e-Learning has brought in the big bang and taken the world by storm but what about “e-Working”? Sure we are learning our way through everything in the most flexible manner when we are on our own but humans are beings who collaborate and work in groups.
So, the real test of technology begins when you wish to work together from two polar ends of the planet. Sounds like a hassle, right? No more, we say.
Virtual Co-working spaces – Online Whiteboards
Not long ago, a post on Entrepreneur made a prediction that virtual co-working spaces will become highly common in the near future, providing people with a digital platform to collaborate and work simultaneously on a project. But, the future was nearer than we had imagined.
There are apps which allow us to work in collaboration with people not in our proximity and these tools are popularly known as the Virtual Whiteboards. In fact, they have become the go-to approach for brainstorming ideas, elaborate planning, drawing, presentations or general explaining.
Started as a simple idea for a Productivity enhancement tool, Virtual whiteboards have achieved much more than higher productivity. They have made it possible for people to huddle and work together in real-time as a team regardless of the distance between them. But there is much more to these virtual tools. Let us take a look at what makes them the best tool for co-working.
Interactive space
An online whiteboard gives you the ability to note down your points and thoughts on the screen itself. And this screen can be seen by all the people you are working with, much like a normal whiteboard. But this board comes with a twist.
Whether you are a student, a business professional, a designer or a developer, online whiteboards give you an interactive platform that allows you to query and have that query resolved in real-time. It breaks you away from traditional collaboration methods that slow down the work cycles like emails.
This kind of set-up promotes active discussions and participation from all the team members, thereby reducing the learning curve substantially.
Document sharing
Online whiteboards allow a person to display a specific document from disk memory on to the screens of all the people connected over the conference through these softwares. These documents can be made editable by specific people and all the changes made will reflect in real-time.
This sharing property works with web pages as well.
Image search
The intuitive add-on functions of an online whiteboard make it an ideal tool for students and businessmen alike. One such attribute is the added image search provided in some software where you are not required to switch to a web browser for searching an image or icon.
Images are the best way to make your live presentations more interactive and online whiteboards allow you to use them in real-time.
Security
Online whiteboards are ideal for education, businesses, design development and for any other thing as far as our imagination stretches. However, we do not want our private information to be breached in any way, especially if it is business related or intellectual property.
This is why these software are built with information security as the core of the operation. With air-tight Data encryption and multiple back-ups, you do not have to worry about your data when it comes to using online whiteboards.
The possibilities are endless for these online learning and working spaces. There can be features such as chat ability, audio conferencing, Polling, etc. The only curve-ball that comes in the way is that though there are multiple online whiteboard options available, all these properties are seldom squeezed into any one of them.
However, Remote work is shaping up to be a game changer and smart applications are reducing distances by bringing the best minds together. So it is highly likely that, sooner than we know, we will have an all-encompassing virtual whiteboard to answer all our needs at a single stop.
The digital world has given us all the convenience that we need. It’s our time to make the best of it.