7 ms·

Hallway conversations are exclusionary by their very nature. It's biased towards extroverts who have access to the physical levers of having their ideas heard (

Hallway conversations are exclusionary by their very nature. It's biased towards extroverts who have access to the physical levers of having their ideas heard (location, same office space). It encourages the loudest, most gregarious, most "in" people in the room to spread their ideas above others.

stcredzero 5y ago
Introverts are supposed to be better at quieter, more deeply introspective one on one conversations. That's a different class of serendipitous face to face interactions, but one which may be just as valuable, or even more so. Think Lex Friedman in a one-on-one vs. Joe Rogan with 2 guests at the same time.
sergiomattei 5y ago
...then what do you want? If introverts aren't voicing their ideas, what are we supposed to do, read minds?
- regularfry 5y ago
  Pivot to a written-first culture. It's the natural endpoint of remote orgs.
  - throwaway98797 5y ago
    doesn’t that hurt folks who aren’t great at writing?
    - andrewflnr 5y ago
      Writing is a skill that can be learned. You don't need to write deathless prose, just be clear.
      - alisonkisk 5y ago
        So is speaking.
  - hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
    In my experience a written-first culture is horribly inefficient for exactly the kind of impromptu interactions that happen in colocated spaces.
  - Pet_Ant 5y ago
    See I feel that it robs my of all my energy that I get for ideas from working with people. Not just that, but after grad school I actually have anxiety writing. I feel all these "solutions" just tell the other type of 'verts' to suck it up and adapt to the other style.
- luffapi 5y ago
  Loudly conversing in the hallway is a terrible medium for exchanging information. Written documents are not only clearer, they scale in distribution and can be referenced later. Hallway conversations are temporal noise, at best.
  - ufmace 5y ago
    I've got to disagree with that. If you have the vague beginnings of an idea, it's a heavy burden to type them up into a document that can be distributed widely. Many ideas just won't get a chance to develop into anything if that's the only path for it. It's much smoother to float a few thoughts that might or might not lead to something to one or two people you have some trust for and know are knowledgeable about that domain. That's a quick and low-effort way to determine if a thought has any merit and deserves being developed further, or is a non-starter. I think it's friendlier as well to people who are more reluctant to spread an idea that might not be very good to a large group.
  - sempron64 5y ago
    I disagree that written documents are clearer than conversation. I've always experienced that the vast majority of engineers, including introverts, gain a clearer understanding of key concepts from an interactive conversation than from a document. In my experience almost all complex documents I've read and written required a follow-up meeting to explain and discuss. Documents are useful when the volume of details is too much to remember in a conversation, and to communicate with wider audiences, but for communicating key points in a small group, conversation is vastly more efficient.
    - luffapi 5y ago
      We’re talking about hallway conversations as a source for innovation. Not all real-time communication in general. Yes, you can always hop on a zoom and chat through a problem.
  - burnished 5y ago
    Face to face conversation has a much higher signal strength than written documents, to be frank. For example, think about how many unhelpful screeds get posted on forums that in conversation would get cut short because of immediate feedback in the form of verbal or non-verbal conversation. Have you ever noticed that some one had more they wanted to say and encouraged them to speak their mind? I don't think that sort of back and forth happens as naturally in pure text environments. Plus if you are just not grokking something it is much easier to keep asking questions in person until the two of you figure out what the stumbling block was, you know?
- MattGaiser 5y ago
  Submission boxes, pitch dens, hackathons, or even just a place to dump written proposals etc. Some kind of structure so that contribution does not require winning a social battle first.
- lelandbatey 5y ago
  What I believe parent is saying is that introverts would prefer a different venue for idea sharing than one where "whoever shouts loudest and fastest is heard." Which is very different from not speaking at all. For example, something where folks ask "please post your papers and ideas to this shared document repository where they can each then be read by the team at whatever pace is required." A collection of folks read the documents, write about which ideas they like, then make a decision based on the contents raised in said papers, all over text mediums. Something like that is an alternative to a world where whoever speaks loudly fastest, and to the right people, has their idea taken seriously.
  - alisonkisk 5y ago
    Whence this assumption that when people are allowed meet in person, written communication is banned? You can do all these things and still allow people to have efficient live in person conversations.
database_lost 5y ago
I don't fully agree, as a more quiet person I don't feel excluded... Sometimes listening in to a conversation is enough, and in my experience people tend to group together such that everyone ends up chiming in their opinion...
the_snooze 5y ago
>access to the physical levers of having their ideas heard (location, same office space) Well, yeah. If you can't bothered to be in the same place as the people you want to communicate to, you're signaling that having their time and attention isn't important to you. As Aaron Burr in "Hamilton" so put it, you have to be in the room where it happens.
- luffapi 5y ago
  If someone’s attention in the hallway is required for business success, it means the process and culture of the company are both broken. Ad hoc conversation are not how you run a scalable business.
  - spookthesunset 5y ago
    So what is the alternative? Reams of halfway updated internal wiki pages and heavyweight google docs? I mean the agile manifesto is all about human interaction. People over process. Face to face conversation over piles of stale documents. Are we done with agile? Is it time to embrace the waterfall? http://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html http://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html
    - luffapi 5y ago
      We are absolutely done with Agile. It’s always been a failure. Alternatives to hallway conversations in increasing depth: * slack message * email * README.md * RFC * Business plan Plus there’s always zoom or the phone if you really want to shoot the shit.
      - spookthesunset 5y ago
        You can’t shoot the shit over zoom. Ever tried? It is super awkward. Slack is good for easy questions where you already know how to convert your thoughts into words. If you don’t because your thoughts are currently encoded visually… slack (or any online medium) doesn’t work. In the real world I would almost always abandon the slack conversation and go visit the person / people. Email is crap for communication, at least for my working style. The rest are okay when you’ve got a lot of clarity already but not so hot when you are very early in the ideation phases. All of your substitutes are significantly lower bandwidth, much more latent mediums. You can’t replace face time with online. You just can’t.
listenallyall 5y ago
No, large meetings are where the loudest voices dominate. Hallway conversations are where you can approach someone 1-on-1 without being interrupted or spoken over, and often express a contrarian view without fear of being shouted down.
afandian 5y ago
I'd say the opposite. It allows introverts to negotiate alternative venues to share ideas.
TeeMassive 5y ago
I didn't see the loud mouths being any less annoying or obnoxious over the last 2 years.

stcredzero 5y ago

Introverts are supposed to be better at quieter, more deeply introspective one on one conversations. That's a different class of serendipitous face to face interactions, but one which may be just as valuable, or even more so. Think Lex Friedman in a one-on-one vs. Joe Rogan with 2 guests at the same time.

sergiomattei 5y ago

...then what do you want? If introverts aren't voicing their ideas, what are we supposed to do, read minds?

regularfry 5y ago
Pivot to a written-first culture. It's the natural endpoint of remote orgs.
- throwaway98797 5y ago
  doesn’t that hurt folks who aren’t great at writing?
  - andrewflnr 5y ago
    Writing is a skill that can be learned. You don't need to write deathless prose, just be clear.
    - alisonkisk 5y ago
      So is speaking.
- hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
  In my experience a written-first culture is horribly inefficient for exactly the kind of impromptu interactions that happen in colocated spaces.
- Pet_Ant 5y ago
  See I feel that it robs my of all my energy that I get for ideas from working with people. Not just that, but after grad school I actually have anxiety writing. I feel all these "solutions" just tell the other type of 'verts' to suck it up and adapt to the other style.
luffapi 5y ago
Loudly conversing in the hallway is a terrible medium for exchanging information. Written documents are not only clearer, they scale in distribution and can be referenced later. Hallway conversations are temporal noise, at best.
- ufmace 5y ago
  I've got to disagree with that. If you have the vague beginnings of an idea, it's a heavy burden to type them up into a document that can be distributed widely. Many ideas just won't get a chance to develop into anything if that's the only path for it. It's much smoother to float a few thoughts that might or might not lead to something to one or two people you have some trust for and know are knowledgeable about that domain. That's a quick and low-effort way to determine if a thought has any merit and deserves being developed further, or is a non-starter. I think it's friendlier as well to people who are more reluctant to spread an idea that might not be very good to a large group.
- sempron64 5y ago
  I disagree that written documents are clearer than conversation. I've always experienced that the vast majority of engineers, including introverts, gain a clearer understanding of key concepts from an interactive conversation than from a document. In my experience almost all complex documents I've read and written required a follow-up meeting to explain and discuss. Documents are useful when the volume of details is too much to remember in a conversation, and to communicate with wider audiences, but for communicating key points in a small group, conversation is vastly more efficient.
  - luffapi 5y ago
    We’re talking about hallway conversations as a source for innovation. Not all real-time communication in general. Yes, you can always hop on a zoom and chat through a problem.
- burnished 5y ago
  Face to face conversation has a much higher signal strength than written documents, to be frank. For example, think about how many unhelpful screeds get posted on forums that in conversation would get cut short because of immediate feedback in the form of verbal or non-verbal conversation. Have you ever noticed that some one had more they wanted to say and encouraged them to speak their mind? I don't think that sort of back and forth happens as naturally in pure text environments. Plus if you are just not grokking something it is much easier to keep asking questions in person until the two of you figure out what the stumbling block was, you know?
MattGaiser 5y ago
Submission boxes, pitch dens, hackathons, or even just a place to dump written proposals etc. Some kind of structure so that contribution does not require winning a social battle first.
lelandbatey 5y ago
What I believe parent is saying is that introverts would prefer a different venue for idea sharing than one where "whoever shouts loudest and fastest is heard." Which is very different from not speaking at all. For example, something where folks ask "please post your papers and ideas to this shared document repository where they can each then be read by the team at whatever pace is required." A collection of folks read the documents, write about which ideas they like, then make a decision based on the contents raised in said papers, all over text mediums. Something like that is an alternative to a world where whoever speaks loudly fastest, and to the right people, has their idea taken seriously.
- alisonkisk 5y ago
  Whence this assumption that when people are allowed meet in person, written communication is banned? You can do all these things and still allow people to have efficient live in person conversations.

database_lost 5y ago

I don't fully agree, as a more quiet person I don't feel excluded... Sometimes listening in to a conversation is enough, and in my experience people tend to group together such that everyone ends up chiming in their opinion...

the_snooze 5y ago

>access to the physical levers of having their ideas heard (location, same office space) Well, yeah. If you can't bothered to be in the same place as the people you want to communicate to, you're signaling that having their time and attention isn't important to you. As Aaron Burr in "Hamilton" so put it, you have to be in the room where it happens.

luffapi 5y ago
If someone’s attention in the hallway is required for business success, it means the process and culture of the company are both broken. Ad hoc conversation are not how you run a scalable business.
- spookthesunset 5y ago
  So what is the alternative? Reams of halfway updated internal wiki pages and heavyweight google docs? I mean the agile manifesto is all about human interaction. People over process. Face to face conversation over piles of stale documents. Are we done with agile? Is it time to embrace the waterfall? http://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html http://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html
  - luffapi 5y ago
    We are absolutely done with Agile. It’s always been a failure. Alternatives to hallway conversations in increasing depth: * slack message * email * README.md * RFC * Business plan Plus there’s always zoom or the phone if you really want to shoot the shit.
    - spookthesunset 5y ago
      You can’t shoot the shit over zoom. Ever tried? It is super awkward. Slack is good for easy questions where you already know how to convert your thoughts into words. If you don’t because your thoughts are currently encoded visually… slack (or any online medium) doesn’t work. In the real world I would almost always abandon the slack conversation and go visit the person / people. Email is crap for communication, at least for my working style. The rest are okay when you’ve got a lot of clarity already but not so hot when you are very early in the ideation phases. All of your substitutes are significantly lower bandwidth, much more latent mediums. You can’t replace face time with online. You just can’t.

listenallyall 5y ago

No, large meetings are where the loudest voices dominate. Hallway conversations are where you can approach someone 1-on-1 without being interrupted or spoken over, and often express a contrarian view without fear of being shouted down.

afandian 5y ago

I'd say the opposite. It allows introverts to negotiate alternative venues to share ideas.

TeeMassive 5y ago

I didn't see the loud mouths being any less annoying or obnoxious over the last 2 years.