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You could do what we did in some distributed teams at Google: just have a permanent "call" going with everyone normally muted. When someone would like to receiv

by m0zg 6y ago

You could do what we did in some distributed teams at Google: just have a permanent "call" going with everyone normally muted. When someone would like to receive attention, they unmute and speak. It's not as good as walking up to someone's desk, but it's not as bad as having to schedule a call in advance.

m-ee 6y ago
With hardware there's really no substitute for having a stocked lab and good technician in the building. A broken blue wire or fried chip could mean me losing an hour to a day of productivity depending on whether I have parts on hand and how difficult the rework is. In the office it could be fixed before I had time to grab coffee.
- m0zg 6y ago
  As an EE I know what you're talking about. But office won't be an option until November 4th. /s
dkdk8283 6y ago
This sounds miserable. What did you do for periods of deep work?
- m0zg 6y ago
  People used it very sparingly. It's not at all different from working in an open plan office. If anything it's better, as you can drop off from the call if you don't want to be disturbed. No such luxury in the office. And of course this only works with Google's usual "family sized" teams of 5-7 people.
- edoceo 6y ago
  My team has a similar tool. So, everyone is in the room, muted and no-volume. So, if someone needs my attention they can send a bell but when my audio is off its only a visual bell, so it won't interrupt the deep work. And one can always exit the channel if needed - which is shown in status, so folks know your DND or not available. But, one can monitor the channel so it behaves like a water cooler too. And up-scales to video and screen share super fast. (Faster than other tools) It's really quite flexible. We've been using this pattern for about 60 months. We all (6 humans) seem to like it OK.
  - maest 6y ago
    Is this an in-house tool?
    - edoceo 6y ago
      Yep. Built with Apache, PHP, Sqlite and PeerJS
    - hackmiester 6y ago
      Seems that they said it is; however, you could do all this with Zoom, for instance. To be in the room muted and with no volume, disconnect the audio connection. To ask for someone's attention, send them a direct chat message (not to Everyone). And of course you could always leave the Zoom meeting and rejoin later.
- stjohnswarts 6y ago
  So being focused on a task is now called deep work? I will never be able to keep up with all the terminology.
VectorLock 6y ago
That sounds worse in all possible ways than just having a messenger service like Slack but I suppose different teams work in different ways.
- stjohnswarts 6y ago
  I prefer slack's @$name method better. If you don't need an answer right away just drop it in the group chat. if you need attention do an @ so they hear the bell. Of course they could have just emailed... but that is so passe now. :)

by m0zg 6y ago

m-ee 6y ago

With hardware there's really no substitute for having a stocked lab and good technician in the building. A broken blue wire or fried chip could mean me losing an hour to a day of productivity depending on whether I have parts on hand and how difficult the rework is. In the office it could be fixed before I had time to grab coffee.

m0zg 6y ago
As an EE I know what you're talking about. But office won't be an option until November 4th. /s

dkdk8283 6y ago

This sounds miserable. What did you do for periods of deep work?

m0zg 6y ago
People used it very sparingly. It's not at all different from working in an open plan office. If anything it's better, as you can drop off from the call if you don't want to be disturbed. No such luxury in the office. And of course this only works with Google's usual "family sized" teams of 5-7 people.
edoceo 6y ago
My team has a similar tool. So, everyone is in the room, muted and no-volume. So, if someone needs my attention they can send a bell but when my audio is off its only a visual bell, so it won't interrupt the deep work. And one can always exit the channel if needed - which is shown in status, so folks know your DND or not available. But, one can monitor the channel so it behaves like a water cooler too. And up-scales to video and screen share super fast. (Faster than other tools) It's really quite flexible. We've been using this pattern for about 60 months. We all (6 humans) seem to like it OK.
- maest 6y ago
  Is this an in-house tool?
  - edoceo 6y ago
    Yep. Built with Apache, PHP, Sqlite and PeerJS
  - hackmiester 6y ago
    Seems that they said it is; however, you could do all this with Zoom, for instance. To be in the room muted and with no volume, disconnect the audio connection. To ask for someone's attention, send them a direct chat message (not to Everyone). And of course you could always leave the Zoom meeting and rejoin later.
stjohnswarts 6y ago
So being focused on a task is now called deep work? I will never be able to keep up with all the terminology.

VectorLock 6y ago

That sounds worse in all possible ways than just having a messenger service like Slack but I suppose different teams work in different ways.

stjohnswarts 6y ago
I prefer slack's @$name method better. If you don't need an answer right away just drop it in the group chat. if you need attention do an @ so they hear the bell. Of course they could have just emailed... but that is so passe now. :)