Appointment Books Range From Merely Trendy to High Tech

As briefcases have become more varied and complex to appeal to a greater variety of people, so too has another piece of business gear: the appointment book.

Once a simple affair--sporting perhaps a calendar and a pen holder--some appointment books have become as large as briefcases and as complicated as computers.

Casio Inc., a big Japanese consumer electronics company, has a new device they call the B.O.S.S. (for business organizing scheduling system). The B.O.S.S., which is about the size of a checkbook, can electronically list appointments, write memos, exchange data with a personal computer and sound an electronic alarm that reminds the busy executive that he or she has another appointment.

Yet bells and whistles aren’t confined to electronic products. Ordinary paper-based appointment books are sprouting new twists also.

Culver City-based Day Runner Inc., a leading maker of appointment books and scheduling aids, says the market for such products has changed dramatically since the company was founded in 1980.

Demand has cooled for the company’s original product: bright red, green or blue vinyl appointment books that included a simple calendar and note pad and closed with a Velcro strap.

But sales of the company’s more conservative--and costlier--black- and burgundy-leather covered books have increased so much that the company no longer sells the original vinyl product.

“We had to tone them down, then get rid of them completely,” Hope Neiman, vice president-marketing, said in reference to the bright-colored appointment books.

“What happened,” she continued, “was that (our original) trendy female-oriented item, became a business tool for men and women. And people wanted to look businesslike.” So they opted for the leather books, which combined listings for telephone numbers, appointments, memos and other notes.

Although Day Runner sells appointment books for as little as $10, its top of the line model, the $250 “Entrepreneur,” is as large and expensive as some briefcases.

“I don’t think we are going to deceive ourselves and say that this is the only thing an executive needs to carry,” Neiman said of the portfolio-sized organizer, which has retractable handles to make it easier to carry. “There are still things they are going to need a briefcase for.”

As for competition from electronic scheduling organizers such as Casio’s, Neiman said: “I’m not terribly concerned. People still operate mostly on a paper-based systems.”