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And it takes less effort to treat someone as part of a team if you bump into them regularly. Zoom meetings and phone calls are better than nothing, but there’s something to be said for random serendipity. There are interactions that are a) valuable, b) not worth interrupting someone over, but c) worth talking about if an interruption happens at ran... See more

Why might the quality of ideas degrade when people collaborate remotely? My favorite explanation is that collaboration requires trust, and trust implies a kind of intimacy, and it’s hard to build true intimacy via Zoom and chat.

This is the big one. If you’re conducting blue sky imagineering improv meetings on a regular basis, that’s very tough to pull off remotely. There’s something about the physical presence of people in a room, seeing their faces, hearing their voices, watching their body language, that is far more conducive to quickly bouncing ideas around and figurin... See more

The Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom—a famous defender of remote work’s potential—told me that this study presented the “best research” on how in-person interactions foster complex, free-flowing discussion. “There are definitely situations, including mentoring new employees and innovative activities, that require some time in the office,” he said.... See more

With more remote and hybrid work, I think we probably have to be more thoughtful about creating connections — to new people and new ideas. I don’t think it means we can’t do it, but perhaps we can’t rely on water-cooler or photocopier serendipity to the extent we might have in the past.

Perhaps we can use tactics like the “Monday Notes” NASA employ... See more