What’s New at MURAL: MS Surface Hub, enhanced sticky notes and new permissions

We’re happy to bring you our monthly webinar series “What’s New at MURAL.” Below is the latest recording for the event held on Aug 3, 2016:

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The previous What’s New webinar covered our new mobile web app and templates. You can find a recording of that here.
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MURAL FOR THE SURFACE HUB

Get the feel of a physical whiteboard with the advantages of working digitally. The MS Surface hub is a large touch screen with high resolution graphics. If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s pretty cool

Over the past year, we’ve been developing a robust version of MURAL that works on the Surface Hub.

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Check it out in action:

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ENHANCED STICKY NOTES

Now you can share ideas more quickly and easily. We’ve added a few new enhancements to sticky notes so you can collaborate better:

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1. See others typing or sketching in real time.

Follow the action as it happens. Now you can see text and sketch updates in real time as your teammates add content to a mural.

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2. Press enter to EDIT

Select a sticky note with the single click and hit ENTER to edit. It’s as simple as that. This let's quickly and easily enter edit mode each time.

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3. See who’s created an element.

Find out whose great idea that was. Just right click on any sticky note or element, and select “Show info.”

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MORE SPECIFIC PERMISSION SETTINGS

Have more control over your information. Now you have to explicitly grant team members permission to export or duplicate murals. This let’s you ensure nothing gets shared accidentally.

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Learn more about permissions in MURAL here.

MONTHLY TIP: TIMEBOXING

It’s easy to get distracted when working remotely. Attention spans are shorter, and thoughts can wander off quickly.

To keep your team focused and on tasks, time each exercise in your method. This increases the sense of urgency and importance of each activity.

Use the timer on your mobile phone to keep track of time. For simple thought exercises, 1-3 minutes chunks of time may be all you need. It’s better to make it shorter than longer. You can always add another minute if needed.

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For sketching or coming up with a concrete solutions, you may need more time. 10 to12 minutes slots work best if you need longer timeframes, but try to avoid longer than 20 minutes. Instead, break the activity into smaller parts.

If you have a longer segment play music in the background to fill the silent void. 10 minutes of no sound can feel very awkward when working remotely. Turning down the music towards the end of the timebox also signals a return to the group discussion.

To play music on a conference call you can play music on your computer or smart phone and let your microphone pick up the sound. Some conference call applications even allow you to share the sound of your computer.
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LEARN MORE

You can find more about MURAL on our support site.

Here are some related articles you may also find interesting:

• “Your Meeting Room Sucks for Collaboration,” blog post by Mariano Suarez-Battan

• “5 Best Practices for Remote Design,” webinar by Jim Kalbach

• “Facilitating Effective Remote Collaboration – Interview with Rachel Smith,” interview by Jim Kalbach

• Workshop music: Jim Kalbach’s favorites - playlist on Spotify