For months, our plan was for the cards to be dry erase. This was one of the requirements for our manufacturer. But it turns out wet erase (think overhead projectors) is the way to go. Here’s why:
It’s important to be able to stack the cards and not Etch-a-Sketch all of your plans.
With dry erase markers, it turns out (and is obvious now, in hindsight) the friction of stacking a card on top of another is enough to erase whatever you’ve written on it. Uh oh.
But with wet erase markers that is not the case. Unless you’re stacking your deck underwater, you should be fine (sorry to all of our facilitators in Atlantis). Any notes, plans, doodles, or whatever you’ve used to help plan your facilitation will still be there when you unstack your deck.
The downside of this (at least for us) is that you’ll need to add a few wet erase markers to your facilitation kit. Where before you might have already been packing dry erase.
But there are a few more upsides (beyond the whole stacking slash basic functionality thing):
- Wet erase markers are great for finer writing, so you can fit more on the card
- You’ll feel like you’re in high school again (if you’re in a generation where overhead projectors were synonymous with high school)
- The cards are going to be waterproof now! (you’re welcome, facilitators in Atlantis)
We’ll surely make more tweaks as we go forward, hear from you, and keep testing these things. And I’ll be sure to update the blog whenever we change directions.