Summary
Staying connected and learning from your teammates on a distributed team or in a highly siloed organization can be hard. Written knowledge-bases (if you have them) can be dry or become out of date, and replicating hallway conversations where you can bump into new people or share stories (and commiserations!) with coworkers can feel out of reach in a virtual environment. Despite the obstacles, I’ve found that cultivating an engaged remote community and fostering peer-to-peer knowledge sharing is possible. This talk will cover real-world tactics I use at the US Digital Service to engage communities and empower people to be resources to each other, whether they’re in the same room or thousands of miles apart.
Key Insights
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Internal hackathons are a powerful tool for community building and cross-disciplinary collaboration, especially when incentivized with perks like food delivery credits.
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Asynchronous hackathons struggle with engagement because participants multitask and lack dedicated collaboration time.
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Pre-pandemic knowledge sharing at USDS was mostly oral and in-person, with very limited documentation culture.
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The shift to remote work exposed the need for regular, inclusive, and accessible virtual spaces for knowledge exchange beyond infrequent events.
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The biweekly Nitty Gritty sessions balance brief presentations and deep discussions, with live captions and Slack chats to create persistent, accessible resources.
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Setting working agreements like embracing learning, taking/giving space, and being present fosters respectful and inclusive virtual conversations.
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Facilitation is part performance: exaggerating facial expressions and smiling on video help engage remote participants.
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Silence in virtual meetings is productive; facilitators should wait patiently to allow participants to fill the space rather than rushing to speak.
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Getting participants to recognize their knowledge and share even routine challenges encourages broader engagement and resource creation.
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Building community spaces is similar to product design: talking to users, identifying problems, validating solutions, iterating, and emphasizing fun and awkwardness.
Notable Quotes
"You can’t have a hackathon without free food, in my opinion."
"Why be here if you’re not going to be here."
"Having video on really helps people feel engaged and it’s nicer and better for reporting."
"Slack chat is way better than Zoom chat for persisting conversations."
"Silence is productive, you have to wait at least 30 seconds after asking a question."
"Embrace a culture of learning and be open to being educated."
"Take space and likewise give space — it’s everyone’s responsibility."
"Facilitation is part setting the stage and part performing on it."
"You have to exaggerate your facial expressions and body language on Zoom to keep people engaged."
"If you make something valuable, you have to do the work of socializing it for it to become used."
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