[o1y32]

My company's CEO used words no other than "we believe collaboration is better in-person" to justify forcing everyone to work in the office three days a week. The usual "revitalize downtown" or "support local business" argument doesn't even apply in our case because company is on a highway. You know this decision is not based on any concrete data but purely on the investment in those useless buildings and wanting to force people out.

[phone[phone]]

I have never had an in-person joint whiteboard session that was actually productive. I have had several virtual whiteboard sessions that were very productive (thanks cheap graphics tablets!).

[CoastalCoder]

Just a data point, but my experience has been exactly the opposite of yours.

And I say this as someone who invested a lot of time and political capital trying to find good (and within constraints) virtual whiteboard solutions.

[baq]

I haven’t found a good one either but imagine iPads with pencils might just be close enough. Haven’t tried though, sounds expensive.

[o1y32]

A base model iPad + Apple Pencil 1 offsets about $400 in MSRP. A more decent setup would be iPad Air + Apple Pencil 2 for $650. And of course there are a ton of software that helps prototyping or organizing ideas collaboratively, online.

If any company actually cares about collaboration, they should give every employee a set of these. They cost a fraction of a developer's work laptop and are negligible compared to their salary. There is hardly anything that can't be done online.

But of course companies are not going to do that. They are going to instead ask you to drive one hour to the office and pay for the gas on your own money, then write on whiteboard in real buildings so that the money wasted on the lease is worth something.

[piva00]

> They cost a fraction of a developer's work laptop and are negligible compared to their salary. There is hardly anything that can't be done online.

They also cost a fraction of a fraction of prime office space leases...