We did something like this using big 4x8 sheets of acrylic (plastic) from the local "Lowe's Depot". It turned out to be cheaper than the paints, and we didn't have to get landlord approval to paint his walls. Just a stud finder and 4 tiny screws per sheet turned whole walls into fantastic dry erase boards. Blacklights at their edges made it even cooler.
Yeah, this IdeaPaint stuff is $175 (!) for 50sf of coverage. It could cost several thousand to turn your office into what you're looking for.
Whereas tileboard is $12 for a 32sf chunk. So cheap that even if it does break down, it's still cheaper to replace it a dozen times rather than put up IdeaPaint.
Rustoleum makes a whiteboard paint that seems cheap, but you've actually got to layer it many times to get decent performance. And even then it's not that great.
We're going with the tileboard route at the coworking place I'm putting together here in Atlanta. Shameless plug: http://www.ignitionalley.com
I did this too, in my old home office. Cheap and worked great.
The reality is though, the more space I used to have whiteboard discussions with others, the harder it was to capture this information for later use. Nearly all of the time, a pad of paper or a smaller whiteboard was suitable for the conversation.
Seen this before - is it actually shipping now, hence the news?
My ex officemate (university offices, paint wasn't an option) ordered a ton of magic whiteboard sheets and got the same effect - very impressive. The only problem is knowing where the whiteboard stops. (He didn't.)
Now...whiteboard paint has existed for some time, but has a reputation of being pretty awful in that it stains, cleans poorly and generally degrades terribly. Has anyone tried this ? I'd get it right away if it's actually better than plain dry-erase paint.
I can't speak to the paint, but I worked at a place with dry-erase wallpaper covering the middle 60% or so of the walls, left-edge to right-edge. There was never any problem with staining or degrading. It was truly awesome.
I haven't tried either in person, but the paint is very expensive and from what I was seeing the 'wallpaper' solution would work better and be cheaper. You know, if you're working with walls... the paint would work better for irregular surfaces and areas.
That's a good idea! I have one question regarding using dry erase walls/sheets without the marker holder bar on the bottom...did you have the dry marker residue all over the floor all the time?
I just kept the erasers in a box on my desk, which was easy enough. We didn't have any problems with residue on the floors, either. It's just not a lot of residue, especially when you spread it out over such a huge surface.
But it's crap in terms of performance. And you have to layer it many times to get it to work even decently. Those layers add up when you get down to it.
I hate dealing with people that can't talk things over or explain things without drawing on whiteboards. I would like to remove the whiteboard from my office. Doesn't anybody else just think things through in English?
I find spoken English (or any other language) remarkably ineffective when it comes to reasoning about more abstract concepts. Many of these concepts are much easier to describe and reason around in some sort of diagram and symbol shorthand. Even when just thinking to myself I often use a lot of internal visual representations of the concepts I'm thinking about.
Also leaving a visual trail of the development of your thoughts make it easier for others (and you) to follow and gives you something to refer back, rather than trying to remember a long chain of complicated arguments.
Personally I like using a whiteboard even when just reasoning out things for myself.
Try thinking a half million lines of C++ code into an existing enterprise architecture with a staff who's native language is not English in English without drawing a picture.
I agree with you. I've never really managed to use whiteboards effectively, and people who jump up to the whiteboard at every hint of trouble eventually get on my nerves.
It does not bother me any more than someone who is particularly animated with their body gestures or language when communicating an idea. Beside that having ideas written out in a shared space can be very useful when you are collaborating on a large project with many facets.
The main benefit I find from having something to draw on is the ability to talk about multiple things without blowing their/my working memory. Seven chunks gets used up pretty damn quick when you need to consider both the parts and the interactions.
