I am filling in today and next week for Simon Fodden's Friday Fillip, so this will have a more–for lack of a better phrase–"girlie" bent to it. Today we are looking at the low-tech side of the high-tech world: lugging around your laptop and other electronic gadgets when travelling. Definitely the unglamorous side of being wired (or wireless)! I have personally tried all sorts of solutions–knapsacks, bags on wheels, conference bags–but they all just spelled "geek".
Until now! As soon as I purchased my funky, sleek and professional Monaco from Mobile Edge, I have been way cool, daddy-o. People have stopped me on the street, in the subway, and at conferences to have a closer look at the fine detailed styling of the Monaco. Mine is black quilted on the outside with hot pink stitching, and a pink suede-like interior. But the features don't stop there. It has a pouch for a laptop, slotted space for files, detachable matching wallet so I don't need to carry a separate purse, a matching cell phone pouch which can attach to the outside, and (the piece de resistance) a zinc-lined pouch that I can throw my cell or blackberry into to cut the radio signal so they won't ring during a meeting. Brilliant.
Once people have had a look at it, they want to know where I bought it. Well, I just happened to have found it and purchased it through the web. And if the Monaco doesn't quite tickle your fancy, there are any number of laptop bags to consider from the top lens on Squidoo, Funky, Chic and Cool Laptop Bags.
Now, it turns out the creator of this top lens (or "lens master") is mynameiskate a.k.a. Kate Trgovac, a brilliant woman in Vancouver, B.C. who is a webby, techie, digital marketing expert. And looking at her bio, I see she has even lectured at one of my own haunts, the University of Toronto Faculty of Information Studies. If that is not even a small enough world for you, I discovered after randomly finding her lens on the web and purchasing the bag, that I have actually talked to Kate in Second Life. We both actually belong to a group called After a Fashion, a group of Canadian women learning about Second Life as a group, using shopping as a common theme.
Oh, this is all so new media networking Web 2.0 that it hurts. I'll stop there. But let me just say, there is no longer an excuse for carrying last year's ragged conference bag to carry your laptop. You can just be so much hipper than that now with Kate's advice and her great Squidoo lens.
Happy Friday, hipsters!
Connie – This would be a wonderful topic for a session at the CALL conference. Maybe it would work under "Ten Cool Things". ! I have always hated lugging those awful conference bags with me. They are never strong enough for all my paraphenalia and besides, they almost always clash with what I'm wearing!
This fillip displays way more fashion sense than either of the two Simons
Martha: well, I could ditch the wiki screen shots and just show my bag. I have it with me for the CALL conference–remind me to show you!
Simon: my original idea was a post about shoes, but I couldn't make a Web 2.0 story out of it. Maybe next week! ;-)
The Law meets http://www.vogue.co.uk/whos_who/Manolo_Blahnik/ and http://www.jimmychoo.com/pws/Home.ice
Connie, I love this post!
Only one work on the subject of MB: Manolo Blahnik drawings / [foreword by Anna Wintour ; with contributions from André Leon Talley, Michael Roberts and Anna Piaggi]. New York : Thames & Hudson, 2003. And JC of course is http://www.amazon.com/Goodbye-Jimmy-Choo-Annie-Sanders/dp/0446697281 with the great blurb line: "Town or country, we all have the right to Choos".