[HacktionLab] micro workshop idea - interactive meetings using laser pointers

[Gareth Coleman]

Hiya everybody!

I've bought fifteen cheap (£1) laser pointers to try out an idea that's
been brewing in me for a while.

They are designed to help give feedback and vote during a meeting.

I like the hand signals thing that I've seen used in meeting before - where
you can shake your hands to indicate something (agreement?).

I've toyed with the idea of a mobile phone app before but that smells like
overkill.

But it would be easy to give out laser pointers, and just draw a few
squares on a white board for people to use.

You could call out for a vote at specific times, and it would take just a
few seconds for everyone to get their spot on target and then the results
would be visible. Each vote is equal, unlike our voices which have a
certain 'power' despite all our efforts to consciously equalize them.

Or you could encourage feedback spontaneously during the discussion, yet it
doesn't have to interrupt the speaker unless they chose to take account of
it. So you could shine your laser on the 'Explain that in more detail
please' area on a whiteboard

If several people were indicating different things then it would be very
hard for anyone to see which spot was whose, so giving anonymity.

It would also be hard to game the system as holding more than one laser
pointer aloft would be semi-obvious unless it was quite dark :-)

Does anyone else think this idea is interesting enough to try out?

attached is a picture of the kind of thing I was thinking of drawing on a
whiteboard

loads of love

ps really looking forward to Barn Camp!
------------------------

Gareth Coleman
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