In my experience, having previously been employed in a role where one of my objectives was to encourage and enable this sort of 'incidental innovation', this ar

In my experience, having previously been employed in a role where one of my objectives was to encourage and enable this sort of 'incidental innovation', this article seems to take the view that some magic happens in those passing moments - a bolt of innovative lightning striking some unwitting participants. My view is more mundane - nothing particularly exciting happens in those moments, and they are most valuable for spreading information that you wouldn't otherwise know or think to spread. In our case, we had several different organisations in the same building, and those passing moments were a valuable way to get an insight into what other groups were working on, and who they were working with. They were valuable in the way that the 'Art of Serendipity'[0] is valuable - awareness of the things around you helps identify connections between them that tend only to make sense with a degree of hindsight. In my experience, most of the actual connections were drawn much later than the passing moments in the hallway - a "hey, weren't you working with something similar to what we're doing with Fred from BigBank last month? Reckon they'd be interested in working with us on this too?". It may just be me, but I find it is harder to achieve this in a remote setting where one typically has to actively seek out conversations. Also, the article seems to set a false dichotomy - that either in-person is essential for innovation, or that it's terrible and harmful to innovation. Again in my experience, the reality is that in-person is better in some ways, and remote is better in others. As different tools, they are best used for different jobs, depending on the problem you're trying to solve. [0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/03/opinion/how-to-cultivate-the-art-of-serendipity.html?_r=0 https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/03/opinion/how-to-cultivate-...