With enthusiasm for traditional business meetings dipping alarmingly thanks to increasing commercial and environmental pressures, and decreasing time and budgets, could businesses learn a thing or two from a long-time cornerstone of classroom technology?

New from the people who brought you Predictable, Prosaic, and Pedestrian – More Bleeding Obvious Business Truisms™ No.8 in a series of 12: “Meetings are boring.”

You know what though? They ARE boring. Time-consuming, fruitless, costly, inefficient, and more often than not an inconvenient interruption to the real, productive working day.

Then there are presentations. One-sided. One-paced. One-dimensional. And don’t even get us started on seminars, ‘workshops’, and training sessions.

We’ve all been there. Ears bleeding; dead or dying from over exposure to Powerpoint; all doodled out; dangerously dehydrated from the lack of drinkable coffee, and desperately hoping something will happen to inject some momentum back into proceedings.

Ironic then, that a possible remedy to ‘meeting malady’ should emerge from a place many of us will have been even more jaded and confused – school.

For the uninitiated, the Interactive Whiteboard (IWB) typically comprises a whiteboard connected to a PC, a mounted projector, and various software that in turn enables the board to the act – and be controlled – just like a large format screen.

It’s a simple but ingenious notion – in one fell stroke of a finger or a digital pen, everyone’s interactively engaged in the meeting or session instead of only the chair or the presenter – instantly delivering greater involvement, collaboration, and productivity. Or at least that’s the theory.

Participants can add their own comments, ideas and content; ask questions, suggest answers, which can then be reviewed, edited, saved, and even emailed on the spot. You can access and share spreadsheets, Word documents, and PowerPoint presentations, and work with multiple inputs such as videoconferencing, still images, audio, and Internet access.


By connecting the projection screen to the computer, the IWB adds not just a further function, but a whole extra dimension, he explains. For one thing, there’s no need to be anywhere near a keyboard. Full functionality is available via the IWB – including a ‘soft’ keyboard which can be called up on screen; while most boards also allow users to make and save annotations ‘live’, using digital markers and highlighters.

It’s all very flexible too. Because most IWBs are easily networkable, there’s no need for users to be in the same room, the same building, or even the same country. Which makes IWB technology the perfect adjunct for sharing and transferring knowledge between people and locations, however geographically disparate they may be.

IWBs are most commonly used in training and creative and project management circles currently, but it’s not difficult to see the opportunities for value-add and ROI via uses such as remote collaboration. And functions like business and financial planning, dispersed team working, multi-team project management, extended supply chain management, bid management, and research and development are all being touted as areas in which IWBs will gain serious traction. Especially with the technology maturing and gaining commercial focus at its current rate.


Last year specialist AV distributor Steljes launched the Toshiba extreme short-throw (EST) projector, for example, a product designed to be sited very close to the whiteboard and angled to reduce the kind of glare and shadows typical in modern offices.

Mark Bird, Group Sales and Business Development Director with the company, comments: “The technology has moved on significantly in the last 10 years. Systems are now extremely lightweight and resilient, and can be either fixed or portable, depending on requirements.”
There’s a wide range of complementary IWB hardware and software these days too. These include peripherals such as interactive voting systems and pens, tablet PCs and notebooks; visualisers for the display of 3D objects; speakers to enhance sound quality, and a range of tools including presentation packages.

As regards the IWBs themselves, there are three main technologies right now: resistive or touchscreen, electromagnetic, and scanning; though from a user-experience perspective the differences are relatively small, according to Magiboards’ van der Stap.

Touchscreens let you ‘write’ and ‘draw’ with your finger, which tends to polarise users, some of whom see it as an advantage and some of whom favour the more ‘natural’ use of a pen/stylus. Other issues here include users using their free hand or their palm for support when writing, which can cause problems with the resistive boards.

Electromagnetic boards use special pens, the downside being that they can only be used with certain makes of pen and that replacements can be expensive.

Scanner-based boards use special pens too, which this time transmit a signal which is picked up by the board. The benefit here is that the technology is portable and can be used on any projection solid surface. The downside is that the pens tend to be bulky and that input is not quite as accurate and responsive as with resistive and electromagnetic alternatives.

One further option is the LCD or plasma overlay, which effectively turns an existing screen into an interactive display. Similar to IWBs, these are limited in size and – for the time being anyway – prohibitively expensive.

Boards are still reasonably pricey but, a bit like flat-screen TVs, cheaper models are available and costs are falling all the time.

For a model with a 73-77” diagonal, prices today range from around £795 up to around £1,800, with rear projection options selling for between £3,000 and £4,000.

Many mid-sized businesses these days have at least one projector, so may get away with something more modular, while newer solutions often include integrated projectors, minimising the install which, to an extent, off-sets cost of the projector.

It’s worth remembering here, that the installation – and therefore its cost – is relevant to the stand-alone projector rather than the board. Installing and connecting most IWBs is as simple as wall-mounting a conventional whiteboard, so don’t be fobbed off with services you don’t need.

Also, with opportunities quickly shifting to the corporate market, vendors sometimes tweak, rename, and rebadge education-centric software as being ‘for the enterprise’. Such software is generally of questionable relevance for the average business, so tread carefully, and don’t pay for it unless you have to.

One way or the other, with the economic climate continuing to look shaky, and companies reviewing every budget from facilities to travel, any technology that’s proven to help more get done with fewer meetings is likely to gain ground. It might even stop our ears bleeding.