Thinkcorps

This post happened to catch my eye today, and I thought I’d trace it’s origin—for reasons that shall become clear below. :)

BoingBoing: Shower-tablet for writing down good ideas – Monday, January 2, 2006

via

Popgadget: Erasable shower note tablet – 01.2.2006

via

CNet Asia: Erasable shower note – 29/12/2005

via

OhGizmo! – Erasable Shower Note Tablet – 12.09.05

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Gadget Review – Erasable Shower Note Tablet – December 08, 2005

Which is where the “via” link trail ends. Gadget Review does link to online items in other posts, so I’m going to assume that maybe the idea came from a non-linkable source. Perhaps a magazine? Oh, but which one?

Now, I’m going to insert myself into the story, purely on speculation. I am in no way implying that Gadget Review plagiarized anything, nor do I even care. I am only hazarding a guess—a guess that, of course, includes me in the story.

As editor (now ex-editor) of Business2.0 magazine’s Favorites section, I included a diver’s slate in the November Favorites section, in an item from Alex Hart. (B2’s “integrated” web site sucks *ss, btw.)

But I will admit freely that I had heard it even earlier than that (probably around May/June) from Merlin Mann of 43folders.com. There’s actually an item on the scuba slate in the 43 folders wiki from March 2005 created by an unknown author (IP address only).

And if I remember correctly, I think Merlin mentioned that he had heard about the slate on Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools, where it appeared in February of 2004.

And that, my friends is about as far as I think we need to go. I’m not sure what my point here is exactly. Maybe it’s a notion of recyclable content, maybe it’s a mapping of the flow of good ideas through the blogosphere. Maybe it’s a pat on my own back for being vaguely relevant for once in my life.