Editing The Pen Addict 433/transcript (section)

== Pen Show Adaptations ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' It's going to be the scheduling of time for vendors who are participating. Like you'll say, hey, I want to I'm looking for or I want to find out more about Edison pens. I'm going to book I'm going to pick the schedule for Brian and Andrea Gray from 10 to 1015 or 10 to 1030. I don't know what the time slots are and do virtual shopping with Brian as my guide. Oh, OK, so and then so the vendors will have all of these time slots Friday, Saturday and Sunday, essentially is my understanding.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. Where you are as a vendor having the opportunity to talk to someone. This is an interesting.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. I want to preface all of what I'm about to say here by saying you've got to try something, right? Don't know what's going to work. Don't know what's not going to work.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, I have one big issue we're going to get to. So we'll see if you say it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' OK, I think that this is something to try, but it doesn't sound like the right thing to me. Because one, it sounds absolutely exhausting to the vendors because you are needing to be available to have conversations for that entire amount of time, which is not the way that pen shows go. Right. Right. So where you have downtime and someone's booked out the entire time and also like there's no walk by traffic. It's also as a purchaser, quite intimidating because I like to just look at the tables. I don't want to talk to people unless I want to talk to them. Right. I want to just browse most of the time, although arguably you don't need to browse because you can just look at the websites already. So in theory, you have if you want to be a browser, just look at the person's website. If you want to ask questions, book one of the time slots. Right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm just not convinced that this is.

'''Myke Hurley:''' The thing. So you've kind of hit on what I see is the problem and I boil it down to volume. Yeah. Right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's impossible for you to get even close to the amount of people that could come and look at your product on a daily basis.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Because your time commitment is enormous. Yeah. Which at a pen show, your time commitment is enormous, but you're there. You're physically, you know, you physically chose to be available for anyone who walks by to sell to. Mm-hmm. And this is a little bit more direct. It's going to be a challenge. There's no doubt. I am so glad that they're doing this and I want to support it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' This is what we have been talking about the whole time. Someone's got to try something. It has to be done. Because no one was doing anything. And from this, I mean, understandably, because what are you going to do? I mean, I have my, I think we've spoken about it. I know what I would do. We can get to that in a minute. But even if this overall doesn't work, I guarantee people are going to take away something that they've learned. Something did work or like now I've done this. I could see doing it another way. Because I kind of can understand the idea of like allowing for these people to be available to answer questions is an important part of the process. I'm just not sure that this is the way to do it. But I also don't have off the top of my head a better way to do that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Right. And like the people running the show, this is a lot of work to manage this. This is probably as much work as doing a physical show. Because once you get everyone's table set up, you know, at a physical show, you're pretty set for the rest of the weekend. You know, you have to, you know, put out fires that come up and take the gate attendance, you know. But this, managing a digital thing, I don't know how many vendors are participating. This is a lot of work. I'm very interested to see how this goes. And I hope everyone who listens participates. Let me ask you.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You are a pen show vendor. Would you do this? As a vendor.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I would not commit Friday, Saturday, and Sunday in my house to sit in front of a computer to have 15 to 30 minute sales block windows. It's not worth my time.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Because it's a hard sale, isn't it? Right. On your perspective.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But I would be available for four hours on Saturday afternoon. And I don't know if that's what they're asking. Like, I don't know that level of detail. Right. But if my availability has to be Friday, Saturday, Sunday, open to close. It wouldn't be worth it. But if I could say, okay, Nock is available from 12 to 4 for questions, you know, maybe that and maybe that's how they're doing it. I don't know totally. So then I would say, hey, that's a great time block for me.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. So if I was doing a pen show right now, I would steal a little bit of what Detroit is doing and what you just mentioned. I think that that is an interesting idea of like products are available. But if you have questions on a product, these people will be available from this time to this time. But bear in mind that the product may have sold out by then, you know, like whatever. Right. My way of doing it is basically just a glorified online store, but it enables these people to sell the product that they otherwise would have made just for the pen show. So basically, I would work with a lot of vendors. So, you know, it's what I would want to do. And you have to achieve one of two things. Prices you cannot get elsewhere or limited edition product. They are the two things at the virtual pen show. And so as a consumer, that's what you know you're going to get. Because a lot of the time, that is what you get at a pen show. So, you know, it would be one destination and we would have brands of different kinds, including a lot of small makers. And it's a case of like you know that you're either going to get limited edition products from makers like woodshed, makers like Carolina pen, right? Like this is what you expect to get at a pen show. So, or larger companies that have larger stock options or like even like a Frank and Kristoff as well, right? So you get limited. Or companies that come, you know, like say like a Drumgools or Vaness or Andersons and say like you have to offer a discount, which you don't have to say up front. But there is a meaning that if you come and buy the stuff, then people are going to get a price discount. And that's why they're doing it. So that's kind of like the bones of what I think an event like this should be. But you've got to get a lot of buy-in and that's really tricky. And there would be an element of wanting people to be around. But I think that you could combat, I don't know exactly how you would combat it, but there is something to be said for these makers to be able to be able to answer questions for people. And maybe, like for all I know, maybe this idea of slot booking is the way to do it because you only have to be around at the times you've gotten booked. But that could get a bit out of control. I don't know. I'm happy to see someone trying something because up to this point, nobody's done anything compelling, understandably. And then hopefully as we move into the end of this year and into next year, there'll be some more options. Because basically, I don't think that we're going to be having any pen shows for...

'''Myke Hurley:''' First half of next year? Maybe longer. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm thrilled that this is happening. I want to be part of it. I want to participate in it. I want to support it because they're putting their necks out to do this. And we'll see how it goes. We obviously have a lot of questions. I have a lot of questions. I have a lot of things to think about. But we have to start somewhere. And I'm glad that Dale Pencala has said, hey, we're going to give this a shot and to do this. So I think it's great. And we'll be anxious to see how it goes. And I'll see if I can get some feedback on the show. I'm sure I can. And we'll see what their pros and cons and their takeaways were from doing this. And once they get feedback from all the vendors that are participating too, they'll be able to find out like, hey, what worked for you, what didn't, things like that. So good stuff for sure. All right. You want to wrap this up on a couple of products? Yeah. That have passed through my hands that I have lots of questions about. But these are kind of like the first look. And you're going to be hearing some commentary on these products. Yep. First up is the AutoHut Design 03. This is one of the pens, the newest pens that I've gotten for myself to review. Our friend Dries at the Pencil Case blog did this review of this AutoHut pen. And I was like, man, that is a perfect pen for me. It looks amazing. It's really cool design. It's kind of basic but kind of complex at the same time. Huh. It's not crazy expensive. AutoHut has been around for, I don't know, a century. But they're kind of modernizing their lineup now recently. You know, they've been very classic German-styled pens. And now this one is kind of like this modern take. To me, they're like a mashup of Lamy and Faber-Castell, right? It's like this kind of perfect mashup between those two companies. So it's totally German, right? Like it is the perfect German company. And I ordered this pen because I wanted to see. Like I've never reviewed an AutoHut pen before. And I'm going to have a lot of thoughts on this pen. I really like it. And I really am really confused by it at the same time. So I just wanted to put this on your radar. Because I'm not sure how familiar with the brand you are. But they're making some changes to their styles. to their product offerings that I think might push them up a notch from where they've been in the past. And I want to take a look at what they're doing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The one that you're looking at is the Design 3?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, 3. Yes, it's an all-black, kind of long, slimline, cylindrical pen. Black nib. Actually, black everything. Black accessories. Black clip. Black nib. All of it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But they don't just do a black one, though, right? They also do rose white, dark gray, light gray. The rose white is nice. It's rose golden white. Yeah. This is an interesting looking design. It kind of looks like the Apple Pencil a little bit.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Mm-hmm.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. It's got that band on it, hasn't it?

'''Myke Hurley:''' So they've always kind of done these metal shapes before. But they've always just been, like, if, you know, stock photo fountain pen styles. You know what? I don't mean that in a bad way. But it was just never my style, right? I don't need, you know, your basic cross or your basic shaper. And that's what I felt like the auto hut was. And now... Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well... They have other designs that are more on their page. Like Design 1 and Design 2, they're kind of a little bit pedestrian.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Which that doesn't mean they're good quality or bad quality. I mean, you know, sure, they're perfectly fine. Yeah. But now I'm interested. Okay. Now we're talking modern styles, you know, PVV-coated nibs, you know, all black looks. You know, it's very interesting. So I'm looking forward to review this.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Do they make their own nibs?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I don't know. That's a good question. I don't know.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Because they're branded with their own branding.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yes. They're like fully... It's not just like a stamping. It's like a fully designed nib. It's designed. Mm-hmm.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' At least from my experience, fully designed tends to mean it's your own. Mm-hmm. I mean, it depends on the scale that you're buying at. But I can't recall a brand that had such heavy, unique branding on a nib that they didn't make themselves. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, I don't know if I can... It might be on their product pages, you know, if I dig a little bit more into their history. I can find it. You know, this is... Like I said, this is a company that's been around since the early 1900s. So who knows? They very well could. Very possible then, right? So... Yep. The second product that I just got in... I got in last week, but I didn't open it until yesterday, is the Sumkin Weekly Planner. So you know from a couple years ago how much I loved my Sumkin Planner.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I just found it, Brad, on their website.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Products by Otto Hart have a stylized logo engraved into the nib, which is inspired by the Bauhaus... Oh, it just says it's engraved. I didn't find what I hoped I was finding. They just talk about the fact that they engraved the nibs. Yeah. Sorry.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. No problem. No problem. It's interesting. Maybe we can find out. So we'll do a little research on that. But this is... It's a really good nib. Like, it's a very German fine nib on this. And, you know, it's just... It writes well. It flows well. So this Sumkin sent me a couple of paper goods. Sent me a notebook, a standard notebook, a Slim Traveler's notebook, and then a 2021 weekly planner. This planner is awesome.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Very pretty.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's also awesomely expensive. It's 70 euro. Woo! So... Wow. I have a lot to say about that. And this is a product we're going to talk about more.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Going through this yesterday, it is all of the things planner, right? It is the full service planner. It's got every calendar layout, every style. It's got habit tracking. It's got, you know, the world map. It's got blank pages in the back. Like, a lot of blank pages. Like, 40 or 50 blank pages. So, like, this is a thorough planner, right? It doesn't just do one thing as a planner. It does all the things as a planner, which is good for the price point. And if I was walking down the street in Paris in front of the Sumkin shop and walked in and saw this planner and saw it was 70 euro, I probably wouldn't blink, right? But in relation to, like, what we're used to as planners as the expensive ones being half this price, right? You know, you question, like, well, what am I getting for this? And, you know, that's what we're going to explore, right? Sumkin's making all of these products in-house. They're basically a printer who's making these products. And, you know, I say it's 70 euro as thinking it's expensive, but I'm also saying that as someone who is about to crack open a $130 Misubi journal. That's just a journal, blank page journal, right? So, you know, buying products, stationary products that are expensive takes a lot of thought. And I'm going to be checking this one out. I'm probably going to be giving this away, but I really want to put some thought into what are we getting here for the price? Does it feel right? And if you're going to make a commitment to a single product and you like this style and format, I wouldn't have a problem paying 70 euros. But I say that knowing that you can buy a Hobonichi Techo for half of that. You can buy a Jibun Techo for half of that. And then you can buy, you know, Leuchterms and Midori's for a third of that. So, you know, it's just what you're liking, what you're looking to get out of a planner, what type of style and aesthetic, quality features and things like that you're getting. But I wanted to point that out because I kind of can't stop thinking about it yet. Like I could never use this planner, right? It's too much for me. I need a more simple planner, but like I get it. It's kind of good and kind of expensive.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's beautiful though.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So yeah, it feels great. The fit and finish of this is killer. Like they've done a good job with it, but it's expensive.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Can I just mention that the theme system is on sale at the moment? You may. When I mean on sale, I mean on sale. It's $15, which is a 25% discount. We have some stock of version one that we would like to sell off before version two later on this year.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Any day now I will have final prototype, which is nerve wracking. But the current journal is on sale for $15. It's worth remembering. The layout and the system itself is unchanged from version one to version two. Like when it comes to how you write your themes, how you track everything. I've just made some tweaks to the design and I've added a few features for the next edition. And version two will be more expensive than version one was. So because we're putting more into it, the product will be a higher quality product than the original one, provided everything goes the way that I'm hoping. So we'll be increasing the price because it's actually becoming more expensive for us to make it. So if you want a theme system journal, if you love the theme system journal, you can pick one up for $15 over at cortexmerch.com right now.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So this reminds me, Myke, and I won't extend this too long because I was going to put an entirely new segment in this episode on the Zettelkasten. I listened to the Notes Cortex podcast finally yesterday, not realizing that the Zettelkasten was mentioned in there. And I have gone through this and have a lot of thoughts on that. And I wasn't going to torture you. I would really like to know more about that, but not today. Not today. And it's a whole 10-minute, 15-minute topic to discuss that. But being an index card user, obviously, it's very interesting to me. So you should put a link in the show notes for anyone that wants to go find out about this note-taking system called Zettelkasten. And as you say, I have no clue if I'm pronouncing it right, but I'm sure we're here from the audience.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' From the Germans.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. As we do. All right. That's it for today, Myke.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay. All right. If you would like to find links and information about this episode, you can go to relay.fm slash penaddict slash 433. If you want to find Brad online, you go to penaddict.com. He is also at penaddict on Instagram and at dowdyism on Twitter, D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M. I am at iMike, I-M-Y-K-E. Both Brad and myself are Twitch streamers as well as podcasters these days. Brad has an official schedule. It's Tuesday, Thursday, 10 a.m. And Eastern, twitch.tv slash penaddict. I'm a little bit more higgledy-piggledy right now as my streaming setup is in beta, but I stream maybe once or twice a week at mike.live, and it's mostly keyboard-related content. And that's probably the plan. But I'm working on stuff. I just got affiliate, Brad. Nice. Got affiliate last week. And I'm working on visual design and emotes and all that kind of stuff now. That's my next big project. Cool. You can go and check those out if you like, too. Thank you so much to Harry's and Pen Chalet for their support of this episode, and we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]