Collaborating on design--remotely

If you're in the collaborative working world, you've probably had at least a few meetings where folks shared ideas and jotted them on a whiteboard. But what happens when designers working on a project want to collaborate in real time on a whiteboard but are in different cities?

One small design company recently solved that problem while the boss was on the road by using technology that allowed his colleagues to write designs on the board and him to see what they were doing on his computer via an Internet connection. He says he chose an e-Beam system over the Mimio Xi because it's smaller and weighs less, he says.

One big drawback of using these tools is that you have to carry around a pound or two of extra gear to use the applications. But if folks are wedded to using a whiteboard rather than, say, a tablet PC, it's a solution. A cheaper and less cumbersome possibility might be to just use two Webcams. If you're interested in the whiteboard technology or you're looking for a couple of cameras you could use, check out CNET's reviews.