Well, on Sunday, November 15th, I did both.

As for #2, actually, surprisingly, it wasn’t that tough of a switch. Mind you, I have small hands (not sure how you big guys do it) and the auto-correction works pretty well, for the most part. I’ve put my thumbs to work and have gotten pretty good at typing pretty fast. The interesting thing I’ve found about typing on the iPhone is that I need to concentrate much more than I did on my Blackberry. My Blackberry was like typing on a computer – you know where the keys are, you could be putting on lipgloss and talking to your boss and still typing fast and furious. On the iPhone? Well, not so much. I have not yet attempted to apply gloss and type but have tried to talk to my boss and type (sorry, Dave) and it requires more concentration on the actual letters I’m trying to press. I know this sounds weird but it’s true and I guess I’ll get used to it so I can, once again, talk to Dave while typing.

As for #1, here’s my opinion. This device is not a phone at all. It is a mini-computer in disguise which is why the zillions of people who have iPhones just say “Yeah, AT&T sucks, but what are you gonna do?” Nada, that’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to fall in love with the slick display and the shiny buttons (mmm…shiny). The swift touchscreen action, the skakey-shakey to refresh Facebook, the endless app store, the iTunes all in one place, and the list goes on. You’ll notice I never said…the phone.

There was an interesting and timely Twitter post today by Jeremiah Owyang where he asked…

What percent of the time do you use your phone to actually talk? I use iPhone maybe only 5-10% for talking.

To which @Aaron Strout RT’d and said he uses his phone “about the same” and @jspepper said “Talk on iPhone??!”. Jeremiah later posted…

Most responses were they use their “phone” as a device/computer now. And the iPhone voice capabilities are substandard.

But isn’t the thing called an i…Phone?

You see, I talk on the phone. Alot. I have blown-out every wireless plan I’ve ever had. The interesting thing that happened on Sunday when I got my iPhone is that I started talking on the phone less and using email, text, chat and other communication methods to “talk” to my peeps. I guess between email, text, Facebook, Twitter, Four Square and the other apps I haven’t even discovered yet, I can know where they are, what they are doing, what they had for lunch, where they’re meeting for drinks (mmm…drinks) and how they feel about the lastest celebrity drama. I can open attachments of all shapes and sizes, browse webpages and take pictures and share them on Twitter.

So, I ask you my new lovely, are you really a phone? I hear you ring every once and a while but, IMHO, you are not a phone. You are a shiny, beautiful gateway to helping me share more stuff with more people. Whether that sharing is through a Word doc, text message, song, photo, geo position or a simple virtual gift, it’s less about talking on the phone and more about sharing on my device.

Maybe you should have been called the iShare? Hm, that has a nice ring to it.

*iPhone photo credit: weboptimiser.com; Rotary phone photo credit: cornbreadandbeansquilting.wordpress.com

I decided to take my 5-year old daughter, Maddie, to the Nutcracker. It just so happens I was a dancer in a former life and had the honor and unique pleasure to dance in the Nutcracker ballet once upon a time. It is an experience I will never forget and, to this day, influences my ability to stand on tip-toes to reach stuff on the top shelf and to sit with good posture:)

Anyhow, I got two tickets and decided we’d make it our first experience. Then, I met John Osbon and he took our experience from good to great. John is a member of the Boston Ballet board and is also active in my daughter’s school. I had won an auction prize of some ballet tickets a while back and he helped me put them to good use. He heard about my love for the ballet and how Maddie is taking lessons and loves it as well and told me he’d leave a special surprise for her at the desk.

Off we went through the sleet and snow. We were both on pins and needles wondering what the surprise would be. We arrived at the desk and waiting for us was a brown Boston Ballet bag. Inside, were two signed pairs of dancer’s shoes and two Nutcracker snowglobes. Nothing like being in tears with my daughter and the show hadn’t even started! We took our seats in the beautifully renovated Boston Opera House where Maddie promptly took off her snow boots and donned her well-used pink toe-shoes. She could not have been more excited as we waited for the lights to dim. She was riveted through the entire performance and wanted for more as the lights came up. Then came the best part.

The backstage tour. Where, although my camera battery died (when will I learn!) , I got some great shots of my girl with the sleigh and the giant Christmas tree. But all she wanted to do was go home and put on her new toe-shoes. We practiced our releve and arabesque in the living room and she wore her ballet tights to bed so she could “slip on her toe-shoes when she wakes up”. What would have been a day at the ballet was turned into an extraordinary experience for a 5-year old aspiring ballerina and her ballerina-at-heart mom.

A magical day created by an unforgettable experience. Check out the photos.

IMHO, the difference between a good website and a great website is the experience. When it comes to online shopping, sure there are ways to make browsing better but at the end of the day, it’s all about the check-out. Were you up-front with the total cost? Was it easy for me to get my stuff and get on to the next thing I need to do? Did you give me the ability to do it all in one-screen or did I have to page through a whole bunch of optional and promotional screens?

Well, this morning, I decided I need some new stationery. I want something that looks classy but is economical, given my employment situation. I googled “discount stationery” and up came a bunch of sites. I clicked on American Stationery, which was one of the top links. I quickly browsed a bunch of different options and found one that I really liked. It was a little bit more than I wanted to pay, but it was unique and I really liked the colors and the envelope liner. Plus, they threw in the printing of return address on the envelopes. Okay, off I go to check-out. The usual – register, shipping address info, next, next. Total cost: $68. Great, I’m in. Next screen, confirm shipping address. Got it. Credit card info, check. Then the confirmation screen appears and it is at this point, before I hit the money button, that I find out the shipping charge is an additional $11! What the f? Three screens before that, they said the total cost is $68? But it’s not. It is in fact $79. You’re telling me, American Stationery, that you want me to pay an additional 16% for shipping? I am so sorry but I DON’T THINK SO! Actually, that is not only annoying but insane. How can shipping cost them $11 for a tiny little box of notecards? It is one of the major problems I have with online shopping.

Let me talk to you about a site that does it right. Nordstrom’s online. Here’s how they do it. Flat rate. $5. All the time. You order $50 of stuff – five bucks. $500 worth of stuff – 5 bucks. It’s that easy and, as a frequent online shopper, they get most of my business because the shipping is a flat rate (and returns are free.)

My advice to you, online retailers, is this – figure out how to make shipping cheaper and easier for your customers and, guess what, they will come back. I would love to know how many abandoned shopping carts are strewn across the internet because of shipping charges. There is a price to be paid for convenience but each consumer has a tipping point where they’d rather just get in their car or walk to the store to go get it. Online retailers need to think about how they are making the shopping experience valuable for their online shoppers and I would guess ‘value’ to the online shopper means easy, great selection and economical.

So, you lost my business, American Stationery. Maybe if you had put the shipping charge up-front I would have been okay with it. Maybe I would have left anyway (probably the case). With the holidays around the corner and a recession in the mix, figuring out how to entice shoppers to buy seems like a no-brainer. If you’re an online retailer, why not test out a variety of shipping promotions? Free shipping days, flat rates, free shipping on certain dollar amounts. Test it out and see what works. Something tells me that providing free or minimal shipping charges will lead to a more profitable customer down the line.

My $.02.