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No, I don't think I need a robot on wheels to roam the office and join a meeting room when I can just join a video call. All the tech for remote work is here a

No, I don't think I need a robot on wheels to roam the office and join a meeting room when I can just join a video call. All the tech for remote work is here already, all we need is a change in mentality to get wider acceptance of remote work.

ghaff 7y ago
I agree that those robots on wheels seem pretty silly whenever I've seen them but: >All the tech for remote work is here already I'm not sure collaboration software/hardware is really there yet. It incrementally improves and at least part of the problem is probably getting widespread adoption of some specific solutions. But working on something collaboratively in a conference room versus remotely is still a lot better for certain things. Mind you, I don't think tech can ever get all the way there for some purposes but it feels as if we can still do better than we do.
- y-c-o-m-b 7y ago
  > But working on something collaboratively in a conference room versus remotely is still a lot better for certain things Can you please provide examples? Between Zoom, BlueJeans, and other conferencing software, I've yet to run into any collaboration issues that would have been solved by office visits. There's also the fact that most conferences now use screen-sharing as the default means of presenting, with many attendees calling in from their office desks. The biggest problems I've encountered are usually centered around lazy or ignorant usage of the tools. For example people dialing in from some noisy environment with the mic on by default. This is becoming less of a problem though as it's no longer taboo to call them out for their negligence.
  - harimau777 7y ago
    Do they have a replacement for whiteboards and sticky notes? Those are one of the biggest things that I haven't seen a solution for yet.
    - therockspush 7y ago
      You can whiteboard in zoom.
      - ghaff 7y ago
        You can sketch on a touch-enabled device which is not quite the same thing as people working things out on big conference room whiteboards. That said, people could probably use tablets more systematically for sharing hand-drawn/written stuff in real time. Some of it is about adjusting to the realistically available tools as well. For large meetings where some people have to be remote, for example, we've switched things that we would have historically probably written on a whiteboard to shared docs online.
0xffff2 7y ago
All the tech might exist, but it's going to take a lot more than a change in mentality. My organization has tons of cool toys that are designed to enable remote meetings. Every time we try to use them something goes wrong and even the people who attended multi-day formal training on the system can't get it to work. So instead we just use plain old telecons with moderate audio quality and no visual feedback at all.
- swsieber 7y ago
  > My organization has tons of cool toys that are designed to enable remote meetings. Every time we try to use them something goes wrong ... I would argue that is not the tech that was referred to.
  - 0xffff2 7y ago
    What is that tech then? The primary factor that keeps me from switching to full-time remote is the poor UX for remote meetings in my organization.
nilkn 7y ago
Even with Zoom, Slack, BlueJeans, etc., there's an incredible amount of communication fidelity lost compared to in-person meetings. Running effective and productive in-person meetings is already hard enough and something that many companies struggle or fail at; adding in all this other imperfect technology to facilitate remote meetings makes it even harder. And this is assuming you've got the logistics of using the software down perfectly. If you're fumbling around with the software even once or twice a week to get a meeting off the ground, you're even further behind in-person teams.
- spbyrne 7y ago
  Okay, sure. But this doesn't solve any of those issues. If anything it compounds them.
- segmondy 7y ago
  I don't buy that, I have full time remote staff and our meetings are the same irrespective of if everyone is on location or all remote. Workout your process if it's not working. I can agree that meeting with someone you have never met before would be more effective in-person over remote. However a team that meets often can easily iron out the kinks and figure out what works for them.
- hrktb 7y ago
  > incredible amount of communication fidelity lost compared to in-person meetings. Yes, but is it critical ? Do you really need that high fidelity interaction everyday of the week, all month ? I feel a lot of strategies can be used to mitigate the need for that much bandwidth and hi-fi interactions. There’s orgs where some people working together only meet once a week or once a month. If I remember well github teams only physically meet once every many months. There are of course downsides to that, but the upsides (e.g. living a healthy life) can compensate them largely enough.
  - anon9001 7y ago
    It's critical for politicking with people that don't internet so good. As a remote worker, that's the main thing I can't do. Some people can only form connections in person.

ghaff 7y ago

I agree that those robots on wheels seem pretty silly whenever I've seen them but: >All the tech for remote work is here already I'm not sure collaboration software/hardware is really there yet. It incrementally improves and at least part of the problem is probably getting widespread adoption of some specific solutions. But working on something collaboratively in a conference room versus remotely is still a lot better for certain things. Mind you, I don't think tech can ever get all the way there for some purposes but it feels as if we can still do better than we do.

y-c-o-m-b 7y ago
> But working on something collaboratively in a conference room versus remotely is still a lot better for certain things Can you please provide examples? Between Zoom, BlueJeans, and other conferencing software, I've yet to run into any collaboration issues that would have been solved by office visits. There's also the fact that most conferences now use screen-sharing as the default means of presenting, with many attendees calling in from their office desks. The biggest problems I've encountered are usually centered around lazy or ignorant usage of the tools. For example people dialing in from some noisy environment with the mic on by default. This is becoming less of a problem though as it's no longer taboo to call them out for their negligence.
- harimau777 7y ago
  Do they have a replacement for whiteboards and sticky notes? Those are one of the biggest things that I haven't seen a solution for yet.
  - therockspush 7y ago
    You can whiteboard in zoom.
    - ghaff 7y ago
      You can sketch on a touch-enabled device which is not quite the same thing as people working things out on big conference room whiteboards. That said, people could probably use tablets more systematically for sharing hand-drawn/written stuff in real time. Some of it is about adjusting to the realistically available tools as well. For large meetings where some people have to be remote, for example, we've switched things that we would have historically probably written on a whiteboard to shared docs online.

0xffff2 7y ago

All the tech might exist, but it's going to take a lot more than a change in mentality. My organization has tons of cool toys that are designed to enable remote meetings. Every time we try to use them something goes wrong and even the people who attended multi-day formal training on the system can't get it to work. So instead we just use plain old telecons with moderate audio quality and no visual feedback at all.

swsieber 7y ago
> My organization has tons of cool toys that are designed to enable remote meetings. Every time we try to use them something goes wrong ... I would argue that is not the tech that was referred to.
- 0xffff2 7y ago
  What is that tech then? The primary factor that keeps me from switching to full-time remote is the poor UX for remote meetings in my organization.

nilkn 7y ago

Even with Zoom, Slack, BlueJeans, etc., there's an incredible amount of communication fidelity lost compared to in-person meetings. Running effective and productive in-person meetings is already hard enough and something that many companies struggle or fail at; adding in all this other imperfect technology to facilitate remote meetings makes it even harder. And this is assuming you've got the logistics of using the software down perfectly. If you're fumbling around with the software even once or twice a week to get a meeting off the ground, you're even further behind in-person teams.

spbyrne 7y ago
Okay, sure. But this doesn't solve any of those issues. If anything it compounds them.
segmondy 7y ago
I don't buy that, I have full time remote staff and our meetings are the same irrespective of if everyone is on location or all remote. Workout your process if it's not working. I can agree that meeting with someone you have never met before would be more effective in-person over remote. However a team that meets often can easily iron out the kinks and figure out what works for them.
hrktb 7y ago
> incredible amount of communication fidelity lost compared to in-person meetings. Yes, but is it critical ? Do you really need that high fidelity interaction everyday of the week, all month ? I feel a lot of strategies can be used to mitigate the need for that much bandwidth and hi-fi interactions. There’s orgs where some people working together only meet once a week or once a month. If I remember well github teams only physically meet once every many months. There are of course downsides to that, but the upsides (e.g. living a healthy life) can compensate them largely enough.
- anon9001 7y ago
  It's critical for politicking with people that don't internet so good. As a remote worker, that's the main thing I can't do. Some people can only form connections in person.