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My experience is the exact opposite: most innovation I came across was the result of a in-person informal discussion. So yeah, YMMV

by steeve 5y ago

andrei_says_ 5y ago
How does the in-person part differ from zoom or phone?
- jayd16 5y ago
  You can catch a spare minute by the coffee machine but you have to schedule zoom. Maybe you could fire off a slack and hope for the best, but you can't really guage when a good time for a chat can be. Async communication is good but its not quite the same to try to meet someone over slack, out of the blue, like you might in the break room.
  - andrei_says_ 5y ago
    I send or get a “Can you zoom for 5min” SMS 4-5 times a week with my closest team members. I agree, this does establish a sense of immediacy and collaboration which the formality of scheduled meetings lack. When we worked in the same office, the walk-in frequency was about the same. The difference between the two is negligible though and not spending the extra 3h per day for commute and office lunch is night and day.
- jacinda 5y ago
  Less mental overhead and friction in terms of setting it up. 1000s of years of evolution. The experience of people who post on HN and their comfort with digital interaction may not reflect how a majority of people feel. I wonder if there is confirmation bias in the opinions of people who are voluntarily spending a large amount of time on forums already. They had a preference for written asynchronous communication already.
- gls2ro 5y ago
  If you want to see how the communication differs do this small study: Notice how much people were talking in the first day of the war in Slack. In my experience being in a couple of slack workspaces (one for work, a couple from co-working hubs, 3 professional groups) in some people shared something, in one they created a channel for this, in some other there was one or two threads. Now think about what was the state of almost all employees: I think the invasion was the main focus of everybody and also I assess the amount of work done these days on average is less than normal. Now think about what is happening going into an office in that day: Everybody will talk about this. Every conversation will start with this, every chit chat before any meeting will start with that news. If you remote communication is reflecting this then congrats your organization managed to create a good remote culture. I am not saying one is good and one is bad. I am saying there is a big difference between them.
01100011 5y ago
Yep. I loved WFH years ago as a contractor doing hired gun work where I didn't need to interact with many folks and just mostly fixed bugs. I also loved full time WFH during the panini for the most part, although doing it in a tiny SiValley apartment sucked. Now that I'm doing architectural work and going into the office twice a week I get it. Nothing beats in person discussion for certain critical discussions.

My experience is the exact opposite: most innovation I came across was the result of a in-person informal discussion. So yeah, YMMV

by steeve 5y ago

My experience is the exact opposite: most innovation I came across was the result of a in-person informal discussion. So yeah, YMMV

andrei_says_ 5y ago

How does the in-person part differ from zoom or phone?

jayd16 5y ago
You can catch a spare minute by the coffee machine but you have to schedule zoom. Maybe you could fire off a slack and hope for the best, but you can't really guage when a good time for a chat can be. Async communication is good but its not quite the same to try to meet someone over slack, out of the blue, like you might in the break room.
- andrei_says_ 5y ago
  I send or get a “Can you zoom for 5min” SMS 4-5 times a week with my closest team members. I agree, this does establish a sense of immediacy and collaboration which the formality of scheduled meetings lack. When we worked in the same office, the walk-in frequency was about the same. The difference between the two is negligible though and not spending the extra 3h per day for commute and office lunch is night and day.
jacinda 5y ago
Less mental overhead and friction in terms of setting it up. 1000s of years of evolution. The experience of people who post on HN and their comfort with digital interaction may not reflect how a majority of people feel. I wonder if there is confirmation bias in the opinions of people who are voluntarily spending a large amount of time on forums already. They had a preference for written asynchronous communication already.
gls2ro 5y ago
If you want to see how the communication differs do this small study: Notice how much people were talking in the first day of the war in Slack. In my experience being in a couple of slack workspaces (one for work, a couple from co-working hubs, 3 professional groups) in some people shared something, in one they created a channel for this, in some other there was one or two threads. Now think about what was the state of almost all employees: I think the invasion was the main focus of everybody and also I assess the amount of work done these days on average is less than normal. Now think about what is happening going into an office in that day: Everybody will talk about this. Every conversation will start with this, every chit chat before any meeting will start with that news. If you remote communication is reflecting this then congrats your organization managed to create a good remote culture. I am not saying one is good and one is bad. I am saying there is a big difference between them.

01100011 5y ago

Yep. I loved WFH years ago as a contractor doing hired gun work where I didn't need to interact with many folks and just mostly fixed bugs. I also loved full time WFH during the panini for the most part, although doing it in a tiny SiValley apartment sucked. Now that I'm doing architectural work and going into the office twice a week I get it. Nothing beats in person discussion for certain critical discussions.