HOSTING AN EFFECTIVE MEETING WITH A WHITEBOARD WALL

Hosting an Effective Meeting with a Whiteboard Wall
Holding a successful business meeting is a bit like landing a space module on the planet Mars. Keeping track of the seemingly infinite variables involved in the process appears hopeless, and conducting the perfect team gathering never seems to work out quite as you had planned. But unproductive company meetings aren’t as inevitable as they may seem. With the right communication tools and a touch of inspiration, you can conduct the meeting of your dreams every time you and your team members get together. One such communication tool is the premium whiteboard wall, which offers a highly durable and virtually endless space for presenting facts, expressing opinions, and coming up with creative ideas for product launches, marketing schemes, and the like.

Make meetings a team activity

To have your meetings become more than personal lectures by you, the organizer, it’s a good idea to take regular advantage of the distinctive viewpoints, experiences, and skillsets of your team members at all of your business get-togethers. Doing so can provide you with great opportunities to make your meetings more efficient, collaborative, and worthwhile, thus enhancing your company’s creativity, productivity, and bottom line.

Organize a Discussion

With the appropriate organization and guidance, collective dialog can bring about a more engaging meeting and generate more new and unique solutions to problems than a traditional lecture, even when a question-and-answer session is included. Devoting a specific segment of your meeting schedule to a brainstorming session is an excellent way to stimulate such group dialog. As the meeting coordinator, your job is to outline the goals of the session and to work in conjunction with your team to expand on ideas they come up with during the brainstorming process. With small groups, it’s easy to encourage free conversation among all the members present, but with large groups, it’s difficult. Thus, it’s more effective to separate the participants in a large meeting into smaller clusters then reunite them after a specific time period to discuss everyone’s ideas in the large group context.

Use Your Whiteboard Wall to Practice “Brainwriting”

Brainstorming is a key part of meetings where top-quality whiteboard-coated walls come into play. For both small and large gatherings, the quality of group discussions can be optimized by using the vast canvas of a whiteboard wall. In smaller meetings, a massive whiteboard wall provides ample room for everyone in attendance to brainstorm together through the use of mind maps, free association, and a host of other methods. In large meetings, however, it’s best to make use of the ample writing area of a whiteboard wall by first dividing the participants into small groups then asking them to use different segments of the wall to record their individual brainstorming ideas.

One novel brainstorming approach that’s popular today is known as “brainwriting.” In this partially nonverbal method, the participants use pieces of paper to write down three original ideas related to the session’s topic. Then after a designated number of minutes, the team members pass their ideas to the individuals on their right, who build from these ideas, adding bullet points, new creative approaches, etc. Next, after another several minutes, all the participants pass the pieces of paper again until the papers have gone all the way around the group. Once the ideas have made it completely around the circle, the participants deliberate and choose which ones are best suited for further discussion.

By ensuring that everyone has a chance to contribute and by removing the common bias favoring the first idea presented, this strategy helps alleviate two of brainstorming’s most significant drawbacks — lop-sided conversations and the anchoring effect, whereby people rely too much on the first piece of information presented to draw subsequent conclusions during the decision making process.

Brainwriting can be even more effectively performed on the vast open surface of a whiteboard wall. Instead of using small pieces of paper to write down ideas related to the session’s topic, participants can write their thoughts on separate sections of the whiteboard wall in large lettering for all to see. Then after a set number of minutes, each team member can move to a different part of the wall and build on the ideas written by the previous writer, adding as much creative input as they want. Next, after another few minutes, the participants move again until they’ve given their input on all the sections of the wall written on by the group. Finally, now that the initial three ideas and subsequent contributions of all the participants have been posted on the wall, the group can review one another’s thoughts and choose those that are the most interesting and worthy of further discussion.

In such an exercise, compared to the cramped writing spaces of notepaper, the vast area of a whiteboard wall promotes more intensive levels of creative thought. Individuals tend to feel freer to express their novel ideas when confronted by the large open-ended surface of a whiteboard wall. Also, using a smooth-flowing dry erase marker as opposed to a small pen also tends to stimulate people to freely bring forth whatever is on their minds. These qualities can be of great benefit in practicing brainwriting because having much more space to write on in much larger letters tends to trigger ideas that might not arise when a person is confined to using 8 ½” by 11” notepaper as a writing surface.

Make Use of Free Association aka Rapid Ideation

In rapid ideation, meeting participants write down all the ideas that come to mind in a designated amount of time before anything is discussed, analyzed, or expanded upon. When practicing this brainstorming technique, you’ll have to establish a time limit, or else you’ll risk losing the feeling of urgency among your team members.

This brainstorming technique can be helpful in avoiding the common problem of having an idea shelved before it has a chance to grow and develop. By letting all meeting attendees bring forth their thoughts before any critiquing begins, rapid ideation eliminates the premature quashing of potentially great ideas and lets them flow out without constraints. The time limit can also help to prevent people from talking themselves out of an idea before they even begin sharing it with others—a frequent brainstorming mistake.

Use Your Whiteboard Wall as a Medium for Visual Aids

Including finely crafted visual components in your meeting presentations can enhance communications with team members, making them feel more engaged and interested in the content you present. Employing well-produced slides and other high-quality visual media such as films and diagrams can help participants to better comprehend and feel involved with your material, and a whiteboard wall is an ideal surface on which to perform such visual work. Designing and conducting graphic presentations are becoming increasingly essential tasks for doing business in today’s high-tech world of telecommuting and virtual communications.

Record All Significant Ideas and Input for Current and Future Reference

When you do a virtual meeting presentation, you should make a habit of writing down all the significant ideas and data put forward by the attendees on your whiteboard coated wall for all your team members to view and provide feedback on as the meeting progresses. Then you can erase and add more textual content and visuals whenever fresh ideas and information come up. The large dimensions and easy visibility of the content on your whiteboard wall will enhance the quality of your presentations, your communications with team members, and your team’s note-taking during virtual meetings, thus helping you to develop your individual brand and professional persona and boost your company’s productivity and profits. Then, after your virtual meetings are finished, you can take pictures of the results that you and the team members produced on the whiteboard wall and send them to the participants and other relevant parties for future reference and input.

Dry Erase Paint

Whiteboard Paint Reduces the Need for Electronic Devices

Whiteboard Paint Reduces the Need for Electronic Devices

Of the many environmental benefits of applying ReMarkable dry erase paint, one of the greatest is that it reduces the use of electronic products such as tablets and laptops, which generate an enormous quantity of waste that has devastating effects on Earth’s environment. As the amount of e-waste dramatically increases year by year, solutions for its proper recycling have lagged far behind. Although it is essential to give e-waste items to a certified recycling company that meets strict requirements for handling these materials, many individuals and businesses fail to do so. Their old electronics end up in landfills, producing toxic results for our air, water, and soil. The main hazardous substances to be found in discarded electronic products are lead, mercury, cadmium, zinc, yttrium, chromium, beryllium, nickel, brominated flame retardants, antimony trioxide, halogenated flame retardants, tin, polyvinyl chloride (PVC), and phthalates. The presence of these and other toxins in our planet’s ecosystem can be greatly reduced through the use of whiteboard-painted walls in place of electronic devices.

Huge amounts of electronic scrap

poses a great risk both to the environment and to public health. Shortages in raw materials needed to make electronics have brought forth a new industry called “urban mining.”

The start of the 21st century has witnessed the generation of huge amounts of electronic scrap, whose careless recycling in both developed and developing nations poses a great risk both to the environment and to public health. As more people buy electronic gadgets, manufacturers are starting to experience shortages of the raw materials needed to make their products, so reclaiming and reusing the constituents of discarded e-products, called “urban mining,” makes good financial sense. A recent study conducted in China revealed that traditional mining of copper, gold, silver, and aluminum from ore is 13 times more costly than recovering these metals through the urban mining of electronic waste.

E-waste recycling involves taking old electronic devices apart

making it an expensive undertaking. Many companies illegally export e-waste to 3rd world nations where recycling is much cheaper but more destructive to the planet.

Proper or formal e-waste recycling typically involves taking old electronic devices apart, separating and categorizing their contents by material, and then cleaning them. Items are then mechanically shredded for further sorting through the use of advanced separation equipment. Companies that perform this service must adhere to strict health and safety guidelines and use pollution-control technologies that reduce the environmental and public health hazards of handling e-waste. All these procedures make formal recycling an expensive undertaking. As a result, many companies and countries illegally export their e-waste to developing nations where recycling methods are more cost-effective but also much more destructive to the planet.

In the unindustrialized nations where much of this illegal e-waste processing occurs, air pollution levels and concentrations of heavy metals are especially high around so-called “recycling plants,” as compared to other regions. These sites are typically backyard operations where impoverished local residents process the obsolete electronics by hand, separating them into parts to extract valuable metals such as gold, silver, and copper before disposing of the rest in landfills. Some metals and plastics are melted down, and those materials that can’t be feasibly processed accumulate in massive dumps near inhabited places and waterways. Sometimes, toxic fumes are inhaled directly as metals from the parts are burned in open bonfires.

Air-quality in e-scrap yards have highest levels of cancer-causing dioxins known

due to its e-waste industry. Dioxins are a group of chemically related compounds that are considered persistent environmental pollutants (POPs).

A typical site where these crude e-waste recycling methods are used is a cluster of villages in southeastern China known as the world’s largest dumping ground for electronic scrap from the United States. There local villagers remove solder from circuit boards over coal-fired grills, burn plastic casings from wires to extract the copper, silver, and mine gold by soaking computer chips in pools of hydrochloric acid. An air-quality study conducted in the area found that it had some of the highest levels of cancer-causing dioxins in the world due to its e-waste industry. Dioxins are a group of chemically related compounds that are considered persistent environmental pollutants (POPs).

Dioxins are found around the globe in local ecosystems, where they accumulate in the food chain, mainly in the fatty tissue of animals. These chemicals are highly toxic and can cause reproductive and developmental issues, damage the immune system, interfere with the action of hormones, and cause cancer. Due to their potentially lethal nature, prevention or reduction of human exposure is best accomplished through direct measures, such as strict control of e-waste recycling processes to reduce the production of dioxins. Another approach is the application of ReMARKable whiteboard painted walls in schools, offices, and other facilities to reduce the use of electronic devices, which are some of their main sources.

E-waste recycling is detrimental to the health of the workers

Chronic exposure to the pollution emitted from e-waste dumpsites causes high concentrations of heavy metals like lead, copper, zinc, nickel, barium, and chromium to be present in human blood.

For the above-mentioned reasons, the current global recycling system is detrimental to the health of the workers who improperly handle e-waste without protection from dangerous materials and is also a direct cause of contamination in the surrounding environment. Chronic exposure to the atmospheric pollution emitted from e-waste dumpsites causes high concentrations of heavy metals such as lead, copper, zinc, nickel, barium, and chromium to be present in human blood and may be related to hypertension, abnormally low levels of blood oxygen, and other conditions in people working in or living near the sites. The trigger for the air-polluting effect of e-waste is the fact that when the material is heated by overexposure to the sun, for instance, these metals along with other toxic chemicals are released into the atmosphere, causing one of e-waste’s most harmful effects.

Lead is found in almost all Electronic devices

which are becoming obsolete at an astounding rate. When lead is released into the environment near these dumpsites, it can damage the blood, kidneys, and nervous systems of people in the area.

Regarding lead, almost all electronics contain it, and today these devices are growing in number and becoming obsolete at an astounding rate. When discarded, some of our most advanced technological devices represent rapidly expanding and often unregulated exposure to this highly poisonous metal, which plagued even the ancient Romans. A University of Florida environmental scientist recently studied the ecological impact of the lead found in 12 different types of electronic items commonly discarded in landfills. In a report sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), he presented his finding that the items leached lead at concentrations above the EPA threshold for categorizing a type of waste as hazardous. When released into the environment near these dumpsites, lead can damage the blood, kidneys, and nervous systems of people in the area.

Arsenic is present in circuit boards, LCD displays, and computer chips

In large doses, arsenic is lethal along with being a known carcinogen, cited to trigger skin cancer, liver cancer, and other forms of the disease.

The air around e-waste dumps is also high in arsenic, various acids, and other potentially toxic chemicals, including mercury and brominated flame retardants. Concerning arsenic, the reckless disposal of e-waste constitutes one of the most common sources of the inorganic form of this poison. Arsenic is present in circuit boards, LCD displays, computer chips, and other electronic components, and as these parts accumulate in landfills, the arsenic present seeps into the surrounding land, affecting its soil chemistry and possibly the contents of groundwater as well. The presence of arsenic in groundwater and soil has varying effects on different organisms and may be harmful to both land and sea animals. In humans, ingesting arsenic in low doses causes irritation of the digestive system, and in large doses, it’s lethal. Arsenic is also a known carcinogen, being cited as a trigger for skin cancer, liver cancer, and other forms of the disease.

Health risks with chemicals from e-waste leaching into soil and groundwater also exist

The potential threat to groundwater quality is of special concern in those states that have yet to enact landfill-ban legislation to control such waste.

Another common method of e-waste disposal is to simply burn the unusable parts after sorting. Introducing arsenic into the atmosphere in this way also has serious implications for human and animal health. For example, research by the National Cancer Institute has shown a linear relationship between inhaling arsenic and the development of lung cancer, as well as a wide range of nervous disorders. Although many states in the US have enacted landfill bans for most consumer electronics and appliances, the dangers associated with the chemicals from e-waste leaching into soil and groundwater remain. The potential threat to groundwater quality is of special concern in those states that have yet to enact landfill-ban legislation to control such waste.

Considering the many harmful environmental consequences related to electronic waste disposal, choosing economical, long-lasting, and eco-friendly ReMARKable Whiteboard Paint is a sensible alternative for all types of applications since it minimizes the need for laptops, tablets, and other devices, providing a highly flexible medium for conveying information and ideas in offices, schools, and other settings.

Dry Erase Walls

PROPER SURFACE PREPARATION FOR A DRY ERASE PAINTED WALL

Your Wall Must Be Smooth

One of the most critical parts of achieving a successful dry-erase paint application is providing an absolutely smooth substrate beforehand. Make sure that your wall is as smooth as possible prior to starting your application. This is one of the sometimes overlooked aspects of properly prepping a surface to be covered with premium dry-erase coating. Any holes, cracks, or cuts on the wall must be filled in with spackling paste, otherwise known as spackling compound, a plaster-like substance that resists shrinking and is formulated mainly for use in filling in smaller holes and other imperfections in drywall or plastered walls. If the smoothness is questionable after a thorough inspection, give the wall a quick sanding with some 220-grit sandpaper once you fill in any dents and holes with spackling compound, then wipe it off with a microfiber cloth. This step is so important we’ll say it another way: Make sure your wall’s surface is nice and smooth from top to bottom and from one end to the other.

The smoother and more regular your wall feels before the dry-erase paint application, the more attractive it will look and the easier it will be to write on and erase after the coating cures. To achieve a perfectly smooth surface, besides filling in all holes, cuts, and cracks, you’ll also have to eliminate any raised areas on the surface, such as lumps and divots, no matter how small they may be. Thus, you can guarantee that all writing and drawing you do on the cured dry-erase coated wall will look clear and that you can write and erase without leaving any missed spots. So make sure your surface is as perfectly even as possible because after your base paint and dry-erase paint dry, you won’t want to have high and low areas where dry erase marker ink can collect in the low places. This will cause minute spots to appear on your dry-erase surface that will be hard to erase, thus compromising the surface’s condition and requiring sanding and a new application.

Your Wall Must Be Dry

Make sure that any fresh paint on the wall has dried for at least 24 hours before beginning to apply the premium dry-erase paint. For example, if you have recently applied a fresh coat of ReMARKable Tintable Base Paint to your wall, allow it to dry for a minimum of one day before installing the premium dry-erase coating. Waiting this period of time for the base paint to dry is essential to avoiding problems with your dry-erase paint application, such as bubbling, adverse chemical reactions, and poor adhesion of the topcoat to the base coat.

Another issue that results from applying the dry-erase paint over an insufficiently dry base coat is wrinkling, which results from solvents contained in the wet base paint underneath attacking the topcoat above as they try to pass through, causing the coating to wrinkle and look unsightly. Should this problem occur, you will need to let the wrinkled coating dry thoroughly and then sand the surface with 180- to 220-grit sandpaper, depending on how severe the wrinkling is. Next, a second layer of dry-erase paint should be applied, this time allowing the base paint to dry thoroughly before applying the topcoat.

Besides making sure that your base paint is completely dry, it’s essential to monitor the moisture on the wall and in the room before applying the premium dry-erase coating. This is a vitally important step because next to dust, moisture and humidity are the arch enemies of good adhesion for all types of paints and coatings. If you need to get your surface dry in a hurry, you can use fans or a dehumidifier to accelerate the process. And besides making the surface perfectly moisture-free, it’s important to check for dampness in the air where you’re applying the coating because excessively humid air will also cause the whiteboard coating to adhere poorly to your surface. If the humidity level is high in the room, open the windows and doors to let the air move around freely and, in this way, lower the moisture level before starting the coating application.

Your Wall Must Be Dust Free

If your wall has just a slight bit of texture, you can simply use 220-grit sandpaper to lightly sand the surface until it’s completely smooth. Then thoroughly wipe down the wall with a dampened microfiber cloth followed by a dry microfiber cloth, and you’ll be ready to begin your dry-erase paint application. Using a pole sander, also known as a drywall sander, will make the job of sanding go much more quickly. A drywall sander is a tool with a long handle and a wide sandpaper holder that’s used for sanding plastered walls, hard-to-reach ceilings, and textured walls and for removing bits of paper, dried paint, old coatings, adhesive residue, loose plaster, and the like from walls prior to painting or coating.

After sanding, remember that with all types of paints and coatings, dust is the greatest enemy of proper adhesion, so be extremely careful to remove all dust or debris such as hairs, lint, and wood splinters from your surface before starting to apply the top-quality dry-erase coating. Microfiber cloths or mitts are ideal to use for this purpose because microfiber materials are capable of removing dust and other types of debris on a microscopic level, and due to their exceptionally fine fibers, they leave behind no lint or dust after use. In fact, studies have shown that when fabrics made of microfiber material are used as cleaning tools, 99% of all the bacteria present on a surface are eliminated, and the material’s electrostatic properties give it an amazing capacity to attract and hold onto the tiniest of dirt and dust particles as well.

Whiteboard Wall Paint

WHITEBOARD WALLS BOOST CHILDREN’S CREATIVITY AND ENGAGEMENT

Because whiteboard walls are by nature large, multi-purpose, easy to use, and completely open-ended, they have immense potential for stimulating children’s innate creativity and engagement in homeschool learning. For this reason, they quickly become popular teaching resources for homeschooling parents, who encourage youngsters to use the walls to release their imaginations in independent or collaborative school work and recreational activities.

There’s a great deal that a top-quality open-ended teaching medium like a whiteboard wall can offer to foster free-thinking and inventiveness in young people’s minds. Due to their large, inviting surfaces and unlimited potential uses, children feel inspired to return to whiteboard walls again and again during the school day to doodle, create spontaneous artworks, write poetry, and do other activities. This inspirational quality is not as common with writing and drawing surfaces like notebook paper, flip charts, and traditional whiteboards, whose size limitations restrict the rapid flow of ideas and images coming from children’s minds, thus making these media less exciting to use.

Doodling and drawing on whiteboard walls enhance learning

Drawing on the vast open-ended canvas of a whiteboard wall, even when using a simple technique like doodling, triggers insights and discoveries that aren’t as likely to emerge with note pads, flip charts, or other small surfaces. When children draw an object or just randomly doodle, their minds become deeply attentive and focused. And it is this high level of attention that allows youngsters to become fully conscious of what they’re doing, which in turn helps them develop thinking skills that can be applied to schoolwork and to professional or business careers later in life.

This effect is amplified when children doodle or draw on a top-quality whiteboard-coated wall because studies show that using a large upright surface like a whiteboard wall greatly increases children’s creativity and engagement in school lessons. Working with dry erase markers on the vast open-ended canvas of a whiteboard wall is a lot more fun than writing and drawing using pencil and paper on a desk or tabletop with a limited amount of area to work on. Being horizontal surfaces, desks and tables also limit children’s use of their arm, hand, and back muscles, thus slowing the development of core strength, proper pencil grip, and other motor skills that children need to lead successful lives.

Drawing or doodling with a pencil or pen and paper is thus not only less exciting than working on a whiteboard wall but also less beneficial to children’s physical and mental development. For parents who want their homeschoolers to gain the most benefit for their bodies and brains while doing academic work, having them doodle, draw, and write on a whiteboard wall is an excellent option. And it is the element of fun that prompts young students to become more excited and engaged when working with a marker on a whiteboard wall than they would be working with pencil and paper.

Whiteboard walls make schoolwork more exciting

The freedom, expansiveness, and mobility of using a large area for school work make youngsters more interested in exploring new academic material and creative ideas. In addition, errors can be readily and cleanly erased from whiteboard walls, so there’s no need for kids to be concerned about leaving a messy smudged surface as they would when frequently erasing paper. In contrast to writing in a notebook or on a flip chart, writing with dry-erase markers on a whiteboard wall is more temporary and easily erased, and hence more able to stimulate the free flow of ideas. With a few quick swipes of a microfiber cloth, mistakes or unwanted writings will disappear so that new answers or thoughts can continue to be recorded until the correct solution or the best creative idea emerges.

Drawing, doodling, and writing on whiteboard walls reflects an age-old human tradition

Drawing, sketching, and doodling are time-honored human activities that help children to learn, free associate, and produce creative new ideas. Nowadays, the flood of branded blank sketchbooks, note pads, and journals on the market is helping to generate renewed interest in these pursuits. However, such paper-based materials have to be used while sitting near-horizontal surfaces such as tables, counters, or desks. And this position can hinder aspects of children’s psychomotor development by making them look down, hunch over, sit in a slouched posture, and limit their arm, wrist, and hand movements. By comparison, drawing or doodling on a whiteboard wall requires children to stand upright and use large sweeping motions to make images and write text, thus improving their skills in many important areas of physical and cognitive growth, including bilateral coordination, eye-hand coordination, and core strength.

It seems that the need to draw and doodle is hardwired into the human brain. In fact, among our early ancestors, the making of graphic markings on walls began long before the use of spoken language, as reflected in the world-famous prehistoric cave paintings at Lascaux in southern France. Thus, both random doodling and more methodical free-hand drawing have long been essential to human beings for conveying creative ideas and feelings.

The practice of writing on vertical surfaces like walls, called epigraphy, has also existed since time immemorial, with cases dating back to ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. So, when children write, draw, or doodle on a whiteboard wall, they’re engaging in a natural human activity that goes back for millennia. Epigraphy serves different functions from writing on horizontal surfaces such as tables, counters, and desks or typing on computers or laptops because wall writing cultivates improved eye-hand coordination, visual attention, and other skills that children need for success in their studies and in daily life.

Whiteboard walls facilitate seeing “the big picture”

Also, on the broad expanse of a whiteboard-coated wall, children can view large writings or drawings at a single glance, thus making it easier for them to “get the big picture” when studying maps in geography, timelines in history, or graphic content in other subject areas. Thus, by far the most effective and engaging epigraphic medium for homeschool use is a large high-quality whiteboard-coated wall.

The vast, flexible, and limitless nature of premium whiteboard-coated walls allow them to constantly adapt and grow in step with the needs and skill levels of homeschoolers as they develop physically, academically, and creatively. Thus, both the instructional uses and productive potential of whiteboard walls are never-ending for both parents and children. As such, a whiteboard-coated wall in the homeschool environment can become a highly valued resource that inspires endless amounts of imaginative, engaged, and distinctive work and entertainment.

Creative Work Enhances Self Esteem and Family Bonding

Another significant point to note is that working creatively on a whiteboard wall in the homeschool setting can help to raise children’s self-esteem and improve the quality of family bonds. Expressing their creative images and ideas easily and freely on a whiteboard wall helps children feel good about themselves, and the ongoing encouragement of parents can help in this process. When given challenging art assignments that are appropriate for their level and that they can draw with a reasonable amount of effort, kids will be delighted at their accomplishments. The feat of successfully completing such creative tasks will encourage children to try even more challenging work in the future, and with a parent’s ongoing supervision and support, this can easily be accomplished.

Such activities reinforce the bond between parents and children because they have so many ideas to share that can easily be expressed on a whiteboard-coated wall. Grandparents may also be included in the idea-sharing. Whoever kids choose to interact in this way, working on whiteboard walls will definitely make their creative activities fun and help to improve family relations in the process.

Dry Erase Paint