Ask HN: Distributed/remote team members, how did replace the whiteboard?

8 points·dougwbrunton··8 comments

What are the pros/cons of the solution(s) you have settled on? Any hard lessons learned along the way?

At https://whiteboardparty.com we have a closed beta you might be interested in - this is exactly the problem we’re trying to solve.

For us, having a living document that survives a video meeting (has an agenda before, supports structured brainstorming, has takeaways that can evolve over time) is the problem to solved after many conversations with distributed teams.

I signed up for the beta. One question I had based on the site, is the primary space there a collaborative document? As in the video call and document are in the same window?

The live, collaborative document and the video are in the same window. That’s exactly right. (The call is joined from the document itself, no more switching tabs between call and doc).

I’ll send along your beta credentials shortly.

Awesome, thanks!

Try https://awwapp.com/

I'll check that out, for sure. At first glance, the freehand drawing bits feel a bit rough with a mouse.

I mourned the loss of the whiteboard when we moved to distributed teams in ~2012 or so. We turned to Google docs and Hangouts, but it's nowhere near the same in terms of flexibility / resolution / efficiency.

When you work in a google doc, do folks work in their own sections of the doc, or is it a free-for-all? How do you coordinate the work after the meeting?

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