61–70 of 168 posts
Kudos for someone doing the IRC->Slack but for voice chat/Mumble.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I grew up with IM and distributed teams online, and am very comfortable with it. It's my platonic ideal for remote/distributed communication... until expectations around response times are put into place. If I can receive a message, respond to it four hours or a day later, and receive a phone call for anything more urgent than that, I'm happy to use IM platforms for collaboration.
You just described email.
Additionally the social protocols are different. An email requires (some level of) planning and completeness. An IM can include just one question without reams of context, or it can involve a long detailed back-and-forth.
Questions over IM can be resolved in minutes or hours. Questions over email somehow morph into hideous monstrosities that waste days without anyone being satisfied with the answers.
And of course your mileage may vary, different organizations are different, etc...
what's the benefit of this compared to a chat/slack request for a phone/videoconference call?
Not trying to be snarky, but did you read the article or did you skim it? The author explains the reasoning behind the walkie-talkie approach versus a phone call.
I have worked remotely for 10 years and raised VC funding for an idea very similar to this in the past – we failed to build a sustainable business, although the product did have a couple of hundred teams that swore by the product. In hindsight I believe it's because we were following the startup mythology of "building a solution for the problem that you have" a little too closely. We failed to realize that this is re…
So it removes one of the biggest benefits of remote work, ability to concentrate?
We use Pragli, and I feel like it's the opposite. Rather than a Slack back and forth to see if someone is available, setting up a video conference, connecting, etc, you can pop in and say "hey, you have a minute?". They can say "no" or "can you come back in 10?". It's like stopping by someone's desk. If they really wanted to be heads down they can be in do not disturb mode. They can still show as online (so their pre…
Give me a choice box of now, snooze bar, or several other options culminating in “take it to email, my hair is on fire.”
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But there's no way for the interruptor to know the priority of their issue relative to the your priorities. This creates a major time management issue. If you have time blocked off for important, high value tasks, you can be easily distracted by someone else's lower level tasks. Task switching, especially to focus on low level tasks, is highly inefficient in both the short and long term and should be avoided at most…
Sure, but isn’t that true in the remote world as well? I can’t imagine it’s very good form to just reject a call or ignore it when you’re busy doing something else, you have to provide a reply to the person about why you can’t talk, and then that’s just as good as having done the same thing to a person physically in your office.
On average, I got almost half of my code for the week done on that one day.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not trying to be snarky, but did you read the article or did you skim it? The author explains the reasoning behind the walkie-talkie approach versus a phone call.
he does but I am not sold on the benefits. A slack message "can we talk, call me" would be async and non-distracting (just turn off slack alerts when you want to focus). Using an online call rather than on/off (like a walkie talkie) then seems much of a muchness.
Let people know subtly you don't want to be disturbed unless it's important, otherwise you will be.
Great job guys!