Pattern
|
Incubation
Topics
remote work
workplace culture
Started: Thu Jun 16 2022
Last updated: Thu Aug 11 2022
Culture isn’t about novel perks, it’s about how people actually get work done. With the shift to remote work, there’s a big change in how employees experience work. No longer can ineffective working habits be hovered up by ping pong tables and office beer fridges. In a remote environment, culture stems from trust, meaningful communication, and effective work practices.
Given these factors for building culture, the tools we use in remote settings are ushering in new ways of working together, and thus, new ways of defining culture.
Many of the teams who still work with traditional documents or employ a single bundled ecosystem will likely be left behind by teams who are able to foster a better culture of trust and accessible information sharing through the usage of tools that open these new communication patterns.
There are several patterns I see emerging that make building this culture easier:
Developers are rethinking the traditional “square window” interface for software. This is especially apparent in video chat, where services such as Around have moved away from a window filled with tiles and towards untraditional windows and human-centered methods of showing relevant data.
Online white-boarding, such as Figjam and Miro, may also fit in this category, depending on their implementation.
Several startups are focusing on sharing workflows within teams, not just data. For example, both Raycast and Warp are planning to monetize their products by sharing workflows and scripts within development teams.
Raycast has been quoted as wanting to build a productivity layer for existing services, rather than being a platform itself. It brings productivity workflows closer to the user and enhances the power of the apps that use it.
There are three main layers of interfacing with a service, each getting closer to the user:
Raycast is competing to be the defacto player for dominance in this third level, which may open up a new competitive space in the coming months.
Tools such as Notion and Coda have made it possible for teams to start creating structured data without thinking about it. When a team adopts one of these workspaces, they give anyone on the team the tools to start creating data that is semantic and relational, without needing to know anything about data structures or best practices. In a way, they are the trojan horse of databases.
HASH is taking this even further with the creation of a semantic data web, though few details are currently available.
Looking again to products such as Notion and Coda, the heavy emphasis on blocks also makes it much easier to collaborate and keep everyone on the same page. This revolution in workplace knowledge started with Google Docs’ realtime collaboration features. Having the ability for multiple people to work at the same time and always have access to the latest copy of the team’s work was a game-changer.
With embeddable blocks (ie: prorpiretory solutions in Notion and Coda or open solutions such as Blocks (from Hash) or Adaptive Cards), this is taken a step further so that the latest content is available anywhere. Take, for example, the idea of adding a Figma mockup to a Notion product requirements document. As revisions are made, this these are made available to any stakeholder who may be reviewing the document. Especially in a distributed environment, this approach to information sharing is invaluable.
The advantages of these tools will create a compounding effect as more companies embrace remote and asynchronous workflows. This stems not only from the benefits gleaned from new tools and workflows, but also creates a hiring advantage. From the very first interview, companies can signal their strong work culture through the use of shared documents and modern communication tools. When presented between the option of working for a company that uses a mix of culture-supporting tools such as Twist and Around, vs. one that has deployed a one-size-fits-all Microsoft ecosystem, it’s an indication of the culture of collaboration and trust that one can expect after being hired.
Software bundles greatly benefit the company. They ease procurement challenges and make deployment and management easier. On the flip side, they present tradeoffs for teams to actually get their work done.
A decade ago, bundles presented the advantage to workers in the form of being able to effectively communicate between programs. It was much easier for Word and Powerpoint to work together than it was for, say, Google Docs and Powerpoint. This barrier has essentially been broken down by now though. With the adoption of embeddable blocks, powerful APIs, and structured data by default, companies can essentially build their own suite of services. Using Notion or Coda as the default for project management and knowledge sharing, then building custom workflows and structures on top of it, complete with embedded blocks from other tools used by specific teams, companies can create a communication structure that is both more accessible and more flexible than single vendor stacks.
Pair this with an accessible productivity layer, such as Raycast, and this purpose-built workflow acts as a sail, propelling teams forward as they work.
This stack also allows teams to use their own services while still communicating with the entire company. A synchronous, in-office team can use the suite of services that works for them, whereas a global sales team can use a completely different suite of services that supports async work. When paired with a structured workspace tool such as Notion, it supports the culture of each team while also making information accessible to managers.