Sometimes you meet with a few colleagues and want to develop an idea. Or you want to develop an idea yourself, but you don’t really know where to start. In this situations I found it very helpful to use Magic-Charts (Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de), thin sheets of platic-like paper that stick to walls and windows due to static electricity.
They transform a white wall in an instant whiteboard, you can remove the things you write or draw (within a few minutes of writing it), rearrange the pages or simply put them down, roll them up and store them until you need it again. If you want to transfer the contents to your computer simply hang them at the wall behind your screen or photograph them to recreate them digitally.
Sure, there are other ways to do this, but I haven’t found a way that is as simple and as good as MagicCharts. For example, Smartboards have everything you write or draw available digitally and can even use text recognition, but they are much more inaccurate (despite calibrating it again and again) and — honestly the biggest disadvantage — the buzz from the projector lamp cooling fan throws me off. You can also use paper (e.g., Flipframes) and stick them to the wall with scotch tape, but this makes rearranging the pages more difficult (there’s a reason for the “Magic” in the name “Magic-Charts”) and you cannot easily remove what you have written.
Seriously, try it … if found them to be a great help for late-night office conceptiualizations of programs or studies and for developing ideas collaboratively with colleagues.
Note 1: You might want to read more about this on the page: Stationary Ways to Capture Ideas.
Note 2: I’m not getting anything for this recommendation of a product (except the warm fuzzy feeling of doing something good) — I simply like it and despite it being not very eco-friendly — I think it’s an invaluable help to develop ideas. And by the way, I would have included a link to the Legamaster website but I have never seen a worst marketed product than Magic-Charts … they are under Accessories … somewhere.
