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I have a friend who uses an always on audio for his entirely remote team and swears by it. I think it might depend on personality types. I’m willing to admit it

by LeonB 7y ago

I have a friend who uses an always on audio for his entirely remote team and swears by it. I think it might depend on personality types. I’m willing to admit it does work for some teams even if my own initial reaction is “no way!”

dsaffy 7y ago
Making it very customizable is key. Different teams have different workflows.
leetrout 7y ago
I LOVE having always on push to talk audio like mumble or discord. If you want to focus just log off. If you want to chat with the group jump in. Want to have a side convo without screen share? Pop to another channel. Mumble (speex codec) is great quality and low latency. Just has a poor UI / UX.
- RL_Quine 7y ago
  The UX isn't all that bad other than on mobile, which is one of the worst experiences imaginable. I use it pretty regularly and the comments about the quality and latency really bear out. There's a weird issue with the server that the longer it stays up, the longer authentication takes (up to 60s on our server now), but that's only a minor issue that's probably fixable trivially if we cared.
- xfalcox 7y ago
  I'm trying to convince my team to adopt a opt-in, voice only watercooler like that for some time, without success so far. I makes a lot of sense to me, who have been doing this for over a decade with my friends. Are you busy, don't join / mute yourself / go to the afk channel. Are you waiting for a long build, just reading HN, between tasks? Join the channel and people can bond and talk about work/life.
  - ikeyany 7y ago
    So essentially a conference call that lasts all day, every day? I can see why your team did not approve.
    - leetrout 7y ago
      I think that’s a gross oversimplification. If you happen to check your replies I’m genuinely interested: - do you work remote? - if so, do you choose remote for solitude? - if not- do you consider face to face interactions with your colleagues not as good a use of your time? Again, genuinely interested because the full remote teams I’ve worked with that have voice comms at the ready have a lot less misunderstandings and the barrier to conversation is much lower than having to make a zoom / slack call.
      - ikeyany 7y ago
        I don't work remotely anymore. It's not that I think it's a bad idea. I think if a team isn't used to that level of communication, it makes for there to be some pushback.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    Do you know a voice chat like this where I could get real-time information whether or not someone is there without having to join? We use Hangouts and WhereBy (formerly appear.in) for some projects, but when you're in the "about to join" screen, the list of other people in the room isn't updated past initial load.
    - leetrout 7y ago
      Yes, mumble has an API that can provide that info without having to join.
moltar 7y ago
Hard to say if it works or not as there’s no measurements. How do we know if a new team member would perform better or worse under a different circumstance, e.g. no real time audio?

by LeonB 7y ago

dsaffy 7y ago

Making it very customizable is key. Different teams have different workflows.

leetrout 7y ago

I LOVE having always on push to talk audio like mumble or discord. If you want to focus just log off. If you want to chat with the group jump in. Want to have a side convo without screen share? Pop to another channel. Mumble (speex codec) is great quality and low latency. Just has a poor UI / UX.

RL_Quine 7y ago
The UX isn't all that bad other than on mobile, which is one of the worst experiences imaginable. I use it pretty regularly and the comments about the quality and latency really bear out. There's a weird issue with the server that the longer it stays up, the longer authentication takes (up to 60s on our server now), but that's only a minor issue that's probably fixable trivially if we cared.
xfalcox 7y ago
I'm trying to convince my team to adopt a opt-in, voice only watercooler like that for some time, without success so far. I makes a lot of sense to me, who have been doing this for over a decade with my friends. Are you busy, don't join / mute yourself / go to the afk channel. Are you waiting for a long build, just reading HN, between tasks? Join the channel and people can bond and talk about work/life.
- ikeyany 7y ago
  So essentially a conference call that lasts all day, every day? I can see why your team did not approve.
  - leetrout 7y ago
    I think that’s a gross oversimplification. If you happen to check your replies I’m genuinely interested: - do you work remote? - if so, do you choose remote for solitude? - if not- do you consider face to face interactions with your colleagues not as good a use of your time? Again, genuinely interested because the full remote teams I’ve worked with that have voice comms at the ready have a lot less misunderstandings and the barrier to conversation is much lower than having to make a zoom / slack call.
    - ikeyany 7y ago
      I don't work remotely anymore. It's not that I think it's a bad idea. I think if a team isn't used to that level of communication, it makes for there to be some pushback.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Do you know a voice chat like this where I could get real-time information whether or not someone is there without having to join? We use Hangouts and WhereBy (formerly appear.in) for some projects, but when you're in the "about to join" screen, the list of other people in the room isn't updated past initial load.
  - leetrout 7y ago
    Yes, mumble has an API that can provide that info without having to join.

moltar 7y ago

Hard to say if it works or not as there’s no measurements. How do we know if a new team member would perform better or worse under a different circumstance, e.g. no real time audio?