Whiteboard

January 13, 2009 - Leave a comment...

I Love Dry EraseI am now the proud owner of a large dry-erase board. This is only worth blogging about because a giant blank canvas is a noteworthy thing in our age of little text fields and 140-character microblogging. The best and worst thing a creative person can stare at is a blank page- it represents either total freedom or an intimidating lack of substance.

It’s like looking down from the top of a ski slope. Either you see every twist and turn of the path you might take, or you see a big scary unbroken mountain staring back up at you. The difference, of course, is in the mind of the skier. In either case you’re certainly not going to want to walk down a narrow little path, structured by how someone else might have descended the mountain.

So much of how technology works is centered around the left-brained types. Outlining software, databases, calendars, and to-do lists force us to think in little lines of text. I would lay money down, however, that all of those innovations started life as an idea jotted onto a giant dry-erase board.

This is why we love the iPhone’s big touchscreen but still hate entering data with it. This is why we want Apple to release a tablet MacBook already. This is why, for all we do in front of little LCD monitors, our best steps forward start with a tube-dispensed liquid pigment (or, alternately, a stick of chalk).

If you haven’t invested in a full-size notebook or a dry-erase board large enough to use as a Pilates mat, it’s time for you to head to Staples and pick one up.

Photo by Jeff Kubina

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  • http://www.financialaidpodcast.com Christopher Penn, Financial Aid Podcast

    Save a crapload of money and screw a large sheet of plexiglas to a plain white wall. Same whiteboard utility at a fraction of the cost!

  • Matches Malone

    Well, if you’re willing to make a donation to my 168 Project Film, I’ll go and do that right now. Thanks!!!

  • Zimmie

    I really hope Apple don’t release a tablet Mac. That would be horrible to use. Have you tried using a tablet computer for a significant length of time? It normally goes one of two ways. Either it’s something like an iMac where your neck is at a normal angle, but you get gorilla arm trying to use it, or it’s like a notebook (not computer, but a notebook where you write with a pen) where it’s comfortable to use with your arms, but hurts your neck after a while.

    The reason the iPhone is okay is that it’s small enough for the hand interacting with it to be in contact with an edge most of the time. Gives you much more precise positioning of clicks (eliminates the gorilla arm effect).