[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.