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Ask HN: Team fun event ideas during WFH?

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Re: Ask HN: Team fun event ideas during WFH?

#261

Post by herval »

tharkun__ wrote: post #211
jscud wrote: post #14

We recently had a fun remote event: a painting class. A local company shipped supplies to each person (canvas, brushes, paints) and held a video session with a teacher who walked us through how to paint a particular picture step by step. Accessible for beginners, many of us had never painted before.

This is the kind of thing that really depends on the team you have. If you tried this with me on the team... well good luck. I might hate you for the rest of my life. They actually tried this at a previous job with a "pottery class". Of course your marketing team might really love this. Or the guy on one of the other teams here that actually was on part-time so he could do all his paintings and prepare for his exhibi…

Why would you hate someone for sending you some painting materials? This sounds like a fun idea with a low barrier of entry - if you just don't want to do it, you can always... not attend? Just watch?

Re: Ask HN: Team fun event ideas during WFH?

#262

Post by tharkun__ »

herval wrote: post #261
tharkun__ wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the kind of thing that really depends on the team you have. If you tried this with me on the team... well good luck. I might hate you for the rest of my life. They actually tried this at a previous job with a "pottery class". Of course your marketing team might really love this. Or the guy on one of the other teams here that actually was on part-time so he could do all his paintings and prepare for his exhibi…

Why would you hate someone for sending you some painting materials? This sounds like a fun idea with a low barrier of entry - if you just don't want to do it, you can always... not attend? Just watch?

I apologize for not making it more clear. I had been reading all the threads and one common concept was "forced fun".

This comes in various forms as you can read there from very openly forced to very subtly. So if you force me to go go karting I may not complain personally though some others might. But if you force me to do painting or pottery class that changes quite rapidly.

Re: Ask HN: Team fun event ideas during WFH?

#263

Post by jnsie »

brundolf wrote: post #165
josephorjoe wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone gets paired off to video chat with a random person for 20 minutes at the start of the day. i would quit this job sooooooo fast random, enforced, early morning socializing is so very much not my scene

I may have exaggerated when I said "start of the day"; we do it at 10am, which is the start of the day for some but not all. Certainly not early-morning for most people I'm also sure it would be optional if anyone had an aversion to it. It's a small company so we're flexible on that sort of thing

> I'm also sure it would be optional if anyone had an aversion to it. It's a small company so we're flexible on that sort of thing

Highly recommend this as opt-in, rather than opt-out, if anyone adopts this idea.

Re: Ask HN: Team fun event ideas during WFH?

#264

Post by jaggs »

aranelsurion wrote: post #248
schwartzworld wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Underrated comment. Personally Zoom "socializing" doesn't work for me. I'd rather stick a needle in my eye than sit around and watch my co-workers pretend to have fun. We do a weekly hangout and occasionally meetings will devolve into social time but group video chats feel like meetings, not fun.

I wonder why you would think they pretend. Any sufficiently large group will likely have its loners and social butterflies, and butterflies are the people who tend to be loud, joke around, and generally try and find (even if shallow) topics to talk about. I'd rather consider it as a character trait, than straight up dishonesty. It's also nice to have a few of those people in a group, otherwise any meeting w/o a clear…

I've been looking at wonder.me recently. It has some nice features, including the spontaneous breakouts you're talking about.

Re: Ask HN: Team fun event ideas during WFH?

#265

Post by nabousteit »

Think about including physical items by organizing crafting events. Everyone starts with the same supplies or has to find them in their homes. Creating the same thing that then is unique to each person is quite something and you can SEE creativity (and everyone feels accomplished.)

Your group size suggestion is great. You want to avoid the Ringelmann effect "in which big groups can become less productive because people tend to feel less committed to an outcome."

And you're challenged by "Social Cooling"(Dutch technologist Tijmen Schep says that a big-data society can chill our personal relationships because we’re being watched all the time.)

Re: Ask HN: Team fun event ideas during WFH?

#268

Post by HashiCorpEvents »

We recently held a TV Writers Room workshop with these guys: https://andthenwriters.com/ We chose the show 'New Girl', split into teams, and then went into Zoom breakout rooms to work on the basis of an episode (they lead each room). Then we got back together, each team pitched their episode, and we held a vote for the winning team. It was a lot of fun and really brought the team togither!

Re: Ask HN: Team fun event ideas during WFH?

#269

Post by schwartzworld »

aranelsurion wrote: post #248
schwartzworld wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Underrated comment. Personally Zoom "socializing" doesn't work for me. I'd rather stick a needle in my eye than sit around and watch my co-workers pretend to have fun. We do a weekly hangout and occasionally meetings will devolve into social time but group video chats feel like meetings, not fun.

I wonder why you would think they pretend. Any sufficiently large group will likely have its loners and social butterflies, and butterflies are the people who tend to be loud, joke around, and generally try and find (even if shallow) topics to talk about. I'd rather consider it as a character trait, than straight up dishonesty. It's also nice to have a few of those people in a group, otherwise any meeting w/o a clear…

> I wonder why you would think they pretend.

Because it is unfathomable to me that it could genuinely be a positive experience.

Re: Ask HN: Team fun event ideas during WFH?

#270

Post by biosmarcel »

codefined wrote: post #187
codezero wrote: post #97

A few of the things we've done: - virtual murder mystery (two people on the team wrote it all up, it was intense, but I think you could buy a good package) - drawing apps online we use https://skribbl.io but the ads are tedious - we did a scavenger hunt for household items on different themes (we did a thanksgiving one) - this is easy to adapt to a lot and a lot of fun to see what folks have around their house - fill…

(Self promotion) If you're looking for an alternative to Skribbl.io that has less ads you can check out a version I host[0]. It runs Scribble.rs[1] under the hood. They offer an official hosted herokuapp version here[2] but I've found it to be unreliable. [0] https://scribble.feud.today/ [1] https://github.com/scribble-rs/scribble.rs [2] https://scribblers-official.herokuapp.com/

May I ask why the heroku instance is unreliable?
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