Notes from Twitter Spaces on Community and Remote Work

My notes from the last two weeks of Twitter spaces I hosted. These are not all my ideas, and I might not agree with them all. But, I wanted to share what we talked about.

Community + Career

Why should you be a part of a community?*

Helps with career guidance

Supports you as you grow

Allows for networking opportunities

Creates a safe space for exploring new ideas and industries

Provides opportunities to help others

As always, this depends on the community you join. Not all experiences will be the same for all people.

Find the community that supports its members

When you’re looking to join a community, here are some signs that the community supports its members:

Authentic and vulnerable relationships and interactions,

Investment in helping each other to grow -> look at how people are answering questions or if help and support posts are mostly answered,

Openness to new ideas and experiences -> are members testing out new ideas or actions? Do you see people saying they’ve done something for the first time as part of that group?

Supportive communities can provide a space for you to try new things. For example, maybe you’re interested in speaking at a conference, but you’re afraid. If you have a supportive community, it’s easier to try out the experience. Give your presentation to the community and ask for feedback. When you have a supportive community, it’s easier to be open to feedback, to learn from the experience, and to work towards your goal of giving a presentation.

How to find the right communities

Make sure they have a code of conduct, esp if you’re part of an under-represented group

They all you to be a passive member of a community -> soak up the knowledge and experience

Signs of a positive community

There’s a Code of Conduct

For non-discord platforms, when people use their real names

Members of under-represented groups

Remote Work

Some companies did even better when they were forced to go remote

You can do the same thing from home that you can do in the office

PPl are forming networks and relationships outside of the office as a result. There’s less glue, holding you to stick in the current position.

You don’t have the opportunities to network outside of the office

Remote and COVID-remote are two very different things. There are a lot of extra outside stressors. Remote was being thrust on ppl rather than a decision people made.

Why work in a physical office?

Some people prefer to work in the office

Extrovert!

Clear physical lines of communication: You can walk to the person’s office if you have a question.

Sometimes a challenge of getting work done

There’s a different type of productivity -> talking with the people around you allows you to develop relationships more quickly.

You build teams much quicker in the office

Community building is easier.

Positives of working remotely

Flexibility, especially for parents

Allows parents to take breaks and spend time with their kids

Don’t have to commute

Allows for productive breaks -> You can start the laundry, dinner, do errands

Navigating challenges of working remotely

If you don’t have a designated office space, it can be a challenge, but if you set boundaries

Set rules for yourself: when to log off. Turn off the computer and don’t touch it

Do a full shutdown every night

Separate work and “home” computer, so there’s no drive to work after work hours

Set a hard limit for work hours

Dealing with stress and the easy access to food

Miscellaneous

Normalize kid noises in the back of every meeting

Productivity: there’s kind of no middle ground. There’s ppl who are super productive and not productive at all. This might speak to the type of office-environment that works best for you.

We shouldn’t be micromanaging. Daily standup, project tracking, and milestones are enough to evaluated the productivity of the team.

Forcing extra steps to force ppl to report progress, that’s toxic.

If there’s an issue with a person, approach it as “How can we support you? Is there a challenge I can help you with?”

Developers should have autonomy and support

Over-communication > under-communication

Don’t do remote work on vacation!!!

Team-building remotely: Depending on the team, turn on the cameras, hear the voice of the other person

Whole set of problems returning to office spaces now with mice, etc.

Bonus

blog post idea: how to structure your team to be productive