4 ms·

We schedule a 2x a week 15-30 minute no-project-talk socialization meeting for our fully distributed team. It helps a LOT. We also have dedicated rambling

by count 1y ago

We schedule a 2x a week 15-30 minute no-project-talk socialization meeting for our fully distributed team. It helps a LOT. We also have dedicated rambling channels in slack, active much of the day.

stingraycharles 1y ago
We tried that but it ended up being just a few people talking and most people just listening and/or continuing their work. As a team lead within a small, fully remote company I’m struggling to find the right dynamics as I can see people really like to socialize (I have 3 1on1’s with each of them every week, and a lot of times we just talk about personal hobbies, what they did last weekend, etc), but it seems like in groups people end up being too shy to socialize.
- jobs_throwaway 1y ago
  group discussions over zoom just don't work IMO. The sound only allows one person at a time to speak so its extremely your-turn-my-turn in a way that an organic, in-person group socialization isn't. It isn't as jarring in a 1:1 because you can watch that person's face and without much effort predict when they're going to speak and so not interrupt them. When it goes beyond that, the flow of the conversation gets stilted
  - parpfish 1y ago
    Even worse is the situation our hybrid half-remote/half-inperson company runs into during meetings: The in-person group will go into the conference room and naturally start multiple rambling side conversations. But the remote people just have to sit there and watch. Usually they can’t really hear each of these conversations and you can’t casually join a room-based side conversation from the remote because any audio that comes out of the teleconferencing screen automatically commandeers the whole rooms attention
    - ghaff 1y ago
      And the probably correct alternative is that if some people are just on video, everyone should be on individual video. The the in-person group tends to be resentful that they've commuted into the office just to spend a good chunk of their day at their desks on Zoom calls. It's always a tradeoff. Even pre-COVID and hybrid work at large companies, you were dealing with groups at different locations, often in vastly different timezones. But certainly current hybrid work makes the dynamics even trickier.
      - jobs_throwaway 1y ago
        > And the probably correct alternative is that if some people are just on video, everyone should be on individual video. But practically though, how does this work in an office setting? I work in an exorbitantly nice office, and we still don't have near enough conference rooms/enclosed spaces for everyone to individually book a room And in another sense, this is just defaulting to the lowest common denominator. People in-person go to side chats because its beneficial to do so.
        parpfish 1y ago
        the in-office folks still go into the conference room together, but they log in to the meeting from their laptop using "companion mode". that way every individual shows up in the meeting instead of one "room" member that has 20 blurry faced crammed into it
        ghaff 1y ago
        They call from their desks. Just like people did in the not so "old days." Back when I was a product manager I spent a good part of my day on the phone in my cubicle.
    - scarface_74 1y ago
      There are two rules about any job I take these days. 1. I will not work at in office job. 2. I won’t work for a company that is not “remote only”.
  - swiftcoder 1y ago
    > group discussions over zoom just don't work IMO. The sound only allows one person at a time to speak I do wonder if there are any technical solutions to be found to this. Now that high-speed fibre is pretty widespread, what if we transmitted every participants audio feed to every other participant, and merged them on the client, instead of the server?
    - throwaway290 1y ago
      Metaverse and VR Chat? They mix on the client because also you get to hear where each speaker is in the space next to you. Without it in zoom it's just one garble if more than one person talks
      - swiftcoder 1y ago
        I feel like we could probably just distribute everyone in a virtual circle - as if they are sitting around a big conference table - and skip the VR headset part of this (don't get me wrong, I like a VR headset, but it's not something I've managed to work into my coding and docs writing setup just yet).
        throwaway290 1y ago
        sure... I'm just saying mixing on client already exists.
        starkparker 1y ago
        Felt like a few dozen toys and a handful of startups all came up with this same solution during 2020-21 as next-big-things and Zoom still came out on top for so many other reasons EDIT: Even MS Teams implemented it!
    - fiddlerwoaroof 1y ago
      There are a handful of Spatial Audio videoconferencing solutions that work pretty well to allow multiple simultaneous conversations.
    - 1y ago
- count 1y ago
  This is how group conversations happen in person at an office too. I think it's fine, and everybody has reported feeling more connected / less isolated during our periodic polls since we started doing it.
- mystifyingpoi 1y ago
  > just a few people talking and most people just listening and/or continuing their work. Same experience on full time remote gig. Didn't help that my colleagues were mostly speaking about topics that I had zero interest in. So I just muted myself and practiced some guitar. You pay me for this time, you organized this meeting, so be it.
jama211 1y ago
I would honestly hate that so much. A meeting at the wrong time throws out half the day’s momentum and work is hard to get done. A _socially draining_ meeting? Forget it. If you did this at my company, I would turn up with a smile every time, and then get hours less practical work done that day, because I would be drained and also because I know I would be shut down if I tried to say that these social meetings don’t work well for me, so you wouldn’t even know. Just remember, just because nobody has complained doesn’t mean something doesn’t impact people.
- count 1y ago
  You know, it is possible that other folks feel the same way, and that can be taken into consideration. The meeting we hold is scheduled at the very end of the work day. It's a fun way to decompress and chat about stuff with the team that isn't project related (there is a strict 'no project talk' rule - we have other times/meetings/mechanisms for that). It's wild that you automatically assume the worst.
  - jama211 1y ago
    Where did I assume the worst? Also personally the hours between 3pm and 6pm tend to be my absolutely most productive, so if you wanted to take away a half hour of that then yeah go ahead I suppose

by count 1y ago

We schedule a 2x a week 15-30 minute no-project-talk socialization meeting for our fully distributed team. It helps a LOT. We also have dedicated rambling channels in slack, active much of the day.

stingraycharles 1y ago

We tried that but it ended up being just a few people talking and most people just listening and/or continuing their work. As a team lead within a small, fully remote company I’m struggling to find the right dynamics as I can see people really like to socialize (I have 3 1on1’s with each of them every week, and a lot of times we just talk about personal hobbies, what they did last weekend, etc), but it seems like in groups people end up being too shy to socialize.

jobs_throwaway 1y ago
group discussions over zoom just don't work IMO. The sound only allows one person at a time to speak so its extremely your-turn-my-turn in a way that an organic, in-person group socialization isn't. It isn't as jarring in a 1:1 because you can watch that person's face and without much effort predict when they're going to speak and so not interrupt them. When it goes beyond that, the flow of the conversation gets stilted
- parpfish 1y ago
  Even worse is the situation our hybrid half-remote/half-inperson company runs into during meetings: The in-person group will go into the conference room and naturally start multiple rambling side conversations. But the remote people just have to sit there and watch. Usually they can’t really hear each of these conversations and you can’t casually join a room-based side conversation from the remote because any audio that comes out of the teleconferencing screen automatically commandeers the whole rooms attention
  - ghaff 1y ago
    And the probably correct alternative is that if some people are just on video, everyone should be on individual video. The the in-person group tends to be resentful that they've commuted into the office just to spend a good chunk of their day at their desks on Zoom calls. It's always a tradeoff. Even pre-COVID and hybrid work at large companies, you were dealing with groups at different locations, often in vastly different timezones. But certainly current hybrid work makes the dynamics even trickier.
    - jobs_throwaway 1y ago
      > And the probably correct alternative is that if some people are just on video, everyone should be on individual video. But practically though, how does this work in an office setting? I work in an exorbitantly nice office, and we still don't have near enough conference rooms/enclosed spaces for everyone to individually book a room And in another sense, this is just defaulting to the lowest common denominator. People in-person go to side chats because its beneficial to do so.
      - parpfish 1y ago
        the in-office folks still go into the conference room together, but they log in to the meeting from their laptop using "companion mode". that way every individual shows up in the meeting instead of one "room" member that has 20 blurry faced crammed into it
      - ghaff 1y ago
        They call from their desks. Just like people did in the not so "old days." Back when I was a product manager I spent a good part of my day on the phone in my cubicle.
  - scarface_74 1y ago
    There are two rules about any job I take these days. 1. I will not work at in office job. 2. I won’t work for a company that is not “remote only”.
- swiftcoder 1y ago
  > group discussions over zoom just don't work IMO. The sound only allows one person at a time to speak I do wonder if there are any technical solutions to be found to this. Now that high-speed fibre is pretty widespread, what if we transmitted every participants audio feed to every other participant, and merged them on the client, instead of the server?
  - throwaway290 1y ago
    Metaverse and VR Chat? They mix on the client because also you get to hear where each speaker is in the space next to you. Without it in zoom it's just one garble if more than one person talks
    - swiftcoder 1y ago
      I feel like we could probably just distribute everyone in a virtual circle - as if they are sitting around a big conference table - and skip the VR headset part of this (don't get me wrong, I like a VR headset, but it's not something I've managed to work into my coding and docs writing setup just yet).
      - throwaway290 1y ago
        sure... I'm just saying mixing on client already exists.
      - starkparker 1y ago
        Felt like a few dozen toys and a handful of startups all came up with this same solution during 2020-21 as next-big-things and Zoom still came out on top for so many other reasons EDIT: Even MS Teams implemented it!
  - fiddlerwoaroof 1y ago
    There are a handful of Spatial Audio videoconferencing solutions that work pretty well to allow multiple simultaneous conversations.
  - 1y ago
count 1y ago
This is how group conversations happen in person at an office too. I think it's fine, and everybody has reported feeling more connected / less isolated during our periodic polls since we started doing it.
mystifyingpoi 1y ago
> just a few people talking and most people just listening and/or continuing their work. Same experience on full time remote gig. Didn't help that my colleagues were mostly speaking about topics that I had zero interest in. So I just muted myself and practiced some guitar. You pay me for this time, you organized this meeting, so be it.

jama211 1y ago

I would honestly hate that so much. A meeting at the wrong time throws out half the day’s momentum and work is hard to get done. A _socially draining_ meeting? Forget it. If you did this at my company, I would turn up with a smile every time, and then get hours less practical work done that day, because I would be drained and also because I know I would be shut down if I tried to say that these social meetings don’t work well for me, so you wouldn’t even know. Just remember, just because nobody has complained doesn’t mean something doesn’t impact people.

count 1y ago
You know, it is possible that other folks feel the same way, and that can be taken into consideration. The meeting we hold is scheduled at the very end of the work day. It's a fun way to decompress and chat about stuff with the team that isn't project related (there is a strict 'no project talk' rule - we have other times/meetings/mechanisms for that). It's wild that you automatically assume the worst.
- jama211 1y ago
  Where did I assume the worst? Also personally the hours between 3pm and 6pm tend to be my absolutely most productive, so if you wanted to take away a half hour of that then yeah go ahead I suppose