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I think part of the in presence problems can be fixed with better virtual spaces. If slack was more like an mmorpg with buildings and rooms that you physically

by ghthor 9y ago

I think part of the in presence problems can be fixed with better virtual spaces. If slack was more like an mmorpg with buildings and rooms that you physically navigated in then teams could start building better camaraderie by having an avatar and a space that's there's. VR tech will take this to the next level and we'll have virtual offices where remote workers can all meet, collaborate, and build there own spaces to work together within. Part of me hopes that valve is working on this already, bigscreen already is an example of the beginnings of a virtual office space.

woolvalley 9y ago
What is hard to escape are time zones. In practice what happens is you have a few offices in your continental timezones, and a bunch in other continents timezones, and because of team purpose churn, different continents will have to start working with each other. It doesn't matter how fancy the equipment is when you are asleep and awake at different times. You get 1 day (vs 10 minute) response times and nobody really wants to schedule a meeting because you have to get up very early or stay up very late, well out of working hours. Something that would be 1 day of back and forth becomes 1 week. It starts becoming very frustrating. On top of that with tech, the tech worker hotspots are north america, europe and india/china. And each band have big differences in timezones. It's difficult to say 'we will only hire in the american timezones', because there are barely any tech workers south of the USA.
- imtringued 9y ago
  I don't understand the timezone argument. If your employer wants you to work from 9 to 5 in the timezone of the employer then you either don't take the job or you adjust your schedule to the timezone of the employer. This may rule out australian employees working for an american company but it doesn't rule out NYC employees working for a Washington DC company.
  - twblalock 9y ago
    Why would high-quality employees be willing to do that, when they can get jobs at other companies that operate during normal working hours in their timezones? You can either be flexible about working hours for people in different timezones, or you can end up with people who couldn't do any better than take hours they don't want to work.

by ghthor 9y ago

woolvalley 9y ago

What is hard to escape are time zones. In practice what happens is you have a few offices in your continental timezones, and a bunch in other continents timezones, and because of team purpose churn, different continents will have to start working with each other. It doesn't matter how fancy the equipment is when you are asleep and awake at different times. You get 1 day (vs 10 minute) response times and nobody really wants to schedule a meeting because you have to get up very early or stay up very late, well out of working hours. Something that would be 1 day of back and forth becomes 1 week. It starts becoming very frustrating. On top of that with tech, the tech worker hotspots are north america, europe and india/china. And each band have big differences in timezones. It's difficult to say 'we will only hire in the american timezones', because there are barely any tech workers south of the USA.

imtringued 9y ago
I don't understand the timezone argument. If your employer wants you to work from 9 to 5 in the timezone of the employer then you either don't take the job or you adjust your schedule to the timezone of the employer. This may rule out australian employees working for an american company but it doesn't rule out NYC employees working for a Washington DC company.
- twblalock 9y ago
  Why would high-quality employees be willing to do that, when they can get jobs at other companies that operate during normal working hours in their timezones? You can either be flexible about working hours for people in different timezones, or you can end up with people who couldn't do any better than take hours they don't want to work.