Question by Sharon, Data Scientist
asked on 2019-06-25

My team (pre-Series-A startup) is completely remote across different U.S. cities, about 12 people, and we use a combination of Slack, Zoom, and Google Hangouts for meetings and work-related conversations. (1) We've tried to have the equivalent of the "water cooler" chats that occur naturally and organically in a physical office by scheduling ~15 minute "hallway convos" via Slack calls, but they don't feel the same... any other ideas? (2) For all the nifty features of Slack, it is still mainly a text-based platform, and for the folks who simply aren't very expressive textually (you know the people who sound terse in emails and text messaging, but aren't so bad when you talk to them on the phone?) Any idea how to get around that? Other than just be patient and getting to know their "expressive textual dynamic range" better? I don't think they're the sort who appreciate a liberal use of emojis, but I've been slowly chipping away at that... (3) Ideas for specific-interest Slack-type channels that have worked well? In what context and team composition? We have a book-club channel that has occasional activities and the default #random channel that is mainly filled with my monologue...