Easy Start Whiteboarding

I am a huge virtual whiteboard fan. I love the amazing things you can now do with them. Well, except for Google Jamboard, which I have tended to view as far too limited for my purposes.

Until a few days ago.

Recently I had an experience that led me to realise Jamboard’s limitations are actually its greatest strength.  Its limitations enable everything within it to be kept simple and intuitive. And as a result there is no real training required.

A colleague asked me to help them run a very short online workshop of 20 people. Their premise for the workshop was very simple. But there was no time for training. So I decided to give Jamboard a go. It worked brilliantly, with amazing feedback.

And something in my brain clicked.

Jamboard gives people a beneficial experience of participative online whiteboarding with virtually no investment on their part.

My blind spot had been that, to me, the potential of whiteboard is easily worth the 15 minutes you need to put into learning how to do it. But the reality for participants is, if you haven’t yet seen the benefit, the time spent learning is variable at best, and that causes problems.

I was trying to sell the idea with logic and reasoning, but Jamboard sold it with experience and emotion.

So I am now a convert. I realise that if I can get people started on Jamboard there is a much greater chance, that they will catch the participative whiteboard bug.

And when they realise they need something with a bit more power, they will have the motivation and the context to make that learning investment properly.

With that in mind, I have created the following free Jamboard based resource for anyone who might want to try simple whiteboarding in their own organisation: Getting Started with Google Jamboard.

Since Jamboard is so easy to use, the resource is aimed more at ensuring your confidence to host a session. Perhaps as a small part of one of your meetings.

It takes less than 5 minutes, and includes a number of easy to use templates and timers (shown on the right) to get you started.

And if, like me, you get the bug, you will find
an expanding set of resources on our jamboard.toolchest.org page which will keep you going for a while.