‘ideation’ ?
We've hit a new low in buzzwords. I think someone needs a stiff beverage.
Microsoft has made its Whiteboard Windows 10 app generally available in a move that Redmond hopes will see an end to dried-out marker pens and inky fingers. In preview since December 2017, the ‘free-form, intelligent canvas’ represents an excellent opportunity for a game of buzzword bingo, with ‘ideation’ taking the honours in …
How it pains me to say so, but Microsoft actually deserve credit for this. Ever since giant touchscreens appeared, integrating a decent whiteboard app into the MS Office environment has been an utter no-brainer. Here we are, maybe ten years down the line, and MS have finally woken up and smelled the coffee.
In my career supporting various bits of gear loosely termed "IT" I have thrown away several "smart" whiteboards, due to lack of use.
Everyone seems to think they are a great idea and will make meeting so much more productive. Someone else finds $15,000 or so from the capex budget, and the thing is purchased.
Several years later a third person realises it has been used exactly once and I am called in to take it off the wall and send it to the recyclers.
If you want one, I have one in my store room.
" I have thrown away several "smart" whiteboards ... If you want one, I have one in my store room."
>SHUDDER!<
The touchscreen monitor is 120% of the value here.
Have you ever tried pulling up Google Maps and comparing routes to TGI Friday vs. Wetherspoons on a smart whiteboard, then emailing the marked-up map to your team mailbox?
Most effective real time collaboration is done verbally, you need to talk with them so they can ask questions in real time. Drawing pictures, etc is helpful but not usually critical as it is the content of the conversation that is important which can summarized by an email to all participants. It seems as if the marketing buffoons at Slurp are trying to find a product to justify their pointless salaries.
The best thing about a big whiteboard is the space. I can see how something is evolving or point back at something developed earlier. Once something looks like it fairly well thrashed out, I take a picture with my phone and if it deserves it, I create an electronic document.
Some tools are great for certain things. What I do on a White Board isn't something that can be done efficiently on a phone or tablet sized screen.
The room where that word was groupthought needs fitted with a hydrogen cyanide system. With big red buttons outside and in. Then anyone who hears that shit can do away with the oxygen thieves in the room of then can off themselves in the unlikely event they become self-aware that they have become vacuous empty shells no more than a mockery of the humans they were born.