Challenges of the Physical World

Nobody noticed that we have transitioned to a virtual world. It is not that obvious unless you try to come back. That is what we did at Silvair last week, with the first all-hands-in-person day since the pandemic. On one hand it was great, as the hum has returned to the previously empty office spaces. Conversations by a coffee machine. And seeing real people, not just their avatars.

On the other hand it proved to be really challenging.

Do you remember the times when you had to fiddle with a projector? Swapping cables, inputs, resolutions. Yes it is way easier to share a screen today when on an online meeting. Trying to do that to a group sitting in a conference room is challenging :)

And it is still even worse when some attendees are still remote. As there is usually one speaker/microphone in a conference room and event the most advanced ones have difficulty picking up comments from the other side of the room.

The first such meeting we had was delayed by 15 minutes "due to operational reasons". In other words the equipment did not work, laptops not charged by their docking stations were shutting down etc. 

And yes, there is a need to actually book a meeting room, as in the physical world there is only a limited number of them.

One of the discussions - by the way - was touching on the global chip shortage. And one funny (but honest) remark was that if people were doing all things in the Cloud now, nobody would need any chips :)

Yes we've crossed the Styx (at least mentally) and there seems no (easy) coming back.