72 // Remote Work

Metadata

• Author: Metamuse
• Full Title: 72 // Remote Work
• URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/3f42fb58-9e4f-4498-99cf-ff3f5802df9a

Highlights

The Messy Reality of Ideas Key takeaways: (* The tool needs to embrace that it is a network of ideas, with mutations and patterns happening., * The tool needs to be able to handle this messiness and pulsating network of ideas.). Everyone gets into a room, you have a brainstorm and outcomes, the ideas. The reality is so much messier. You have individual to group back again, you’re bouncing around among individuals, you’re bouncing around among different levels of fidelity. The ideas get mutated, even corrupted as they get passed from person to person. Almost like this pulsating network, right? With all kinds of weird patterns happening is what’s really needed to produce good ideas. So to substrate, the tool needs to embrace that. (Time 0:00:00) Ideas improve with time, iteration and people

How to be a successful freelance web developer Key takeaways: (* Podcasting mics, iPads, and pencils can all be used to increase productivity., * Hillary Maloney has a concept called a Work Idealist, which is someone who is not just doing the work for the paycheck, but is driven to be in a creative field because they find meaning in it.) Transcript: Speaker 1 And sometimes that’s podcasting mics and sometimes it’s iPads and pencils. And sometimes it’s just a really fast computer, but it’s sort of really kind of more up to you. And in that sense, you know, closer to being a freelancer, you need that ability to make decisions about okay, I’m going to spend this money for equipment in order to maximize my productivity, as well as my just comfort enjoyment at the job. And then it’d be remiss if I didn’t mention an idea here that comes from Hillary Maloney, someone we collaborated with a little while back, who had this concept of a work idealist. And she actually discovered this in looking through our customer feedback and kind of some different surveys and things and trying to understand the kind of person that wants to use and purchase Muse. I found this so interesting. I would not have in any way zoomed in on this and thinking about our target customer, but she defined it as someone who is not doing the work, just for the paycheck, if that’s the right way to put it, but they’re driven to be in tech or a creative field of some kind because they feel they could find a lot of meaning there and they want to bring their strategic skills, their creativity, their intellect to the table to work on something they find intellectually interesting, challenging, meaningful. Obviously, it’s a great privilege of being in a field where your skills are in demand to be able to kind of go higher up the Maslow’s hierarchy, I guess, in the work you’re doing. (Time 0:12:06) Spend like a freelancer

The Problem with Infinite Canvas Multiplayer Products Key takeaways: (* There are a number of products on the market that claim to be able to create an “infinite canvas” for multiplayer planning, but none of them have been successful for the team at Muse., * It is still unclear whether or not views can be as useful as Dropbox, but one takeaway is that there is something there with these products.) Transcript: Speaker 1 Yeah, I’ve posed this question to myself over the last couple of years we’ve been working on Muse whenever I think about when we get to that stage of multiplayer, which again was always the kind of step three in our master plan. And we’ve tried using these products ourselves internally for team planning and things like that, including exactly Milano, Miro, FigJam, Apple’s got freeform now. There’s a long tail of these that we’ve tried out. And yeah, they never really, in some cases, I’m like, oh, that’s pretty neat. But they don’t really stick. I don’t find myself wanting to come back to them or reference it again. You certainly can’t use them. In some cases, it literally can’t use them. But perhaps you just see they aren’t built for personal thinking. So I’m never sure what to think when I try out a product like this, but it doesn’t really stick for me. Does that make me go, huh, maybe this whole idea of an infinite canvas with multiplayer capability is not as useful as I would have thought. Maybe we shouldn’t bother to build it. But the other interpretation is more the now famous story of what the Dropbox founder told investors when they asked him, why are you building this? There’s hundreds of products that purport to do this exact same thing in the market. And he basically says, well, do you use any of them? And they say, no. And he says, well, that’s because no one’s done it right yet. I’m going to do it right. And indeed, he did. So whether views can be as useful and successful as Dropbox is remains to be seen. But one of my takeaways for me is like, okay, there’s something there with those products. And indeed, I have used some of them somewhat extensively. (Time 0:32:11)review

The Role of Ideation in Collaborative Work Key takeaways: (* Ideation works best when it is asynchronous, spread out across time., * This is a practical aspect of embracing remote work.) Transcript: Speaker 1 Another potentially counterintuitive piece of how ideation works, particularly ideation across a set of people is what I would call the asynchronous component. I think when you naturally think of group ideation, you think of live brainstorming, a very real time aspect. And indeed, a lot of when we think of collaborative tools, like a Google Docs, we are thinking of that very real time nature. You’re seeing someone typing in the document. But I think for sure, a big part of having good ideas and developing them over time is the, like you said, the taking a walk. And that has this asynchronous or spread out across time. You often have talked about things like letting stuff stew or feeding your sleeping mind and you literally sleep on the problem and come up with another idea. And I think there’s a version of that within a group as well, bouncing ideas back and forth in a kind of virtual sense. And that’s a very interesting overlap with something that I think is a big part of the emerging best practices around remote work, which is embracing asynchronous. And some of that comes from this practical aspect of like, hey, you’ve got people across time zones. So if everything has to happen in synchronous meetings, then it makes a real tough for people. And so there’s a practical element of it. (Time 0:36:47)review

The Role of Synchrony and Asynchrony in Group Ideation Key takeaways: (* Ideation can be improved by having an asynchronous component, which allows for different ideas to be explored without interfering with each other., * Remote work is a good way to embrace asynchronous ideation, as it allows for different ideas to be explored without interference.) Transcript: Speaker 1 Another potentially counterintuitive piece of how ideation works, particularly ideation across a set of people is what I would call the asynchronous component. I think when you naturally think of group ideation, you think of live brainstorming, a very real time aspect. And indeed, a lot of when we think of collaborative tools, like a Google Docs, we are thinking of that very real time nature. You’re seeing someone typing in the document. But I think for sure, a big part of having good ideas and developing them over time is the, like you said, the taking a walk. And that has this asynchronous or spread out across time. You often have talked about things like letting stuff stew or feeding your sleeping mind and you literally sleep on the problem and come up with another idea. And I think there’s a version of that within a group as well, bouncing ideas back and forth in a kind of virtual sense. And that’s a very interesting overlap with something that I think is a big part of the emerging best practices around remote work, which is embracing asynchronous. And some of that comes from this practical aspect of like, hey, you’ve got people across time zones. So if everything has to happen in synchronous meetings, then it makes a real tough for people. And so there’s a practical element of it. But I actually think that what it does come to many types of the work pipeline and that early stage of ideation is one piece of it. There is parts that really benefit from real time, live energy. And there’s other parts that actually suffer from that that if you don’t have the time and space to go off and have your own thoughts separate from the group, the combined group ideas going to be worse than it could be. (Time 0:36:47)review

How to get people to use a unified approach to tools Key takeaways: (* Managing a group of people who are using different tools can be difficult, and starting with a single individual can help to overcome this challenge., * It is important to have curiosity about the individual’s context and history in order to manage them effectively.) Transcript: Speaker 2 This is such a fascinating question. And I’m not surprised that it’s come from Antoine, one of our earliest and best customers. I almost challenged the kind of framing that you had of how do we get people who are currently using disparate tools to use a more unified approach, which I’m sure is probably one personally likes and approves. So the question could actually mean different things. It could mean how do we help the group converge on a tool or set of tools, or it could be how do you manage the chaos and complexity of people using different tools? And I think there’s different answers to both those. Maybe we can take the framing of how do we get some convergence? I have a couple thoughts here. One is a very powerful truism that I heard about management is people don’t show up to work to do a bad job. It’s one of those that sounds so simple when you say it, but it’s very easy to catch yourself basically making that implicit assumption. So why are these people coming in to work using old tools? There’s some reason. So you got to have some curiosity about what their context is, what their personal history is, why they think this is the best way for them to do a good job. So I counsel curiosity there, which is hard to take much further without additional context on the team, but that’s one idea. Another sort of management pattern that I might advise here is starting with a single person. So often people present these leadership challenges of there’s this group, and I want the group to do something different. Why can’t group X? The thing is groups don’t do things. People do things. So the way to start is to find one individual human being and to convince them and help them have success with a new path. And this actually has several important benefits. (Time 0:40:46)review

How to get your team to switch to new tools Key takeaways: (* It is important to have curiosity when trying to figure out why people are coming in to work using old tools, and to start with a single person to help convince them to try a new path., * It is easier to convince a group when there is already one person convinced to try a new path, and this can be done by starting with a single person.) Transcript: Speaker 2 It’s one of those that sounds so simple when you say it, but it’s very easy to catch yourself basically making that implicit assumption. So why are these people coming in to work using old tools? There’s some reason. So you got to have some curiosity about what their context is, what their personal history is, why they think this is the best way for them to do a good job. So I counsel curiosity there, which is hard to take much further without additional context on the team, but that’s one idea. Another sort of management pattern that I might advise here is starting with a single person. So often people present these leadership challenges of there’s this group, and I want the group to do something different. Why can’t group X? The thing is groups don’t do things. People do things. So the way to start is to find one individual human being and to convince them and help them have success with a new path. And this actually has several important benefits. One is it forces you to confront concrete details because it’s easy to speak in abstractions when we’re talking about the group. The group is using old tools. The group is using too many tools. The group is using tools like that. When you talk about what Alice specifically is using and why, again, you’re getting grounded in the details. Another thing is that it’s much easier to convince a group when there’s already one person convinced they become a sort of lieutenant who can help you advocate for the tool and affect the rollout when there’s often a lot of mechanical stuff that needs to happen. I don’t know how that actually answers his question, but those were some of the things that came to mind for me. (Time 0:41:31)review

The Importance of Individual Leadership in a Group Setting Key takeaways: (* Leaders should be curious about their team’s context and personal history, and start with a single person to convince them to adopt new tools., * It is easier to convince a group when there is already one person convinced to adopt new tools, and this lieutenant can help advocate for the tool and affect the rollout.) Transcript: Speaker 2 So why are these people coming in to work using old tools? There’s some reason. So you got to have some curiosity about what their context is, what their personal history is, why they think this is the best way for them to do a good job. So I counsel curiosity there, which is hard to take much further without additional context on the team, but that’s one idea. Another sort of management pattern that I might advise here is starting with a single person. So often people present these leadership challenges of there’s this group, and I want the group to do something different. Why can’t group X? The thing is groups don’t do things. People do things. So the way to start is to find one individual human being and to convince them and help them have success with a new path. And this actually has several important benefits. One is it forces you to confront concrete details because it’s easy to speak in abstractions when we’re talking about the group. The group is using old tools. The group is using too many tools. The group is using tools like that. When you talk about what Alice specifically is using and why, again, you’re getting grounded in the details. Another thing is that it’s much easier to convince a group when there’s already one person convinced they become a sort of lieutenant who can help you advocate for the tool and affect the rollout when there’s often a lot of mechanical stuff that needs to happen. I don’t know how that actually answers his question, but those were some of the things that came to mind for me. (Time 0:41:37)review