DocAndersen
There was a time, not so long ago, when most of the people I worked with took a lot of whiteboard pictures. We would sit in a meeting; someone would wrest control of the meeting by grabbing the colored whiteboard markers and start drawing. We would then gather around the board staring in wonder and amazement. Look what he hath wrought we would say. Then snap a picture of the moment and copy it our computers. We would then translate the moment into more traditional documentation systems like the word, Visio and so on.
The rise of whiteboard automation changed a lot of that. I use the SmartKapp board and the Ebeam systems on my whiteboards now. Capturing great ideas and for that matter sharing them with other people not in the room with me is a lot easier now than it was. There are also exceptional products for PC’s (tablets mostly) and Tablets that let you create interactive whiteboards that never leave the creation station!
When people argue that whiteboards are the old way of doing things, I laugh. It could be a chalkboard after all. Whiteboards or grease boards are really simple collaboration tools that don’t require moving parts, network connections or even high-tech connections. They just fit on the wall and wait for input. The ability to then share what you are writing on any whiteboard becomes a value.
I have four whiteboards in my house in Indiana. I only have one physical whiteboard now, although I did turn two walls in my basement into whiteboards using the IdeaPaint. I also have beam connected to my basement wall whiteboards. There is an SMartKapp on the other side of the basement room I painted the walls on. That one at first was to see what the new style of whiteboards could do. Now it is my primary whiteboard. The software is easy to use. The system is easy to manage, and I love the look of drawings both on the board and electronically.
The future brings more and more I suspect in this space. Eventually, there will be the concept of connected wallpaper. Where you simply put up the wallpaper on a wall or all four walls in a conference room and you have a connected whiteboard system. But that is tomorrow, for today the SmartKapp system works perfectly!
