She is maybe the fastest person I’d seen at navigating the web. Before I could even finish asking my question, she seemed to find the answer online. She was an undergraduate at Stanford, and I was fortunate to be working with her on a project. But when it came time to schedule our next meeting, I was shocked by what she did. She snapped closed her laptop, reached into her bag, and lifted out a medium sized agenda--a paper agenda.
Seeing the look on my face, she said, “Yeah, I find this faster and easier. I just like being able to see everything on paper.”
I had to pinch myself.
But when I relayed this story to our Chief Marketing Officer, Margaret Moraskie, she wasn’t surprised. “We’re seeing an interest in our paper products in general among younger customers. I think they see paper as an affordable luxury.” While the press is writing about how young people are glued to their screens and walking into traffic, at Levenger, we see them buying paper. And they particularly like paper calendars, which were officially made obsolete before the class of 2020 was born.
It warms my heart, I have to say, that our future doctors, lawyers and computer scientists (the number one major at Stanford), are enjoying the quieter pleasures of that thin, traditional technology we call paper.
So, let’s get to the goods: Our bestselling calendar products are our Circa Daily Agenda Refills--in letter or junior size. Most customers already have a Circa notebook they like, maybe leather, maybe book cloth, they might also have high-speed aluminum discs, and are using the paper formats they like best. Then, they press in these agenda refills just where they want them, in just the quantity they want (maybe three months, maybe six).
Listening to our discriminating customers over the years, we now provide multiple ways for them to see their future--detailed daily views for some, for others, seeing a week at one time is just right. All formats also come with big-picture monthly and yearly views to assist in their longer-term plans.
Other customers prefer to buy their agendas as complete finished notebooks, which they can also enhance by swapping in larger discs, which allow for extra paper, or by slipping this plastic covered notebook into a leather case. They know that Circa notebooks are like Lego--the parts snap together, plug and play. (Sorry, we haven’t licensed Batman covers yet.)
Still other customers go real old school and use our calendar 3x5 cards, which were officially made obsolete when Prohibition ended. These hopelessly 20th-Century folks (I love you) seem to like the idea of carrying just the little cards they need in one of our Pocket Briefcases.
Read the reviews and you’ll find that Levenger customers appreciate that their paper calendars won’t run out of power, won’t send urgent emails demanding their latest upgrade, and won’t be hacked by the Russians. Customers enjoy their private “peace” of paper.
As technology author Kevin Kelly writes, new technology doesn’t completely kill the old. “It’s not either-or, it’s and.” Thus, thankfully, we still enjoy our beloved sailboats, bicycles, candles--and our dear old, (queue the spa music) paper calendars.
