One of my daughters bought me a Boogie Board for Christmas. It is a low tech device that looks quite high tech. About the size of a small tablet it allows you to write on it with the accompanying stylus. You can pretend it is like an iPad Mini.
When you have finished, with the press of a button, thanks to a small battery, everything is erased and you are left with a blank screen again. You can’t save anything nor can you print anything. All you can do is write or draw and delete.
When I first show it to people they ask what it can do, I show them and they can’t hide their mild disappointment. After a while though they grow to enjoy its simplicity. It only does one thing yet it does it very well. It is a useful way of adding to conversations. It is so handy. It is a notebook and a whiteboard that you can chuck in your bag. It is an aide memoire and a useful tool for those of us who need more visual stimulus. If you do need to keep a record then there is always the camera on your smartphone.
Everyone compares it to an Etch A Sketch though you don’t have to turn it upside down to clear it. You can also draw curved lines which is something I could never master.
At Thinking Digital 2017, Dan Biddle was another one of the excellent speakers. He is a media strategist and was most recently director of broadcast partnerships at Twitter in the UK. Now there is a cool job.
He said that every day we should approach life like an Etch A Sketch, turn it upside down, give it a shake and start all over again. You can write your life anew everyday. It was a metaphor for starting with a clean sheet.
From now on, everyday for me will be like a clean Boogie Board.
“From now on, everyday for me will be like a clean Boogie Board.” Best line.
Ever!