6 ms·

Similarly there is a phenomenal company called HandWrytten. It uses robots to write thank you cards with ink pens. I upload a spreadsheet of all of my contacts,

Similarly there is a phenomenal company called HandWrytten. It uses robots to write thank you cards with ink pens. I upload a spreadsheet of all of my contacts, with a message for each, and the robot beautifully writes out the card in my own handwriting; personal hand writing is an extra fee. Takes about an hour for 155 contacts. I keep up with hundreds of people in my job and something personal like this really goes a long way. https://www.handwrytten.com/ https://www.handwrytten.com/

joshstrange 5y ago
Expect it's not personal at all... it's just a lie that fools a good number of people. I absolutely hate these types of letters because it's easy to see them for what they really are, a trick to invoke a completely un-earned emotional response.
JustARandomGuy 5y ago
I've received thank you cards like this (I volunteer for certain well-regarded organizations). While the thank you card is very nice, the fake "handwritten" part is obvious - the strokes of the pen are a little too clean, too precise to be a human. A human tends to smudge some characters, or some characters will be squeezed in - the robotic handwriting never does that, so it's an obvious giveaway. Don't get me wrong, receiving a personalized letter is very much appreciated and I appreciate it more because they put extra thought in it, but very few would think of it as actually handwritten by a human.
- Wistar 5y ago
  Maybe something more along the lines of this AI handwriting generator? https://www.cs.toronto.edu/~graves/handwriting.html https://www.cs.toronto.edu/~graves/handwriting.html
- lupire 5y ago
  This stuff is terrible. I'm paying charities to do good work, no do deceptive marketing stunts.
causi 5y ago
From one perspective that's quite thoughtful. From another that's going to significant lengths to deceive your customers into thinking it's much more thoughtful than it is.
- mehphp 5y ago
  Not disagreeing with you, but isn't that what a lot of advertising does?
  - causi 5y ago
    Yes it is, and most of advertising is also immoral. We're not shareholders in his company so hearing about how he fools his customers into thinking he cares more than he does is a bad thing.
space_ghost 5y ago
My mom made extra money in the '90s doing the manual version of that. She'd pick up a stack of pages with som company's letterhead, a template, and a list of names, and then proceed to hand-write hundreds of nearly identical letters.
csw-001 5y ago
This is cool technology, but I think this misses the value of the thank you card in the first place - that you gave the time and attention to each card (and by proxy, person). I guess I wonder without that expense to you, what is the value of the card to them (it's not the literal message, or the card stock)? Then again, I often aspire to send cards and don't, so this is definitely better than nothing, especially if you personalized the messages.
burkaman 5y ago
Why not just type the letters and print them normally? Do you think you gain something when recipients mistakenly believe you wrote them by hand?
kthejoker2 5y ago
They have Jefferson's polygraph at the Smithsonian, an idea before its time! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraph_(duplicating_device) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraph_(duplicating_device)

joshstrange 5y ago

Expect it's not personal at all... it's just a lie that fools a good number of people. I absolutely hate these types of letters because it's easy to see them for what they really are, a trick to invoke a completely un-earned emotional response.

JustARandomGuy 5y ago

I've received thank you cards like this (I volunteer for certain well-regarded organizations). While the thank you card is very nice, the fake "handwritten" part is obvious - the strokes of the pen are a little too clean, too precise to be a human. A human tends to smudge some characters, or some characters will be squeezed in - the robotic handwriting never does that, so it's an obvious giveaway. Don't get me wrong, receiving a personalized letter is very much appreciated and I appreciate it more because they put extra thought in it, but very few would think of it as actually handwritten by a human.

Wistar 5y ago
Maybe something more along the lines of this AI handwriting generator? https://www.cs.toronto.edu/~graves/handwriting.html https://www.cs.toronto.edu/~graves/handwriting.html
lupire 5y ago
This stuff is terrible. I'm paying charities to do good work, no do deceptive marketing stunts.

causi 5y ago

From one perspective that's quite thoughtful. From another that's going to significant lengths to deceive your customers into thinking it's much more thoughtful than it is.

mehphp 5y ago
Not disagreeing with you, but isn't that what a lot of advertising does?
- causi 5y ago
  Yes it is, and most of advertising is also immoral. We're not shareholders in his company so hearing about how he fools his customers into thinking he cares more than he does is a bad thing.

space_ghost 5y ago

My mom made extra money in the '90s doing the manual version of that. She'd pick up a stack of pages with som company's letterhead, a template, and a list of names, and then proceed to hand-write hundreds of nearly identical letters.

csw-001 5y ago

This is cool technology, but I think this misses the value of the thank you card in the first place - that you gave the time and attention to each card (and by proxy, person). I guess I wonder without that expense to you, what is the value of the card to them (it's not the literal message, or the card stock)? Then again, I often aspire to send cards and don't, so this is definitely better than nothing, especially if you personalized the messages.

burkaman 5y ago

Why not just type the letters and print them normally? Do you think you gain something when recipients mistakenly believe you wrote them by hand?

kthejoker2 5y ago

They have Jefferson's polygraph at the Smithsonian, an idea before its time! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraph_(duplicating_device) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraph_(duplicating_device)