Editing The Pen Addict 487/transcript (section)

== Pen Materials Variation ==


'''Myke:''' I'm wondering if it'll be any different with different material, like, different pens or pencils or whatever.

'''Brad:''' Yep. That's totally what I want to try to gauge. I didn't, what I should have done at the beginning, since all the fountain pens are kind of different, you know, different shapes, different weights, different feel, to kind of have, like, just a feel rating. Like, say, like, a one through ten, when I'm done with this session, was, like, you know, did I feel pretty okay? Like, not so great? Or, like, really terrible? And I didn't track that. Because there's been some days where I've barely been able to finish. So, yeah, I want to know with some of these other pens and pencils, how or if I notice a difference in the way I write with a fountain pen nib versus a standard pen or pencil. So, we'll see. That will be coming up soon. Maybe next week we will discuss that. So, yeah, I've, you know, knocked out three pens so far. Like, I've drained them, you know, from whatever they were inked up with. So, that feels good. So, like, overall, big picture, I'm happy with how it's going. I'm still working on figuring some things out even ten days into it. But I'm going to keep going. Like, there's no end in sight. I'm just going to see how far I can get and how much I can push it.

'''Myke:''' All right. Let's take a break. We've got a lot to get to today. All right. This episode is brought to you in part by our friends at Harry's. If you're heading back into the office, you might think it's time to get back that fresh, clean, all-business look, and Harry's can help. If you don't know Harry's, it's time you do. Harry's was created to be different from other shaving companies. They craft high-quality, long-lasting blades with durable weighted handles that make a close, comfortable shave quick and enjoyable. And because Harry's insists that you shouldn't have to choose between a great shave and a fair price, they just give you both. With refill blades that start as low as $2, it is an easy decision. And new Harry's customers get their starter set, which includes a five-blade razor, weighted handle, foaming shave gel with aloe, and travel cover for just $30. It's a $13 value, I should say. You get all of that stuff for just $3, which is an incredible deal. Plus, Harry's offers a whole range of amazing face and body care products delivered right to your door. Brad, I know that you love Harry's, right?

'''Brad:''' I do. You got to get the deal. It's like the biggest no-brainer deal of all the deals. And as you know, Myke, I'm back to the office, right? Like my desk in my room. And I want to look good every time I show up to work. You're streaming. I do. Big, big streaming boy over here. Got to look good. So it's funny. Still to this day, as old as I am, I still only shave every other day. And Harry's makes me look awesome every stream day, which happens to be Tuesdays and Thursdays is when I'm the most clean shaven. And I thank Harry's for that.

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'''Brad:''' Big topic today, Myke. Chunky. Chunky topic. Interesting topic. So I have titled this segment of the show The State of Stationery. And that's a big, broad, bold topic. And my thoughts contained within are not necessarily big and bold and broad, but are just kind of my current thinking on where we're at right now. Like, we got to a couple of questions last week for the show that weren't directly related, but you can see the links to them. And we were going to go through them last week. And I said, give me some time to at least think about this. You know, rub the two brain cells that I have together and see what I can come up with. The first question from Blue Magister. Are we in peak pen? Not much new tech, but endless variations of existing products. Where is the innovation going to come from? And then a separate question the same day, shortly after, from Doc Krog, both of these on Twitter. I'm always interested to hear your guys' thoughts on the rise in cost of materials. Field notes just sent an email talking about their soon-to-be-raised prices again. Is this just the way things are? Oh, this is just the way things are, of course. But where do you guys think this trend leads? Right? So those are big questions, right? That's not a 240-character response type of questions. But these are the types of questions I love because I think about this stuff all the time. But don't really have, like, the deep knowledge inner workings of the big pen companies, right? Like, we don't necessarily know. Like, I'm not going through, you know, pilots annual reports to see how the pen business is going necessarily. But I look at it more from, you know, where I sit and almost from a consumer perspective to kind of get a feel of where I think these are, right? Like, I'm not an analyst, right? I'm not writing documentation and getting all the numbers. But I'm just kind of thinking about how I feel about the industry right now. So I thought I would try to tackle that a little bit today. How's that sound?

'''Myke:''' Yeah, it sounds awesome.

'''Brad:''' All right. So I tried to think about this with a little bit of a breakdown in mind. Kind of three categories to go through. At least this is kind of how I think of stationery for me personally. And, you know, there's, again, this is an open-ended conversation. I'm not saying any of this stuff is factually correct or accurate. It's just kind of how I see it, how I kind of feel about it. And I would love to hear some feedback on this. Tell me where I'm right. Tell me where I'm wrong. Tell me what else I need to be considering. So things like that as we go through this. So three categories I decided to break this conversation down were your standard pens, right? The stuff you buy at the store or your basic, you know, $1 to $3 pen, your gel pens, your ballpoints. You know, they could be just the basic stuff off the shelf. They could be, you know, something you buy that you go on the hunt for on the internet, stuff like that. Then the second category I listed was specialty stationery. I think a lot of us are in this realm to where, like, this is where things like the bullet journals come in and the Midori Traveler's Notebook come in. And we'll talk about what I feel is like the specialty stationery. Retro 51, they're in this category, right? So there's a specialty stationery category. And then the third category, I separated out completely fountain pens and inks because I think they deserve their own category. They're also the most complex slash least insignificant, least significant category, despite what we think about fountain pens in the big picture, I think. So we'll explore that a little bit more. So my one caveat in all of this, and well, I say one caveat, I probably have a lot of caveats, right, Myke? Um, I'm super biased towards stationery, right? Like, I love stationery. Like, maybe my glasses are rose colored right now, right? So keep that in mind. Like, we've talked about bias in the past, like review bias way back in the day when that was a thing, when pen blogs started to become popular. And I was like, yes, I'm biased. I'm biased towards good stationery. So you should keep this in mind.

'''Myke:''' MKBHD had a really good video about this once talking about bias in tech. And what he said that I liked was everybody is biased. Mm-hmm. Learn what you think they're biased about and then kind of stack it against other people and then your own biases. And then you can kind of like understand you kind of like over time of listening to someone or watching someone or hearing somebody's opinions. You can get an idea for how they match with your opinions.

'''Brad:''' That's exactly right. I agree with that. I really liked that idea. Yep. So that's the way we always think about it. It's like, I have opinion about a product. That doesn't mean like the product's good for you. You should take my opinion in the context with, you know, some other things you read and other opinions and other reviews and then build kind of an overall idea and then see how that fits with you, right? You don't take anyone's direct word for it. You just kind of build the story and figure out if it relates to you well. So yes, very well said. All right. Let's start in the order that I listed these categories. The store bought slash standard pens. I love this category. This is my favorite category. I've mentioned this recently when we were talking about the OKB48 vote that was going on for the most popular ballpoint pens in Japan. So I just think it's a great category. There's a ton of just years old, decades old products that live here. The products we know and love, the Pilot G2, the Uniball Signo, the Pentel Energel, all of those pens. Is there a lot of innovation here to kind of tackle the first part of the question that we received?

'''Brad:''' I think people will jump to say no, that there's not a lot of innovation here. I can't argue with that because what we see on the shelves are that companies are just quick to slap some new colors and new barrel skins on. Except notably the Pilot G2, which has not changed in what, two decades now? I don't even know how long it's been out, but it's been a while.

'''Myke:''' I think that's to its benefit now.

'''Brad:''' Yes. It's the most popular gel ink pen in the world.

'''Brad:''' Sales wise. And I remember back when Pilot claimed that and I actually got them to send me the details behind that and like the press and the links. And I remember getting that back in the day that it was actually like seemed like a valid test that they did to come up with this marketing line. And it seems to be real. And yeah, like, you know what a Pilot G2 looks like, right? So should they change it? Who am I to say? Like, obviously not, right? They seem to be doing pretty good. But also in these categories, you get some innovation that kind of does change things like ink formulations, right? The Uniball Jetstream kind of came out of the ether when the Uniball Signo was popular and the Uniball Vision was popular. And there was nothing really unique for a ballpoint pen ink. And Uniball spent the time and money and research to put forth the Jetstream. And it's become a core product now, not just a fluke product. You know, I think that's innovation. Same thing goes for the Pilot Friction. You know, some people may hate that pen and, you know, rightfully so. But what it is, is real and it works well. And it changed how some people use pens and they love the Pilot Friction for what it is. So you also have to understand I'm looking at this through the U.S. market, right? I'm looking at this through the market I'm in. And in Japan, there's way more innovation and there's way more positive reception to the innovation. I don't know about in the U.K., but in the U.S., you would never go to a big box retailer like Staples or OfficeMax and find a multi-pin, right? You just wouldn't. Those types of things don't exist. But in Japan, all of the big companies have huge wide varieties of multi-pins and allows the consumer to mix and match and build things. And they have all these more specific products to solve more specific problems. You know, it could be those multi-pins. It could be faster drying gel inks. It could be like the Kukuyo Beetle Tip, like a split tip highlighter, different types of markers. All those things in Japan are highly innovative. And over there, they're practically normal, where over here, people would freak out. It's like, oh, what is this pin? I don't know what to do with this. And, you know, that's not how we stock the office supply cabinet. And it's too expensive, even though, you know, it's $3 instead of $1, right? That's a huge deal for like an office. So, I think the innovation really is there in that level of pin. And we see it time and time again. Like I mentioned before, the OKB48. Like we see things on that list that we've never seen before. Someone like myself, who is really, really into this stuff, you know, last year, one of like the top five pins was a pin from Zebra that I had never seen before. And you could argue is, you know, the Zebra blend innovative. I don't know, but it's at least new and it's different from the Zebra Sarasa that they always have available. So, in that category, I'd say there's a moderate level of innovation. I'd say, based on where you live, regionality plays into how you feel about that market, right? I would argue that in the U.S., most stationary users that aren't listening to this podcast think it's just the same stuff every year on the shelf. And I can't necessarily argue with that, but I could nitpick it and, you know, see some things that we don't normally see. So, the second category, specialty stationary.