111–120 of 168 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can opt-out of the click to connect type of calls by setting the option in your status.
Opting out isn't free, though. It's a social signal and one that, potentially, brings with it additional stress as you're actively opting out of something your colleagues/superiors believe is good enough an idea that they've implemented it.
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…
I used Sqwiggle back in 2013 and while I appreciated the idea in theory, as an employee, it felt like an employee oversight tool. Essentially, it gave the impression that my boss didn't trust that I was doing my work. This tool made it so someone could see if I was actually at the computer doing work. It also drained my battery, so I always needed to have my computer plugged-in.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I used Sqwiggle back in 2013 and while I appreciated the idea in theory, as an employee, it felt like an employee oversight tool. Essentially, it gave the impression that my boss didn't trust that I was doing my work. This tool made it so someone could see if I was actually at the computer doing work. It also drained my battery, so I always needed to have my computer plugged-in.
We used Sqwiggle back in the day until a picture of the naked wife of one of our coworkers got captured and stood there for over 5 minutes. That was the last day we used it.
> quick, synchronous audio/video communication between teammates ..."kill it with fire" or other equivalent meme is the proper response to this, no matter how wonderfully it is executed. Really, what everyone needs is more asynchronous communication and less attention draining and less interruptions! This can only help very small teams of extroverts with very-very-similar personalities work, it brings HELL for everyo…
Sometimes it's a lot faster/easier to be able to get on a 5-10 minute call to discuss something and be able to look at it together instead of sending messages back and forth for a week trying to get a point across / understand someone else's point.
I've worked remote with a small team by having image of me on a monitor. I heard what was talked around the monitor and could push-to-talk comment back. It didn't feel distracting the way receiving a phone call while being remote felt. It's clunky enough that people didn't come up unless they had to and I still could keep up with the verbal information that was passed along with the office gossip. Some people get rea…
I'd be keen to try misc variations of your telepresence strategy. From lowest to highest tech.
I'm also now intrigued by a walkie-talkie, CB radio (push to talk) style approach.
> quick, synchronous audio/video communication between teammates ..."kill it with fire" or other equivalent meme is the proper response to this, no matter how wonderfully it is executed. Really, what everyone needs is more asynchronous communication and less attention draining and less interruptions! This can only help very small teams of extroverts with very-very-similar personalities work, it brings HELL for everyo…
A walkie-talkie system will likely fail for larger group sizes (e.g. >8) or more due to cross talk that will build up on a common channel. In the marine environment where ‘walkie-talkies’ are still in use, folks have worked around the problem by monitoring the common channel, 16, for interruption and then negotiate a switch to a less common channel to complete the conversation. In the long run, maritime folks will likely switch to TCP/IP to address, route and communicate more efficiently rather than the walkie-talkie system.
This sort of thing crops up in the office when a scrum master says to take it 'offline' in a standup, or when an open office gets big enough to have a din of conversations all going on at once.
> quick, synchronous audio/video communication between teammates ..."kill it with fire" or other equivalent meme is the proper response to this, no matter how wonderfully it is executed. Really, what everyone needs is more asynchronous communication and less attention draining and less interruptions! This can only help very small teams of extroverts with very-very-similar personalities work, it brings HELL for everyo…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am not sure you really know how concentration works. For example: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2015-28923-001 "We found that cellular phone notifications alone significantly disrupted performance on an attention-demanding task, even when participants did not directly interact with a mobile device during the task." Imagine then what damage random people's voices asking you things while working would do to your con…
Did you read the Pragli article at all? It specifically addressss this.
> quick, synchronous audio/video communication between teammates ..."kill it with fire" or other equivalent meme is the proper response to this, no matter how wonderfully it is executed. Really, what everyone needs is more asynchronous communication and less attention draining and less interruptions! This can only help very small teams of extroverts with very-very-similar personalities work, it brings HELL for everyo…
Some people treat email and chat like sync communication, getting annoyed if there isn't a response within a short time. Ever have someone walk up or use chat to ask "did you get my email (that I just sent 5 minutes ago)?"
Async is great for initiating conversations or going back and forth a couple times. Go much more than that, and sync often (though not always) becomes easier and faster.
An example of an ideal flow to me:
Person A (12:34): hey, I'm trying to implement this new API call, but the parameters we came up with kind of conflict making it more complex than we thought
Person B (12:52): Hmm, maybe there's a way we can simplify those. Have time within the next hour to meet/conf/video chat on it?
A (12:55): just about to grab lunch, how about 1:30?
B (12:56): ok
A (1:26): alright, back, ready anytime
B (1:29): (initiates video chat)
(At end of call): ok, let's run this past rest the of the team and give us a day or so to think about it, and see if anyone has objections or we think of other implications. I'll send an email summarizing.