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Comment by foobarian | Hacker News Reader

This is such a huge gap. Why there is no widespread more impromptu collaboration product I have no idea. I try to get people to use the excalidraw shared whiteboard any chance I get, at least that doesn't require the uncomfortable on-camera appearance.

There's got to be some other process we could try to recreate (to the extent possible) that "together" feeling of the office. Maybe set aside an hour when team calls into a meeting but just keep on working as normal? And can banter/ask random questions etc. Otherwise things are just too formal.

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Is hard to replicate the physical instant access you get at an office and simulate it well in digital form. in the physical office space you cannot ignore someone while maintaining plausible deniability like if you were remote. You likely will be responded if you are face to face physically. I’m not sure if replicating that remotely is too intrusive for people to handle(forcing a camera to be on when requested).

You can always ignore people from remote till you are good and ready

We had a product called Sococo some years ago, that showed active team members. You could 'knock on their door' and know whether they were ignoring you or not.

So it's possible, with the right interface.

Well, and getting together for lunch, or a beer/mocktail after work. Virtual socialization feels so forced by comparison. And no-agenda meetings don't work either.

I sort of agree on the virtual whiteboarding (it's partly a surface area thing) but I think we've also discovered that colllaborative docs work fine for a lot of purposes.

Google meet works for my team. We have a few rooms dedicated to hang out in during the day. Some people leave the camera off, others don't. It reminds me very much of the office where if someone has a random question there are already people around to answer it. There is no expectation you have to be in a room but lots of people do it because it is fun and interesting.

Lots of teams/groups have open video conferencing rooms where people can just hang out without any specific purpose - while doing other work. It works to some extent.

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