Brainstorming...

Ok, now that we have chosen to remain hopeful regarding Entourage and our Dual-books, maybe we can think of ways to generate interest in our areas of influence regarding our EE or PE or both!

I am constantly taking my EE to my doctors appointments and reading or working on it in the waiting room. I also take it with me when I go to dine alone somewhere. I usually try to pick a place that is not too loud, but busy. I sometimes even exaggerate my movements to get people to notice what I am taking out of my bag. I have gotten many comments and people stopping at my table to ask what device I am using. This has even resulted in a person the other day at Red Lobster saying that they would buy it from me should I decide to sell it.

So that is my experience and thoughts and suggestions...what are yours?

I find places like doctors offices aren't a good way to introduce the edge. When I was bringing mine to PT I kept getting asked "Is that a Kindle/Nook/iPad/iPod?" (sadly, not joking on the iPod one-someone actually thought my edge was an iPod). One person wanted me to explain to her WHY she would need a tablet. In my experience, these kinds of questions equates out to "they wouldn't know what to do with this thing".

On the other hand, I've been showing mine off at the office and that seems to have generated some interested. Even had one colleague tell me he wished he'd bought something like the edge instead of his iPad. I'm hoping to go to a big conference this summer, so maybe I can generate some interest there. Provided edge's are still available by then.

Actually, my Doc was so impressed because he could do so much (annotations, x-ray films scanned and turned to PDF's Triage app and a dosage calculator in one device) that he bought two (I just found out today that he bought an EE as well as a PE) and so did his partner. He loves his and is also planning on getting one for his P.A.! Doctors and Professionals would love the Dual-books for their capabilities!

I think we have a good human-interest/tech-business story going if people want to write articles for their local papers, peer publications, newsletters, or forums. Or someone could send out a press release. I would hate to do that or anything much else without knowing that enTourage approves our actions and does in fact want new business and/or our help. Guy, you mentioned a similar concern in another post.

Can anyone (Boris??) actually ask someone at enTourage what kind of help/publicity they would be willing to accept? Sure would be nice to know . . . .

Awesome news about your doctor, Guy! Maybe we should just clone you -- problem solved!

Originally Posted by glen

"Is that a Kindle/Nook/iPad/iPod?" (sadly, not joking on the iPod one-someone actually thought my edge was an iPod).

It's one thing to confuse a known tablet/eReader, but an iPod? This means the person doesn't even know what an iPod is and likely will be an ineffective (and probably unhappy) user of almost any electronic gadget.

Originally Posted by kenjennings

It's one thing to confuse a known tablet/eReader, but an iPod? This means the person doesn't even know what an iPod is and likely will be an ineffective (and probably unhappy) user of almost any electronic gadget.

Lots of people buy because it's "cool" and you "must have it", not because they really use it.

Edge looks at the opposite side, you cant make a hybrid toy out of the EE just for the average joe, nonetheless you have to care about the "wowness" factor, starting from design (not that good looking EE & PE), and to focus on the requests of the real ONE/TWO kinds of hardcore customers. It urges a marketing survey. I'm running one in an italian forum dedicated to e-ink devices, and like here, people interested in 9,7 e-inks are moslty professionals / university students

Originally Posted by Filark

Can anyone (Boris??) actually ask someone at enTourage what kind of help/publicity they would be willing to accept? Sure would be nice to know . . . .

You can contact enTourage at sales@entourageedge.com I think.

Originally Posted by guyjack

Ok, now that we have chosen to remain hopeful regarding Entourage and our Dual-books, maybe we can think of ways to generate interest in our areas of influence regarding our EE or PE or both!

Certainly having people around us see that we're using an intriguing device is going to help with visibility, although this is somewhat passive. Using an eDGe during a presentation of any sort (seminar, meeting, etc.), might put more focus on demonstrating what an eDGe can do. lol, anyone up to holding a TupperWare-style party?

You can't help sell something that isn't available for purchase. We need to wait to see if there's a new model coming out and by then I won't be any help, anyways, because I'll still be using the original one (unless I get a big injection of cash by then.)

Originally Posted by StevenP

You can't help sell something that isn't available for purchase. We need to wait to see if there's a new model coming out and by then I won't be any help, anyways, because I'll still be using the original one (unless I get a big injection of cash by then.)

Both models are still available for purchase Amazon, BH Photo, TigerDirect, NewEgg, eBay, etc.

That may be, but when supplies are gone they're gone. If Entourage intended to keep producing and selling the current models they'd still have their product pages up on their web site.

True enough. do we know how long the production cycle is? How long does it take to produce a batch of eDGes? Because determined interest from consumers might spur the creation of a new batch or at least a batch of the next iteration, assuming they have the cash to pay contractors.

Tiger Direct (canada) shows shipping in 3 - 5 days on all big edges except 1 -2 days for red, as of today. And yes, PE's available in black. I suppose it's possible it was just "their time of the supply cycle."

Originally Posted by NiaTrue

True enough. do we know how long the production cycle is? How long does it take to produce a batch of eDGes? Because determined interest from consumers might spur the creation of a new batch or at least a batch of the next iteration, assuming they have the cash to pay contractors.

Given they're manufactured in China, I imagine it's probably a 4 week timeframe from placing orders to getting them to the US and distributing them to retailer warehouses. Certainly past stock outages have cleared in a couple of weeks.

That's pretty short. People wait a lot longer than that for products they really want and can't get anywhere else.