For the first Office 2.0 Conference, every attendee, including the press, was given an iPod nano. For the second, everyone got an iPhone, at the exception of the media. For the third one, we will attempt something that has a very low likelihood of success: building our very own device.

The Office 2.0 Conference is a collective experiment, and we’re trying to push the envelope of personal and group productivity to the limits. We experiment with every possible tool we can get our hands on, and learn something useful along the way. In order to make it a totally paper-free event, we give every attendee a device that can be used for looking the conference’s schedule up, or exchanging contact information with other attendees. It makes our conference somewhat unique, and forces participants to think outside of the box. Some like it, others don’t, but everybody is put slightly out of their comfort zone, which is exactly what we’re trying to do.

In many ways, the iPhone was the perfect device for the conference. It is small enough to be carried in your pants’ pocket (assuming you’re wearing pants), it has a great web browser, and it’s really fast when used through a scalable WiFi network. Nevertheless, we faced a couple of issues with it: we could not order it in bulk, and activation was a nightmare. For next year’s conference, we’d like to get a device that will make it easier on us conference organizers.

The easy option would be to use the newly released iPod Touch. It’s a lot cheaper than the iPhone, you can buy as many as you want, and it does not need to be activated. Easy enough, and I would expect many conferences to use this device in the future.

The more interesting option would be to build our own device. By that I mean designing, certifying, and manufacturing our very own piece of hardware, all in the one year that separates us for the next Office 2.0 Conference. Today’s engineering processes make such a challenge technically feasible, but for someone who has never done it before, and has no engineering budget for it, this is virtually impossible, so by all means, please assume that we will fail and have to revert to option 1. But if you dare to dream with us for a moment, feel free to read what follows.

The idea is to launch a competition for building the device we want. The rules will be pretty simple: we will define a set of high-level requirements, entrants will submit proposals, they will pay for design costs, we will pay for manufacturing costs, and we will give every single participant (media included) a device that you can only get by attending the conference.

The device we want to design and build, code-named Redux Model 1, is best described as a Mini Tablet. At a conceptual level, it would be similar to an over-sized iPod Touch, with no native applications at the exception of the web browser. It would be slightly thicker than an iPhone by one or two millimeters, and would be about the size of a Sony Reader (6.9" x 4.9" x 0.5").

The concept for the device is minimalist (hence the name). It would sport a large multi-touch screen (no keyboard), have no more than two buttons (On/Off and Home), and provide a Mini-USB port, an SD Card slot, and a 3.5 mm mini stereo audio jack. It would support WiFi (802.11 a/b/g) and Bluetooth 2.0. It would not support any cellular network directly, but could connect to one over Bluetooth. Also, it would not have a camera nor any built-in GPS. As such, it would be a companion to a mobile phone, much like Palm’s Foleo (R.I.P.) was supposed to be. And because it would be so simple, yet larger than a phone, it should be relatively easy to design and build. It’s not a leading edge device in any way, shape, or form, it’s just one based on a form factor that nobody really tried before, and as such it will succeed or fail not because of engineering constraints, but because of usability factors, which is exactly the field of experimentation that we have an interest in.

The use case for the device would be for it to be used at home, at the office, or at a meeting (conference included). Because it would run no native applications at the exception of the web browser, it would require an Internet connection. As such, it is a pure Office 2.0 device. And because it would not store any data during normal use, and could be manufactured at a relatively low cost once prices for large multi-touch displays go down, many units of it could be owned by the same group of users, and left around the house or the office for anyone to use at any time.

The device would be used primarily for data consumption and simple data entry. Browsing the web, reading feeds, writing short emails, recording tasks, and scheduling meetings are the main activities it would support. As such, it would require fairly limited processing power, allowing for a relatively long battery life. And because it would be larger than a phone, it’s dimensions would allow for the use of a larger battery, making battery life even longer.

Instead of running native applications, the device would use the web browser for doing pretty much everything, including the display of widgets. Charging would be done through the Mini-USB port, or a dock that would turn the device into a picture frame. The attachment of the device to the dock would be done through a magnetic connector, similar to the one used for connecting the HTC Advantage to its keyboard. An optional keyboard could also be provided, and would connect to the device using the same magnetic connector. With these two accessories, our Mini Tablet turns into a picture frame and a sub notebook. And if you flip it vertically, it turns into an e-book reader, with a colorful screen. For the later to work, the device could include a motion or gravity sensor, or simply react to a particular multi-touch gesture.

From an industrial design standpoint, the device should be really clean, much like the iPhone, but its materials and design elements should make it more resistant to wear and tear. For example, the use of anodized aluminum on the back is good, but nipples should be added on all four corners in order to prevent scratches of the back surface when the device is laid flat on a table. Also, dust is the enemy for such a device, and the less openings you get the better, therefore no holes for microphone or speaker (Bluetooth is good enough), no pin hole for the SIM card tray (there is no SIM card), no silent mode switch — there is no speaker, therefore there is nothing to be made silent, and no volume control — it’s not a phone, therefore volume can be controlled from the multi-touch screen.

The rationale for the SD Card slot is that people will want to use the device offline for reading books, listening to music, or watching movies, and while the device will include a minimal amount of NAND memory, it will be more cost effective to extend the device’s storage capacity by using additional SD Cards, which prices keep dropping.

The rationale for the Mini-USB port is that you need a way to charge the device and to get data in and out, especially for data stored on the SD Card. Ideally, the device should require 5V current with a low amperage, allowing you to charge it with cell phone chargers you already own and carry with you when traveling. The magnetic keyboard should also have a Mini-USB port in order to turn it into a charging dock.

The magnetic keyboard is also where lots of functionality could be added, without compromising the simplicity, portability, and long battery life of the Mini Tablet. For example, it could include an additional battery, a microphone and a speaker turning the device into a conferencing phone, a GPS for use in a car, a video out port for presentations, a cellular modem for on-the-road connectivity, etc. From a form factor standpoint, adding all this extra functionality into a variety of optional and detachable docks and keyboards is where a lot of innovation could come from. But for the first device, we might have none of that, and that’s perfectly fine. Remember, we have less than a year to pull it off…

So here we are, the dream is out, and now we need some help. If you are a graphics designer and could draw an artist rendition of this conceptual device, please do so and send it to us. If you’re a design studio and would like to submit a proposal, please contact us as soon as possible for more details about the competition, especially with respect to intellectual property rights, which I’m sure will be a critical issue for anyone involved. If you are a WiFi operator, an Office 2.0 company, or a very generous person, we’re also looking for sponsors who could help us offset manufacturing costs, especially for the first production batch, which will be relatively small (about 1,000 units). And if you’re already dreaming about all the cool things you could do with this Redux Model 1, make sure to check this blog on a regular basis and register as an attendee for the Office 2.0 Conference 2008. For this next event, the early bird price will not be time bound, but instead limited to the first 250 registrations, so make sure to register early if you want to benefit from it.

Looking forward to meeting you again in San Francisco next year…

It’s only the beginning…

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