[Sigia-l] RE: We could just use whiteboards instead.

[Johndan Johnson-Eilola]

What's the point of fetishizing digital, though? There are lots of 
things for which digital solutions make more sense, but sometimes its a 
matter of fitting a binary peg into an analog hole--more effort than 
it's worth, unless you're in R&D (which is a great place to be).

For example, I'm trying to finish a book manuscript on information work 
that crosses nearly a dozen disciplines and works ranging from website 
through experimental music. I do a lot of brainstorming in Visio, 
Tinderbox, and OmniGraffle, but sometimes I need a much larger space in 
which to map out ideas. I won't post the image to the list, but if you 
go to

	<http://www.clarkson.edu/~johndan/other/wall.html>

you'll see what I mean--I started on the whiteboard and ended up 
covering three walls (and since then, the fourth wall and the ceiling). 
My office looks a lot like this, too.

On one hand, maybe you'd consider this only a "private" work product, 
naked things I should never show anyone outside of my bedroom/office. 
On the other hand, these are the same sketches (or, actually, pictures 
of sketches) that I've taken to the editors at my press, and to people 
reviewing drafts of the rough manuscript. And to some extent, they 
provide vivid demonstrations of various methods for organizing and 
representing information (which is the point of the book manuscript).

Maybe the point is about screen real estate. I currently have a 
dual-head monitor setup that provides me with something like a 
two-and-a-half-page display (a 15" powerbook alongside a 21" CRT) and a 
72" SmartBoard touchscreen/whiteboard computer, but those sometimes 
aren't enough space. If I had a 20-foot x 10-foot flat panel, 
touch-screen LCD, I might consider using digital instead.

Your last sentence suggests you're not looking at an either/or, which 
is good, but sometimes Etch-a-Sketch and Crayolas belong  in the 
boardroom, at least if you want to challenge people in the boardroom. 
(Admittedly, not always a good idea, but certainly something we need to 
consider.)

- Johndan

On Tuesday, August 26, 2003, at 04:38 PM, Listera wrote:

> "Davis.Michael at ic.gc.ca" wrote:
>
>> Though I write faster with a keyboard I find I cannot think as fast 
>> with a
>> keyboard. Whenever I have to start out on a fairly substantial 
>> project I find
>> picking up a pen and scratching all over a piece of paper a lot more
>> productive than tapping on a keyboard, erasing, and retapping. Is 
>> this merely
>> my own preference?
>
> Nobody is telling you how to go about generating your own work 
> product. If
> you live on a beach and want to draw on sand, that's great. You want to
> create your wireframes naked, not a problem in my book. But why bring 
> the
> Etch-a-Sketch and crayon set into the boardroom?
>
> If you do want to sketch freehand, you can easily do that digitally. 
> Just
> get yourself a 4x5 inch Wacom digital tablet and draw away. The beauty 
> of
> this is that a digital tool can even straighten out your doodling into
> perfect circles and squares and arrows, if you'd like. They scale up 
> or down
> without limits. You can generate an infinite variety of strokes. They 
> print
> hi-res on any surface, including archival stock. Coloring is free, 
> too. You
> can email them to clients. You can show them in a video conference 
> directly.
> You can take advantage of versioning and digital storage. You know, 
> they are
> both freehand and *digital.*
>
> Ziya
> Nullius in Verba
>
>
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