This post was written by Nic Haralambous.

The whiteboard is our mini-revolution. For 6 months I have been threatening to buy some whiteboards for the Motribe offices. I was slack, lazy and believed that digital was a much better solution for us to plan and plot our next moves, strategies and projects.

I was wrong. I recently used the Waltons online store to buy 3 whiteboards. The Waltons online store is not very pretty but extremely solid in terms of product and delivery. I Ordered on Monday and they arrived on Tuesday.

The whiteboard has revolutionised (re-revolutionised?) the Motribe office and here’s why:

• Writing things down burns them in to your subconscious. I’m not talking about TYPING them, I mean the physical act of writing things down is the important part.


• Whiteboards let everyone in the company see what you are doing, thinking and planning at a glance. This is very important and can help you to all align your thinking.


• Clear and present roles and responsibilities. I have my own whiteboard for business development, operations, clients and requests. Vincent has a board for all the technical things happening on his side and how they are working and being processed. This allows me to see what he and Sean are managing and allows them to understand what I am managing.


• An ideas board. Our third whiteboard is used as a “Mass debate” board. This is the board where any of us can write down an idea and have a mass office debate about it. This helps to create an open environment and company culture.


• Vincent said the following: "Captain Kirk and those other fuckers don't run the Enterprize from a Google Doc. They have a whole goddamn wall of consoles and maps and flight paths and interactive stuff so they know what the hell they are doing." I think the short version (and less nerdy one) is that you need multiple tools to solve a problem effectively and digital is just one tiny aspect of a company, even if it is an Internet company.


• Sean believes that it’s a sharing of ideas openly in the office that allows us to move past the idea of power and dominance. I think that’s a good point - allowing everyone to contribute to someones job, task list or problems.

In conclusion, the point that I am trying to make is that there is more than one ring to rule them all. It takes many solutions to fit in to a complex thing like a business.