I've been in Utah at a conference for the past few days. It's not about technology, which is a bit of a shock to my system. ;) For starters, I discovered something about travel, to whit: if you book a flight using the Alaska Air system from Seattle to Salt Lake, you can do this, even though Alaska doesn't fly to Salt Lake -- it's operated by Sky West. Okay. Best of luck finding a Sky West gate at Sea-Tac -- and it's a long walk from end to end. Turns out the flight booked with Alaska and operated by Sky West is boarded by Delta, go figure. Distance between Alaska and Delta ticket counters while carrying a heavy bag? A long way...
But back to the conference. Because I'd be attending general sessions and breakouts, of course I brought my tablet pc to take notes, expecting that there would be lots of others doing the same thing. No. Looking around the room of about 100 people, I am the only one taking notes on any kind of electronic device. Compare this to CES, or any other tech related show -- I've seen people almost come to blows over sitting proximity to a power outlet. Not a problem here.
Next, I love OneNote, and the ability to drop a slide presentation in and take notes is just awesome. But if you ask someone if you can get a "soft copy" when they are handing out slides at a conference where nobody else is using a laptop, you get a very strange look. I didn't even bother asking if could get it on my USB key...AND it turns out that in my entire briefcase, I have three tablet pens and exactly zero real pens. Talk about living in a digital world!
This actually makes me super bullish about the role of technology in society -- we have so much room to run, so many more ways where smart use of technology can really improve people's lives!