Sharing Knowledge in a Remote team, across Timezones | Hacker News Reader

Sharing Knowledge in a Remote team, across Timezones

erickhun.com

53 pointsguillaumec4 comments

Tools like Loom and CloudApp seem pretty cool. One concern I have about them, though, is using them to cover information that is internal to my company. It seems like the resulting videos / GIFs are stored in those third parties' own systems. I couldn't get a good idea of how they would protect, say, proprietary information recorded by them. Does anyone have any experience with these sorts of tools that could comment?

GifCam does fine local gif recording.

Debugmode Wink was a great tool for self directed lightly interactive presentations but it is getting long in the tooth, having trouble with large resolution screens, and it doesn't seem to have a replacement waiting in the wings.

These days I try to record when someone is showing something on zoom but the other parties shoot me down without giving a reason.

The biggest challenge I've had is to get the other members of your team to actually accept the need for documentation (heh all code should be self documenting aka we should never write anything down, you are acting out to write things down) and let you create, let alone use what you created or the stretch goal of creating their own documents.

The number of excuses I've head re: we're getting rid of this system in 3-8 months, why document it for new people would be enough to make me a rich man.

I have not been able to convince my manager of the need for it so I content myself to document things as I can fit it between tasks.

It sounds like you and your team are taking a great approach to knowledge sharing. Thanks for sharing! The promotion requirements from the top communicate that knowledge sharing matters. And the way your team shares knowledge focuses on creating content people want. It's not just documenting because you "should."

This is totally in-line with what I've learned about effective knowledge sharing. People tend to ad-hoc share knowledge as needed instead of thoroughly maintaining a wiki. This isn't bad. With ad-hoc sharing, like with your Loom video, you have a clear recipient in mind. Your effort is valuable.

(I'm building an app to help you keep your private notes better organized so this ad-hoc sharing is easier. In bytebase.io you write your notes like you're texting. "Texting" lets you be fast and messy. It also adds modularity to your notes. Modular notes are easier to organize).

Nice write-up. I second the endorsement of Loom. It's so much easier to record your screen and talk then to type out an email and take screenshots.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com