> Automatic occasionally: “Social questions” Bah. I wouldn't say I like this approach, since it's based on the assumption (wrong in my opinion) that using a to

> Automatic occasionally: “Social questions” Bah. I wouldn't say I like this approach, since it's based on the assumption (wrong in my opinion) that using a tool or a set of rules to enforce social communication, will solve the socialization problem. Do you want to talk about a book? Talk about it. Would you like to know your new remote colleague? Book a call with her. And so on, on a list of examples that I'd like to sum up in this sentence: if you want to socialize, just socialize, since no tool can do that for you. ---- Then, I'm quite in line with this comment from @nmat > Face-to-face communication is very underrated nowadays, probably because of the negative connotations associated with meetings. Talking to someone is by far the fastest way to convey information. I often prefer a quick chat to spend 30 minutes writing Slack messages back and forth. I agree that writing has other benefits and it's better in certain cases but we need to get out of the mindset that writing/async is always better. A direct, face-to-face conversation is usually way faster than a ping-pong chat on Slack or, worse, especially for day-to-day activities. On the same line of thinking, instead of long, useless meetings, or writing pedantic, bureaucratic, asynchronous long forms (like the 30 bullet points of the article), I'm a big proponent of pair/mob activities within small teams: Use a visual collaboration tool, a shared document, or a code editor, and write together! Utilize a timer and change the driver often. Keep people focused and work together. I've never seen teams be as efficient and fast as the ones adopting this approach. Finally, the principle that I like most of the Agile Manifesto, the most important one to me: > Individuals and interactions over processes and tools