[nielsbot]

It pains me to say this, but I find in-person discussions more productive than online ones. It's not just shooting the shit--for me, spontaneous social chats often lead to work-related brainstorming. Being in the office next to co-workers leads to more spontaneous discussions.

[intended]

Have you ever thought of why? Just ‘magic’, is an open doorway for bias and unreliable memory to enter and influence the conversation.

Is it perhaps that there are specific people, who are doing the ideation, or are particularly good at helping you think? Or is it anyone and everyone? If it’s anyone, then is it a social / biological quirk? Is it something else?

For everyone reading, this is worth reflecting upon, if only to move our regular WFH / RTO discussions on HN forward.

[nunez]

I'm a sales engineer. Given that a big chunk of our job is face-to-face, I can answer this.

We are a social species. Body language, eye contact and facial expressions are more important than the spoken word during a conversation. They're also extremely subtle. You don't think about someone leaning in or mimicking your position (that's a thing!) when you're saying something interesting, but we instinctively pick up on these cues and use them to steer conversations (or, in this case, know to double-down on whatever we're talking about).

None of these transmit well over VC.

Consider eye contact, for example. Maintaining eye contact with someone means that you're staring almost directly at your webcam's lens, which is at best unideal (if you're use to being on camera) and, at worst, impossible (since you're, naturally, staring at the facsimile of a person in the box on the lower-left-hand corner of your Zoom window). Webcams are AWKWARD.

Furthermore, a Zoom meeting has to compete with the billions of other things that you're doing on your computer. A face-to-face meeting competes with your calendar and your inner thoughts. This matters a lot for key conversations.

[intended]

The point we branched from was to ask what specifically generated the new ideas, out of spontaneous social situations in work places.

There’s definitely roles which have to be in person, and those people should come to office.

Everyone else - they don’t need to in the same way sales people would.

Not all conversations lead to insights, what’s going on then?

There’s some specific things happening to lead to the productivity benefit. Because this is what it is in the end, it’s productivity we care about, not socializing.

[RestlessMind]

> There’s definitely roles which have to be in person, and those people should come to office.

For Eng Mangers to do their job effectively, they need engineers in office too. I discussed that in detail in a sibling comment to your parent one.

[com2kid]

Don't overcomplicate things. Whiteboards are way better than even the best of online tools and drawing with a mouse.

For that matter, post-it notes on a wall are better than JIRA.

At one workplace everyone had glass table so they could draw on with markers. People could literally come up to your desk and you could work through problems together on one end of the table.

The best online tools are garbage compared to physicality.

[surgical_fire]

> Don't overcomplicate things. Whiteboards are way better than even the best of online tools and drawing with a mouse.

I'll never understand this. All my whiteboard diagrams look like shit. My drawing skills suck, my writing is nearly illegible.

Most online tools have excellent diagram shapes, nice and customizable arrows, good templates, etc.

I can make nice diagrams much faster on any of those than in a real whiteboard. A lot less messy as well.

I also worked in a place where we could draw on desks. I fucking hated it, it was the worst possible place to brainstorm anything, and made the place very noisy because people were invited to have those discussions on desks, and it was an open office plan where others were trying to work.

It is small wonder that I became extremely more productive at home. I don't need to wear headphones all day long, meetings tend to be more focused (since people don't like sitting on online meetings as long), online tooling for communication ia top notch these days.

I can't think of a single upside of being in the office.

[com2kid]

My whiteboard diagrams are also ugly, but I can draw ugly diagrams on a real whiteboard without cognitive overhead. Meanwhile diagraming tools have friction that a pen doesn't.

Also I've been to plenty of meetings where engineers split off into multiple sub groups and diagramed different ideas on parts of the board and then everyone joined back up to discuss. Can zoom technically do that? Sure but it sucks.

[wink]

I'll go one further - whiteboards rock and post-its on a wall can go die in a fire. Unless they actually stick (they won't) and don't curl up (they won't) and you have coworker with a perfectly legible handwritign (you won't) and a good pen (you won't) and standing close ot it (you won't) - you won't see anything.

[intended]

These are your > spontaneous social chats often lead to work-related brainstorming. Being in the office next to co-workers leads to more spontaneous discussions.

I submit that this isn’t my reality.I never spontaneously break out a whiteboard., the same way I dont spontaneously break out into a dance routine.

I do hope I’m in the majority, otherwise I’m really unsure of what to make of all the work places I’ve been at.

[com2kid]

> I submit that this isn’t my reality.I never spontaneously break out a whiteboard., the same way I dont spontaneously break out into a dance routine.

Countless times I've walked up to someone and asked "hey can I work through this problem on a whiteboard with you."

And while I haven't done so myself, I have had coworkers spontaneously break into dance routines before. (Ok that has only happened once...)

[intended]

Do you have visas for your timeline ? I’ll immigrate.

You have infinity times more dance routines in your time line than in mine.

To the point - they’re talking about having water cooler conversations, which spontaneously lead to ideas.

If all we really need is better white board tech, people can simply meet twice a week and white board, I.e. hybrid.

[com2kid]

My timeline got cancelled because mega corp.

I have however blogged about it! https://meanderingthoughts.hashnode.dev/history-of-microsoft... for the start of the journey.

Turns out if you are designing an embedded OS (https://meanderingthoughts.hashnode.dev/cooperative-multitas...) you end up doing a lot of white boarding.

[nunez]

It's much more difficult to save and revisit state with whiteboards and post-its, but when an entire team is colo'ed and able to work together on something, I agree; nothing comes close.

[gilbetron]

This is utterly untrue. I work remotely for a large (8000+) company and when I go into the office, and I've been paying close attention, I've seen precisely zero white-boarding happening in the past 3 years. In fact, when people need to white board they reach for their laptop because they can save the information in a bette format, and others can add to it in the future. Excalidraw is a fantastic whiteboarding tool that has taken over the majority of diagramming where I work.

Post-it notes are not something I've seen used except for random sessions usually run by a consultant. JIRA sucks except for support issues, but most everyone just uses a google doc or spreadsheet and moves on with life.

Beyond that, we are just getting started with remote work, the tools will improve, not so with physical space tools.

[RestlessMind]

> Have you ever thought of why?

I have. Here is why in person interaction works better for me. I learn a lot from someone's body language and multiple subtle cues - eye contact, fidgeting, arms and hands, direction in which toes are pointing etc.

They tell me if someone is not telling the truth, or under stress, or is uncomfortable. Then I can coax further details out of them using appropriate means. And most of the times, people want to share a lot of uncomfortable details but have a big mental block preventing them. As a manager, I can also observe the body language of my team members when they interact with each other and identify the dynamics. Whether they are getting along well or whether they have issues with each other.

None of this is available on Zoom. "Hey how is it going?" "Good" is not going to tell me really if you are struggling with something and are not able to share your problems. "What do you think about the new guy on our team?" "He is good" doesn't tell me what you really think of the new guy.

After talking about this to dozens of people, whose job it is to deal with other people, I have realized that this is a widely shared problem. Luckily, the decision makers about RTO are also the ones whose job involves dealing with people.

[mmcconnell1618]

Virtual video sound is rarely full duplex meaning the first person to speak blocks others and you have these really awkward pauses and latency that interrupt natural communication. Then, add in the lack of body language cues that are difficult to see over video and the pace of communication becomes slower. Ideas don't easily bounce around a team because the technology creates a one-person-at-a-time framework.

[jppope]

I find the opposite. People frequently show up to meetings in person unprepared. They are also way less likely to document the discussion - which can now be done with AI transcribing the discussion... which is even more productive. There is way more shooting the shit in person.

[badgersnake]

I’m not sure about AI transcribing the discussion, is a great idea generally, as I’m not sure I want all the company secrets sent off to some random AI startup, but I also don’t see what precludes you from using it to transcribe an in person meeting.

[nielsbot]

i am making a distinction between meetings in a conference room (those are fine remote, generally IMO) vs having conversations

[patmorgan23]

Yep. Also in person mentoring and spontaneous collaboration.

In person and remote both have advantages and will work better or worse for different people, organizations, or situations.

[com2kid]

The number of times, early in my career, I had senior engineers come and hold impromptu learning sessions is one of the reasons why I'm such a good engineer today.

Being able to have robust discussions about software engineering, best practices and design patterns and all that good stuff and have other engineers hear that discussions happening and stop by to give their input is incredibly valuable to both personal growth and oftentimes the success of a product.

[ajdude]

Spontaneous collaboration is a big one for me. I am in a niche department and by simply having an office in an accessible hallway with my door open, people suddenly remember that my department exists and they are constantly popping in my door to chat about ideas. Usually those chats result in new projects

[PoppinFreshDo]

Absolutely. I'm available on slack for anything, and when I'm in the office I get one after another of people coming to me for issues.

There is some hesitancy people have to contact others remotely.