves them. So they put them on.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Brand Preferences

Myke Hurley: And then Sailor is like, yeah, okay. Like, people like Sailor. But then Lamy is then too low, I feel like.

Brad Dowdy: Yes.

Brad Dowdy: Lamy is hard to understand. I could go either way with Lamy.

Myke Hurley: Maybe they're more forgettable.

Myke Hurley: I think that's Kaweko.

Brad Dowdy: Well, but yeah, but that's why Kaweko is down in number eight. Right. I'm almost saying that Lamy should be down there, too. If Kaweko is down there, Lamy should be down there.

Myke Hurley: Okay.

Brad Dowdy: And you know I love Lamy. You know. Like, I would probably have Lamy. If I'm doing this list, gosh, I can't even remember. Like, if I had to order this list. Like, we just had to do check boxes, right?

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm.

Brad Dowdy: Like, you know, pick our favorites. But if I had to do a personal order, I don't even know what I would do.

Myke Hurley: I would go Sailor Platinum.

Myke Hurley: That's one and two, for sure. Sailor Platinum is one and two. Yeah. I don't know.

Brad Dowdy: I'm glad Lamy's that high. I'm, yeah, I'm just, I'm trying to understand. Like you said, I could stare at this slide for an hour and have a million different thoughts.

Myke Hurley: Platinum's too close to Pelican for me. Platinum should have a, in my, again, my opinion, Platinum should be much further ahead than Pelican.

Brad Dowdy: See, I disagree. Okay. Because Platinum has no range whatsoever. Well, I know, but the pens. In their product line.

Myke Hurley: They do have a so good.

Brad Dowdy: They're lucky to have 270. They're lucky to be at number five.

Brad Dowdy: While they could be technically the best pen on the market.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, yeah.

Brad Dowdy: But they're lucky to be at number five just because there's not a lot of options. Right? That's impressive. Pelican has infinite more range than Platinum does. Although Platinum's low end range is spectacular. Like before you get to the 3776, their zero to $50 range is better. It's, that's Twisby level of good.

Brad Dowdy: With the Playziers and the Preppies and things like that. Right? So, but do, does the Platinum, does having 10 Platinum Preppies make them your favorite fountain pen brand? Like, it's, like, people don't really do that. Right? They're going to have, like, a Twisby Eco or a 580. And that's going to be the special pen where the Preppies is just the entry level pen. It doesn't equate. I don't know. I want to talk more about Leonardo and Schoen again.

Brad Dowdy: It makes me really happy to see that. Because that's not something, neither one of those would have been, it's hard. Like, they're two of my favorite brands. I don't know that I would have, I don't know how I voted for this or what I did. I'm just happy that they're there. Right? I think it's, I think it's cool. And also, Myke, I just want to, one caveat. Michael and Kat did have to, like, create these categories. It wasn't a write-in. So, they did miss some. Like, Franklin, not Franklin Kristoff, Faber-Castell. Like, wasn't on the list. Not that it would have rated in the top. But, like, Faber-Castell, Graff von Faber-Castell. A couple of other, you know, brands, like, just forgot on this list. I don't know that they would have cracked the top 12 here. But I do find it telling that Leonardo and Schoen are ahead of Mont Blanc. And I think that's pretty cool. I think it's representative of our community. I think it's great.

Myke Hurley: Especially Schoen design. I just would have not expected that. But I like it.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Sidebar on this slide. I think the way this, the vintage versus modern breakdown is almost 85% of respondents preferred modern. I think that's how I'm reading this. Yeah. In this chart.

Brad Dowdy: Separate from fountain pens, non-fountain pen writing instruments, Myke. Pretty even spread among the top types. Yep. Rollerball, ballpoint. Gel was number one, 478. 478. But then rollerball, 402. Yeah. Rollerball. Number two in this chart, which Kat mentioned was interesting. Mechanical pencil was number two. Gel pen, 478. Mechanical pencil, 425.

Myke Hurley: I think that makes sense to me. Like, mechanical pencils serve a completely different purpose, as does, like, gel pens. That's exactly right. You should have one of each. You've got to have one of each, right? Like, even if you just have one of each, because you never, you know, you might need them.

Brad Dowdy: Right. So, and then rollerball, 402, and ballpoint, 358, and wooden pencil, 328. Those are, I mean, you could just, you know, you could throw a blanket over all those. Those are all really, really close. So, and then separate, like, a complete, like, several deviations down is fineliner, felt tips, and markers. And those are kind of all the same category, you know, if you're thinking about it. All right. And then related to that, this is the non-fountain pen category. So, favorite standard pen brands. It's Pilot at number one. Retro 51, number two. Uniball number three. Zebra four. Pentel five. Lamy six. Sharpie seven. Spoke eight. Karen Dash nine. Rotring Parker. Better than Bic. The retro 51 is, all you have to do is look at the community that replied to this. It's kind of crazy.

Myke Hurley: There's one for everyone, right? Like. Yeah. Again. And then once you get it, you realize it's a great pen. And it's an easy, like, entrant. The pen is easy to find one for you. And then once you get it, I think everyone gets a bit surprised by it for the first time.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So, I was still surprised to see it at number two. The rest of it. So, let's take the big. This is, like, my sweet spot for the broader stationary scope. Pilot, Uniball, Zebra, Pentel, right? Those are the big four. And that's the order that they came in at. And that's probably how I would say the general public would vote for that. I would put Uniball one, but it's close. Pilot 328, Uniball 311.

Myke Hurley: There is one thing that we've learned from so far. Pilot, best pen company ever in all of history. Every product, constantly the best.

Brad Dowdy: I mean, they make the most popular gel. Like, it's not the best. They make the best mechanical pencil. And then, by the way, they have a fountain pen, you know, inventory that crosses, like, every price point ever. Like, hey. And maybe I need to start yelling at them more instead of Lamy. I yell at Pilot's my number two company I yell at. Lamy's still number one, though. But my point being, Pilot and Uniball are far and away the one and two compared to Zebra and Pentel. Like, there's that category is segmented exactly as I would see the overall stationary market. It's Pilot and Uniball at the top and Zebra and Pentel in the second tier. But they each, like, Zebra and Pentel each have some great products. And that's why, like, you know, throw out Retro 51. It's Pilot, Uniball, Zebra, Pentel. Like, that's it. I mean, that lined up with, like, what I think about when I think about standard pens.

Myke Hurley: So I think that you need to make a product called the Spoke 100 because there's just something about that written down that I really like.

Brad Dowdy: It does look funny. So the two of them on this list look funny. Spoke 100 and Bic 88. It seems like it should be. Like, what is the big? I actually, like, tilted my head. Also, Caran Dache 94 is something about that.

Myke Hurley: Because Caran Dache just looks so weird written down to me anyway. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Well, and they already use numbers, like the 849 is their pen. So, yeah, they use numbers in the name. And the Bic 88 just seems like a Bic pen, like one of their weird pens.

Myke Hurley: Celebration pen.

Brad Dowdy: Next up are some fun, some content survey questions. Stationary and Fountain Pen Podcast. This was just a general, what do you listen to? Or do you listen to these things? Or do you not listen to anything? Number one, pen addict. Number two, Tokyo Inklings. Number three, the nib section. Bent Tines, Erasable. And we can go on and on and on. Myke's favorite category is number seven. And he would like to address those 75 people. So, go ahead. Oh, wait. They're not going to hear you.

Myke Hurley: Can I? I can't address them. But I just don't understand the 75 people that filled in a survey for a Slack based on a podcast. But don't listen to that podcast. I don't get it.

Brad Dowdy: It's based on a blog. Based on a blog.

Myke Hurley: Well, all right. That has a podcast. Fair enough. Fair enough. But nevertheless, you never talk about the pen addict Slack on the website.

Brad Dowdy: No. Right?

Myke Hurley: I feel like it's only ever been mentioned here.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I don't want people to know it exists. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: That's the whole joke on everybody is like, this isn't supposed to exist.

Myke Hurley: It's like, so yeah, I just find it, I just find it really odd. And I don't, I don't really understand how those people found their way there. Maybe they don't, maybe they used to listen to the show and can't stand me and then like stop listening. I'm sure that happens. So, I don't know what the deal is, but it's always fascinating to me. Yeah. Yeah. I do think it's funny.

Brad Dowdy: It's good. Um, the point on this slide and the, the next few slides is that if you listen to one of these shows, there's other shows out there that may be worth checking out and have, you know, different kind of, um, you know, focuses from, you know, maybe the pen addict, you know, like the erasable focuses a lot on pens, uh, excuse me, pencils, you know, and, you know, just different, different types of, of creators doing different type of content. So that goes into the stationary and fountain pen YouTube channels. Um, I think it's like, I think the, the top four is, is the break point because, uh, it's Goulet pens, fig boot on pens, uh, Steven Brown and ink dependence. And then number five is none. Right. So that's your gap right there. So like, I do think those are probably the top four kind of most common in the community YouTube channels, Goulet, fig boot, uh, Steven and Myke. And then, um, you get into, uh, Aziza, Gourmet pens, Anderson pens, Inky rocks, uh, Pinboy Roy, and, and, and a bunch more. So like some really good content. Again, you want to use this for discovery purposes, right? Oh, I've never really watched any YouTube channels. Maybe I'll pick, you know, go check out what Aziza does at Gourmet pens and check out her handwriting and, and her pen reviews that she does just such a good job on, you know, something like that. It's like really, really good for discovery. I was surprised to see this next slide or this question, even, uh, to begin with stationary and fountain pen Twitch channels. So, you know, it's got myself, toasty treat penguins, creative havoc, Rose, and Oh, high joy. Um, we're the top five and then none at four 31. One, I'm pretty happy that at least 50% of people even know what Twitch is because that is, it's such an outlier right now. I was actually happy with this result, not because, uh, I was happy that this even exists as a thing because I just think we'll see more and more people, uh, Twitch is such a good platform for stationary. Yeah. And I think it's only going to grow. Obviously I'm biased because I spend a lot of time there, um, and have worked, worked a lot on my Twitch channel and have like so much more I could do. So I am clearly biased and wanting Twitch to succeed, but I, the community's great. Uh, it's very open, very welcoming and it's, it's just cool. So I was happy to see that. And y'all should definitely go check, check out, uh, toasty treat and penguins creative and havoc rose and Oh high joy. And we have a whole, whole bunch of others that I can point people to, to, you know, kind of, um, you know, hang out and, you know, make their day go by a little bit better. Hearing someone talk about stationary, even if it's just in the background. All right. Switching slides a little bit. We're going to go into favorite nib size, Myke. I think this is pretty much in line with the percentages. I would guess. So we're favorite nib size. We're going with general stock nib sizes here. So extra fine, fine, medium, broad, double broad, and zoom. I'm surprised zoom made this. There was a whole discussion. Michael had a whole discussion about, Hey, where do I put stub? Where do I put zoom? Uh, in this. So, um, that's, those are things that, uh, we can continue to work on separating out or segmenting as we see fit. There's a next slide is called favorite grind, which we'll talk about. So the top two are fine and medium, uh, fine with 31.4% medium with 30% and then extra fine with 19%. Um, no surprises here. I'm actually surprised extra fine is that high, but I think with the modern fountain pen user, that extra fine, you know, people transition from gel pens. A lot of times, um, they see, you know, want to try to write in some of the extra fine stuff. Um, but any surprises here to you?

Myke Hurley: Um, I don't think so. I was, I liked seeing medium and fine basically equal. Yeah. About 30%. And I think that's a good comment that you make that like fine and extra fine probably do pretty well for people coming from those things. And then I think like then a lot of people move to medium because I do think for a lot of people, medium is a better fountain pen experience because you're getting a little bit of a more rounded experience, I think. Right. Right. You get some of the more qualities a fountain pen can give you.

Brad Dowdy: Right. And then Kat had a good commentary, you know, just from a survey standpoint. It's like, well, do we differentiate between Western and Japanese, you know, line widths, right? Like not all mediums are created equal. What am I answering here? That type of thing. So it's, it's a little bit difficult. Yes.

Myke Hurley: That's tricky because there isn't a standard. Right. Right. Right. Because certain pen brands might, a medium and one might be halfway between a broad and a medium. You know what I mean? There isn't like a, oh, a medium nib grind is this millimeter.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Right. Right. So you bring it into favorite grind and this is the, you know, this is where you ratchet up the nerd level. Right. So the no, no grind on the pens is 34.6%. Right. So in that category. Mm-hmm. Which is fair. Like you don't, this is, this is like the specialty category, right? So stub nib is second at 15.5. Curse of italic, 12.6. Architect at 10.9. I think that's pretty high. Then we have like the sig nib and then like some other specialty nibs, needlepoint, naganadas.

Myke Hurley: I think I know why Architect is so high. Why? Because it is a branded, like a known grind. I think it's one that people said like they want to get a nib grind. I've heard of Architect.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. Same thing goes for the sig grind that Franklin Kristoff does, the naganada grind and the needlepoint grind, right? Those are like almost like brand name grinds, if you will.

Myke Hurley: Sig grind, I understand what it is where it is because you can get it in one place really. Like, you know. Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And it's, it's a grind that's in between like the stub and the cursive italic, generally speaking. So it fits a lot of people's idea of, hey, I want to modify.

Myke Hurley: I've never really considered stub as a grind because I've never had someone do that. I buy stub nibs.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So I've had stub nibs ground. Uh-huh. I've had like a medium turned into a stub. Um, so yeah, I have had that. And that was one of Michael's points is like, do we put stub, since you can get a lot of stock stub nibs, do we put that in the stock or does that go in the grind? So yeah, it's like all these kind of, uh, machinations on where to put the right things. The other hobbies category is always interesting. And it would be like literally from one to 23 is how many items on here. Not one of these is a surprise. A lot of rock climbers, Brad. That's true. Rock climbing was, uh, was, was up there. Uh, 31, 31 rock climbers ahead of the 13 homebrewers. Mm-hmm. Um, knitting I thought would be a little bit higher. Knitting was down at 21 on the list, um, where photography is way up at number five on the list at 250, as well as cooking and baking and hiking and camping. So, um. Watches at 14 feels lower than I would have expected. I was going to say the same thing. Based on the activity in the Slack channel, that must be the entirety of the Slack watches channel, which is the most active channel on there. Um, but that must be like the entirety of that group must have voted on this list, uh, just to get that high in here is, is what I'm thinking.

Myke Hurley: So, it's still a lot of crossover between those two, really. I mean, like, even the companies.

Brad Dowdy: This whole list. Yeah. This whole list is, is really telling for the, the, the crossover potential, right? Like, it's, it's obvious to me what it is. Next question I thought was extremely interesting. Maybe the most interesting slide. Theoretical maximum budget for a single pen. What that, I mean, you've already looked at the chart. You're probably staring at it right now, but what would you have said, or how did you answer this to you, if you recall?

Myke Hurley: Probably like 2000. Yeah. Like, if we'd like, cause this is, I can't imagine spending that on a pen. I'd haven't. Right. I've, I've, I've got to a thousand. Yes. I've never crossed it, but that means that a thousand is not my maximum budget. So, I'd have to say 2000.

Brad Dowdy: See, I've spent over a thousand on a single pen, but I don't have the desire to do it again, just because like, I don't know what pen would make me that happy to spend that much money on. So, I, I, I'm probably picked a thousand. Um, I'm actually surprised. So, $2,000 was 51.9% of the respondents. And that surprised me. I thought it would be either 500 or a thousand.

Myke Hurley: Well, I think it is the problem that a lot of people have hit a thousand.

Brad Dowdy: Maybe so.

Myke Hurley: Or like close. Context. To like 800 or whatever.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know? Like, I think some of like the, the people have been doing this for a while and are really into the hobby and are like fountain pen fanatics. A lot of them have crossed the $500 threshold, right? For sure. That $500 to $1,000 range. You can get a lot of really like crazy good pens in there in like, for like seven, 800, six, seven, $800. I think like the most, like a lot of people have hit that. So, would they consider spending more? Like, yeah. I don't know. So, I, I, I was surprised it was that, that big a number was 2000.

Myke Hurley: It is pretty big.

Brad Dowdy: I will, I will, I will agree with you that. Like 52, 52% said they would, you know? And this is not just like magic money. This is like, hey, I had to work for this. I had to save this up. I had to do the thing, you know? I had to, like, you didn't win the lottery.

Myke Hurley: I could imagine though. You know what I think it might be too is like, there aren't a lot of pens that break a grand. Yeah. And so like everyone, even if they don't have it, everyone has a pen that is $1,000 that they're like, I would love to own that. Probably, yeah. So maybe that makes it feel less like, like if they were ever going to have the ability to do it, maybe they would do it. I don't know. I don't know.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I would have, I just would have thought those two categories would have flipped. Like $1,000 maximum budget is 26% and then $2,000 is 52%. I thought those would have been exactly flipped, would have been my guess.

Myke Hurley: I think that would have made more logical sense to what I would have expected.

Brad Dowdy: But here we are. Here we are. All right. Last question. The best question of them all. And this was a little bit surprising. To post or not to post. No, don't post the pen or yes, post the pen. So the no's have it as they should, but only at 58.3%. That's not high enough. It's not high enough. No. So the posters were at 41.7%. That needs to be like 75, 25.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So I'm going to need y'all. We're going to need to work on the question next year and force people into the right answer. Kat and Michael, we're going to have to tweak the question just to get those percentages a little bit higher.

Myke Hurley: And also, if anybody answers none to the podcast question, it just automatically starts playing an episode of the show.

Brad Dowdy: So none is a download link to episode 400 of the Pen Addict podcast.

Myke Hurley: They can no longer say that because they've listened.

Brad Dowdy: We'll work on that.

Myke Hurley: We'll work on that. This is so good. I appreciate so greatly the time spent by Kat and Michael on this. I know what it's like to create a Google form that people complete and you try and draw information from it. And it is a lot of work. So I greatly appreciate it. I love the presentation. I love that you share it the way that you do. And I hope that you feel the want to continue.

Survey Analysis Summary

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It's spectacular. Y'all go watch the video. They do a great job of breaking everything down. Better than us, in fact. So it's good to have their perspective as the builders of the survey as well. You know, like what are they working on? Why did they choose these questions? And, you know, what are some of the ideas? We're just looking at the results.

Myke Hurley: Some of the answers we find perplexing, but they find them perplexing in a different way because they ask the questions in a certain way, right? Or create the questions in a certain way. And so they probably had and they did have different expectations going into it with the questions that they ask. And the answers can be surprising. Honestly, if I was going to make a suggestion, I would really love a ranked favorite pens. Because I do not think that we are getting the right answer from that list. We're getting an answer. I don't think it's the answer we're expecting to get. So like what we're learning is lots of people like a set of brands. But I would like to know a ranked, like a ranking. I would like to know what are people's ranking of their favorite brand brands. Yeah. Yeah, I think that would be interesting. Not just tell me all the brands you like, right? Which is what we're getting at the moment.

Brad Dowdy: But I think like both of those questions... Both valid. ...comparatively would be really valuable to see, you know, what the differences are.

Myke Hurley: But yeah, I'm not saying that the answer to that question... The answer to that question is now fascinating for a bunch of reasons that I wouldn't have expected from what that question was. But I personally would also just like to know how do people rank their favorite pen brands? Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Like I don't even know how I would answer that today. If you gave me... If you said my choices are those 12 choices on that slide, come back in an hour. I mean, and it might be why they don't do it, right?

Myke Hurley: Because that is a much harder question than just tell me all the brands you like.

Brad Dowdy: And as someone who uses all these things and has opinions about all these things, I still, I think I would have a difficult time saying this is number one.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Yeah. No, I agree. It is hard. But I think it should be done. I would love to see it. Like I said earlier, I could do top two and then I got stuck. Right? But I just, it's just, I would be really, you know, like you could even just say like, what is your favorite? Like just one. Yeah. Right? Everyone has their favorite, surely. Right? And that would do most of the job. You don't need to rank 10 brands. You would get what I'm looking for. Right? So I think that might be cool actually. So continue doing, Myke and Kat, if you are willing to take any feedback, you don't have to listen to me at all. Continue asking that question the way that you have, right? So we can get that information. But then another question, which is just, what is your favorite pen brand?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. One singular follow-up.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: To pin people down to one. Yeah. And see how that breaks down. Because then I would just love to overlay those two. Exactly. Next to each other. That's what I want is the overlay. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: How does that then move around? Yeah. Super cool.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Love it. Love this. All right. Thank you so much, Michael and Kat, for doing this. I really, really appreciate it. Y'all are superstars. This is so much fun. Really useful. And I really appreciate it. And thanks to everyone who answered. And thanks to the participants who spent the time to do this and helped us have a little bit of fun and gain a little bit of insight. So thank you all.

Myke Hurley: All right, gang. So you can go to the show notes and you can find a link to the PDF so you can take a look through that. Although I hope you kind of would have by now if you wanted to do that. Because otherwise you're listening to us to describe it. But then you can also go and watch a much more in-depth and detailed kind of run through of this data from the YouTube video from Michael and Kat. So there's links to the show notes for that. You can go to relay.fm slash penaddict slash 493 if you want to get your hands on that information. Thank you so much to Uni for their support of this week's episode. If you want to find Brad online, you can go to penaddict.com, spokedesign.com. Brad streams multiple times a week at twitch.tv slash penaddict. He is Dowdyism on Twitter and penaddict on Instagram. I am iMike, I-M-Y-K-E. Thanks so much for listening. If you celebrate, Merry Christmas. Happy holidays. We'll be back next week in turn and say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.