Now that you’ve made the decision to jump into the deep-end of the paperless pool, you have a few paths to take.  When it comes to boards going paperless, the first thing they ask, either excitedly or begrudgingly, is, “Do we get iPads?”  The good news is there are many different paths you can take for paperless board devices, allowing you to pick the one that will result in highest user adoption for your board.  After speaking with many municipal staff members on the results of their choices, I’ve laid out some pros and cons below.

Laptops

Pros

• Familiarity – Chances are your board members use computers – let’s hope for your sake they do – they’ll already be familiar with a Windows laptop.  This familiarity can go a long way in minimizing anxiety about changing formats around meetings.  Also, the municipality probably already has surplus laptops or contracts for a discount on them.  Win win!
• No Apps – Most standard-issue laptops used by municipalities will come with all the tools necessary to interact with agendas, packets, and presentation materials – Word, PowerPoint, Adobe Reader, etc.  With a tablet, you might need to install a special app for each different file type.
• IT Integration – Chances are your municipality is already using laptops, so your tech team should be up to speed on any initial setup or installation.  Even more, most of the problems that arise from laptops could be handled in-house – no need to take a trip to the Apple Store.
• Harder to forget at home –  Believe it or not, board members forgetting the device at home is a problem some staff have seen.  Given that it’s bigger, a laptop would be harder to forget.
• Functionality – Aside from not needing apps to open standard files used in agendas and packets, laptops are much more highly functioning.  Perhaps your staff member also needs to access a strategic planning software for the city or check out the status of your See-Click-Fix projects.  While both of these would certainly be doable on a tablet, it might be easier for some to access via laptop.

Cons

• Costs Associated – For a solid laptop that will last four to five years, the costs would typically be about double its tablet counterpart.  What’s more, you have costs for maintenance – lost chargers, dead batteries, license fees, etc.
• Required Maintenance –  Laptops just seem to encounter issues more frequently than the average tablet.  Granted, if your board is just using the device for their respective meetings, the light usage will decrease maintenance needs.  However, as they get older, the laptops will inevitably need more trips to the IT department for maintenance.
• Security –  The downside of a laptop’s vulnerability to more viruses and other security threats is obvious; it could put the files of the board & even possibly municipality at risk.  However, given that the municipality already has anti-virus protections in place, the real con is the extra expense involved in licensing new devices for the protective software.
• Functionality in Context – It’s great that the devices could handle gaming or building a video for the city, but that’s not their primary function.  Given that their primary function is fairly basic – download agenda packet, read the material, make notes – it seems like a bit of overkill.
• Bulkier –  Laptops are larger than tablets and are more difficult to carry around.  This might be a top priority for some of your board members – you just never know.

Tablets

Pros

• Experienced/Tested – Most of the boards that I’ve interacted with that have undertaken the paperless project have used tablets to do so.  When these projects failed, it wasn’t an issue of the tablet being the wrong medium; it was typically a problem with low adoption or poor training the didn’t foster long-term use.
• Ease of Use – Let’s face it, touch-screen tablets will always be simpler to use than keyboard and mouse configuation laptops.  They typically boot up quicker, the required apps are available in a touch, and they tend to have a better user interface.
• Hip – Although it’s hard to imagine anyone thinking of being paperless as “hip”, that might be how your board members see it.  Perhaps they’ve seen peers adopt paperless board devices and expect to get iPads or Surface tablets like their friends did.
• Smaller –  Making the device easier to carry would be a welcome accommodation for some board members.  It might also help increase user adoption, since its size makes it less intimidating for the non-techy board members.

Cons

• Easier to Forget – Because it’s smaller, it’s also easier to forget for the board meetings, which defeats the purpose of going paperless in the first place.  Although this might seem far-fetched, it’s an issue to be aware of.
• Proprietary Features – Some tablets might require you to use special readers or apps that only work with a certain operating system.  For example, in order to make notes to a PDF document on iPads, most people use iAnnotate, or a similar annotation app, rather than Adobe.  These apps might included an added cost to the device.
• Limited Options –  There are limited reliable, reputable options when it comes to tablet devices for your board.  The first, and most obvious, is the iPad.  It’s reputation comes from millions of users and your board members are probably familiar with it.  The other most popular tablet is the Microsoft Surface.  This tablet combines the functionality of a tablet with the familiarity of a Microsoft platform.
• Tech Support – With a tablet like the iPad, your tech support team will be limited in its ability to fix problems.  Particularly, if it’s a failure of hardware, it will require third-party intervention, increasing the cost to the device.
• Learning Curve – Although tablets tend to have a user-friendly interface, they are totally different animals than the PCs that most board members are used to.  As a result, you might find some board members push back on accepting and utilizing tablets due to the learning curve.

BYOD (Bring Your Own Device)

Pros

• Familiarity = Higher Adoption – If you allow your board members to ease into the paperless process with their own devices, they’ll be less likely to resist.  It’s one fewer step of learning and training they have to go through in order to get back to their old routine.
• Common Devices – Most people will also be using devices that are probably supported by your technical staff.  This makes integration into existing municipal tech infrastructure necessary for paperless meetings easier.

Cons

• Mixed Use – Board members would be using personally owned equipment for professional purposes.  Depending on your locality, this might cause issues with Public Records laws or perhaps even violate your municipality’s technical policies.
• Liability – If board members use their personal devices while on municipal duty, it could present a liability issue.  For example, if they break or damage it, the city might be liable for replacement.  Similarly, if they commit a crime via that equipment, the city might also be liable.

A final note about devices: if you implement this BEFORE implementing an agenda management solution, make sure that everything is easily compatible.  For example, an iPad is a pretty middle of the road choice, because it allows you the capability to support both browser and app-based agenda solutions.  At BoardSync, we deliberately chose to be browser-based, since an app is one more hassle IT has to deal with on the user’s end.  However, some platforms do use them.

While it’s necessary to ease your board members into whichever choice you make, your most enthusiastic adopters might surprise you.  More than once a clerk has described to me how their most senior board members caught on to their iPad adoption the quickest. There were others that found it easy to navigate a single app on a tablet rather than a whole operating system of a laptop.  You can check out more comments about the pros and cons of the different devices in this group thread from City Clerk’s Cafe.