What’s more American than a good old fashioned holiday? Lots of colorful waving flags. Good food cooked outdoors. Family and Friends.

But what happened to the meaning for the holiday? The reason we celebrate?

Memorial Day is a day of remembrance where we stop and remember the great sacrifices made by men and women in our military who have died while serving our country. Died while serving us. But ultimately, died and were cut short from being fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, sons and daughters, and living out a full and productive life. Died to protect and sustain what we have now and our children will enjoy in the future.

Where’s the color and the food and the joy and celebration in that? There’s a reason to celebrate, but with some reverence and some meaning.

Maybe for Memorial Day we should each place a single American flag on our front doors just to outwardly say “we remember.”

Maybe at noon on Memorial Day, no matter where we are we should stop, and in complete silence think for a few moments. Just a few minutes where we reflect on the men and women who died and the families and friends who suffered that loss. Just a few minutes to thank them, thank God and truly appreciate all that we have. Just a few minutes.

And maybe we should give this memorial on the “real” Memorial Day, May 30, even if it falls on an inconvenient day and messes up our enjoyable three day holiday weekend. Steve McCallion explains it well in his article about reinventing Memorial Day, http://l.qsig.com/39rn .

It’s not about politics, elections or parties, but the ability to have politics and openly debate what we want and how we feel.

Please, celebrate. Parade. Go to the lake or the pool. Cook out and eat well. Enjoy yourself with family and friends. All of that and more is exactly why we should stop and remember and appreciate.

Just a few minutes. Stop and reflect. Not too much to ask.

QSI Chairman and Chief Pathfinder, Steve Lee, enjoys his gadgets and steadfastly justifies their time and expense by involving them in every day business and communications for QuickSilver Interactive Group’s clients.

So it was no surprise when he showed up recently at the American Airlines Center, the largest arena in North Texas, for a presentation to venue managers from across the region, with only his trusty Apple iPad in tow. “It made me a bit nervous,” admitted Lee, “I had never used an iPad all by itself to drive a presentation. But, that’s one of the reasons I bought it, so I wouldn’t have to carry around my chunky lap top.”

So the iPad was dutifully connected to the video cable feeding the American Airlines Center’s new 1080 HD video scoreboard system and “click, bang” look up, the image was bright, and colorful and big, very BIG.

I’ve been in front of 2,000 people with screens much smaller and with far less clarity, said Lee. Watching basketball, hockey or arena football at American Airlines Center is like sitting in your living room in front of a huge HD TV. “I could get used to this.”

Lee’s role at QSI involves helping clients best utilize digital systems, devices, web and social media to effectively market and communicate with their publics. He speaks regularly to regional and national groups on current techniques and the future of personal and mass communications and technology.

We’ve heard a lot lately from the lovers and haters of all things Apple about the iPad. Even the president has chimed in with an insult to all gadgets that deliver information and are not a Blackberry. (Can you spell “bias?”)

Maybe it’s time a real iPad owner weighed in. Someone who has actually used the iPad in doing real business and not just playing with it for 30-minutes. Someone who is not testing nor paid to critique and therefore not required to find fault. Someone who is not trying to replace another business tool or justify the iPad’s role in the world or for Apple stockholders. In other words — little ole me.

Now, in the spirit of full disclosure I must admit I’ve used all manner of computers for years but have preferred Apple computers for a while now. I have an iPod and use an iPhone everyday, mostly for business. I have these tools and toys not because they are Apple, but because they are so darn easy to use and work so well together.

If the Shoe Fits, Wear It

Like the iPod and the iPhone, Apple’s iPad stands to be a game changer, potentially having a major impact on how we do what we do in our daily business and personal lives. But that impact will happen only if using the iPad satisfies a real need — Not some contrived reason, but a genuine purpose. Like so many other, I have no interest (as much as I love them) in yet one more gadget cluttering up my world and stealing my time.

Further, while I’m sure the iPad has many fine and clever game playing capabilities, we’ll stick to it’s business uses in this article.

So, strictly business, how will the iPad be used in day-to-day business and how does it compare to what we’re doing now?

Personal Needs and Tastes

I remember the first day I showed up at a client’s offices for a meeting lugging my clunky, heavy lap top computer. I thought I was so cool — cutting edge, and so did they. Sore back be damned, and what’s this Internet thing anyway?

As I’ve aged, the sheer weight of things I carry around all day has become an issue. When I traveled to and throughout Europe, I learned to live with one bag and one backpack. Weight and simplification are important and I’ve tried to keep to that discipline ever since.

Today, I cut out pounds and ounces in what I carry around and try not to depend on the Internet connections of the people I visit. It’s just too much trouble to discover the wireless, get a password, yada, yada, yada. So, a device that is four pounds lighter than my lap top and can connect to the Internet from anywhere at any time scores big points in my daily regime.

Points for the iPad.

What Now, What If?

Let’s play the “what now” and “what if” game of business computing tools.

When I’m at my desk at the office or in my home-office, I use a desktop computer. Full featured, and I can do about anything I need including writing, financials, presentations, web browsing, email, instant messaging, blogging, social media wandering, web page production, Skype, photowork and much, much more. When I’m at my desk I need to do anything and everything. But when I walk away, well, that’s very different.

While away from my desks I generally need only four things — access, communications, presentations and the ability to take notes.

Access

When in meetings I often refer to notes or documents and search Web sites for information or quick answers to the topic being discussed at hand. This network access saves lots of time because it let’s me answer questions that come up quickly and eliminates the time wasting “I’ll get back to you on that.” syndrome. Wifi and wireless (3G) access on my iPad are vital so that I’m never without connection.

Point, iPad.

Communications

In today’s world we can never be too far out of touch, can we? Email and instant message are crucial to me and I use them almost 20 hours a day. During meetings I might ping one of our employees with a quick IM to ask a question or clarify a point we’re discussing. Instant answers, instant status, instant updates. Saves lots of time.

During and after meetings I might follow-up with a quick email thank you note or a list of action items or questions or just share notes on what we discussed. Having the ability to handle the email right then and right there while it’s fresh in my mind and my notes is wonderful and keeps the process moving briskly.

The iPad is great for short messages and emails and can be used anywhere — office, car, coffee shop.

Point, iPad.

Presentations

Much of my work life involves presenting. Client presentations, speeches, seminars, workshops — a myriad of teaching situations. Having my presentation slides available when I travel to a client’s or prospect’s offices is useful, not absolutely essential, but occasionally it proves very powerful.

Now, being a Mac kind of guy means that I use Apple’s Keynote to build my shows, and it’s easy to port those presentations from the Mac to the iPad. Even if you do Powerpoint decks, the Keynote app on the iPad imports ppt files just fine.

But, the good and easy stops there. Even at only $10, the Keynote app on the iPad is so limited that it’s a faded shadow of the computer program from which it’s named. Existing Keynote files copied from the Mac to the iPad have most of their exciting transitions removed. The Keynote app on the iPad will show presentations, sure, but they remind me of the primitive Powerpoint shows I could put together years and years ago. The words and graphics are there, but the transitions are boring and unimaginative.

No points for the iPad.

Notetaking

My memory isn’t what it used to be. No, not computer memory but my real memory, and faulty memory means problems in business. So I depend on notes that I take in meetings, when I’m reading and researching and when I’m thinking, dreaming and scheming. I have to have a quick and efficient notetaking mechanism that won’t let me miss it or lose it.

For my lap top there are numerous great notepad applications. You can literally match your personal notetaking preferences to an application that fits almost perfectly. It’s even easy to find programs that sync your notes up between computers at the office, home and lap top.

The iPad has some interesting notetaking apps, but few that are genuinely intuitive and easily sync with other computers. Sure, you can cobble up a system that works but it’s barely worth the trouble. So, instead you have to settle for something that let’s you type words, but doesn’t make things very easy.

Again, no points for the iPad.

The Big Result

So in the end, the iPad excels at the two big objectives, network access and communications, but falls down handling presentations and notetaking.

You can certainly work around these deficiencies, and settle for apps that do most of what you want. But my hope is that the tidal wave of iPad apps appearing every day will soon provide the tools that overcome my disappointments in presentations and notetaking. And there is no questions that the iPad will do many, many other things besides what I’ve mentioned here, and those things may be important to you.

For me, I treasure my iPad. Light, flexible, capable and extremely quick and easy to use. Even typing on the small, touch sensitive keyboard is livable. In fact, this blog article was mostly written and edited on my iPad. So, for me, I’m delighted with my iPad as a supplement to desktop and lap top computers.

Comparisons

I tried hard in this article to avoid directly comparing the iPad to lap tops or other dissimilar devices. But I failed.

Even in my expectations of what the presentation and notetaking apps would do I weighed in wanted to see lap top type apps, not iPad type apps. So, maybe an adjusted mindset is needed.

Here’s my justification… To get the iPad’s size down to 1.5 pounds, the battery life up to 10 hours, the connectivity to a fast Wifi or 3G, and have 200,000 apps to play with, I have to settle for diminished capability in some of the apps.

I can live with that.

Until next time. May all the good news you hear be true.

Cheers,
steve