4 ms·

> I don't think it's terribly controversial that collaborating in person is much, much easier. It's fairly controversial, especially among engineers. Not all e

> I don't think it's terribly controversial that collaborating in person is much, much easier. It's fairly controversial, especially among engineers. Not all engineers, but a sizable percentage of engineers are not comfortable in social collaboration - especially forced social collaboration stretching over multiple hours for difficult tasks. As far as 'easier' goes, 'easier' isn't always 'better'. While that online collaboration across a slack channel may have higher friction, it would also have many benefits as well. Other people can follow the entire process, so continuous status updates aren't required. The chat can be stored so if the issue happens again, it's easy to reference back to what was done. > But it's entirely unsurprising to me that innovation is more likely to come from collocated teams. I don't think this is proven anywhere, and may be one of those things where you think it is correct, but it really isn't. Fully integrated remote work as we have today is a very new phenomenon and there hasn't been much research into it. Further, many quick growing startups that are looking very promising are taking the 'remote first' approach and seem to be benefiting from it from an outsider's perspective.

closeparen 9y ago
> a sizable percentage of engineers are not comfortable in social collaboration There's some upper limit on what you can accomplish as a sequestered lone-wolf genius. I don't deny that people with such working styles have made impressive contributions, but the bar for "innovation" is rapidly climbing and will soon surpass what anyone can do in isolation. That's a pretty normal thing to happen as a field matures. The detached, contractor-like model where you only need to communicate to receive well-defined tasks and deliver well-defined output has substantial benefits for fulfilling many business needs. If I worked on a software assembly line, there would be no need for communication outside the ticketing system. But when you're doing something new, not yet understood, and bigger than one person, you're going to need to talk about it. (Obviously you can still do that with phone/videoconferencing, but the friction it imposes on conversation is real).
- RyanZAG 9y ago
  > There's some upper limit on what you can accomplish as a sequestered lone-wolf genius. I don't deny that people with such working styles have made impressive contributions, but the bar for "innovation" is rapidly climbing and will soon surpass what anyone can do in isolation. That's a pretty normal thing to happen as a field matures. I don't think this part is up for debate. It's more about how that social collaboration is handled in the best manner for everyone involved that would be up for debate. Just because social collaboration is needed, doesn't mean everyone has to go out for drinks together or live together in a small apartment. That part is obvious, right? But just because social collaboration is needed doesn't mean people have to be together in the same physical space either.
  - fladrif 9y ago
    I think the main point is that the type of social collaboration that is inducive for creative innovation fall within the realm of close physical proximity and whatever benefits that entails. I don't know if this is substantive but I think that's the argument.

closeparen 9y ago

> a sizable percentage of engineers are not comfortable in social collaboration There's some upper limit on what you can accomplish as a sequestered lone-wolf genius. I don't deny that people with such working styles have made impressive contributions, but the bar for "innovation" is rapidly climbing and will soon surpass what anyone can do in isolation. That's a pretty normal thing to happen as a field matures. The detached, contractor-like model where you only need to communicate to receive well-defined tasks and deliver well-defined output has substantial benefits for fulfilling many business needs. If I worked on a software assembly line, there would be no need for communication outside the ticketing system. But when you're doing something new, not yet understood, and bigger than one person, you're going to need to talk about it. (Obviously you can still do that with phone/videoconferencing, but the friction it imposes on conversation is real).

RyanZAG 9y ago
> There's some upper limit on what you can accomplish as a sequestered lone-wolf genius. I don't deny that people with such working styles have made impressive contributions, but the bar for "innovation" is rapidly climbing and will soon surpass what anyone can do in isolation. That's a pretty normal thing to happen as a field matures. I don't think this part is up for debate. It's more about how that social collaboration is handled in the best manner for everyone involved that would be up for debate. Just because social collaboration is needed, doesn't mean everyone has to go out for drinks together or live together in a small apartment. That part is obvious, right? But just because social collaboration is needed doesn't mean people have to be together in the same physical space either.
- fladrif 9y ago
  I think the main point is that the type of social collaboration that is inducive for creative innovation fall within the realm of close physical proximity and whatever benefits that entails. I don't know if this is substantive but I think that's the argument.