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Re:Building a walkie-talkie for remote work by andyfleming on Thursday January 23, 2020 @11:31PM (#22135415)
We use Pragli, and I feel like it's the opposite. Rather than a Slack back and forth to see if someone is available, setting up a video conference, connecting, etc, you can pop in and say "hey, you have a minute?". They can say "no" or "can you come back in 10?". It's like stopping by someone's desk. If they really wanted to be heads down they can be in do not disturb mode. They can still show as online (so their presence can be "felt"), but have a status that says "Focusing" and block "calls". I think it's great.
Re:Building a walkie-talkie for remote work by steve1977 on Friday January 24, 2020 @02:12AM (#22136057)
>They can say "no" or "can you come back in 10?"

By then, the damage to concentration has already been made. Yes, you can set your status to "do not disturb". But you have to remember to do that.

Re:Building a walkie-talkie for remote work by andyfleming on Friday January 24, 2020 @02:54AM (#22136244)
Sure, it's still an interruption, but I don't think it's completely derailing. That's why I compared it to stopping by someone's desk. It still requires both parties to be responsible and aware.
Re:Building a walkie-talkie for remote work by barrkel on Friday January 24, 2020 @09:32AM (#22138577)
Stopping by someone's desk is derailing, FWIW. I frequently find myself losing 30+ minutes before getting flow back from a 2 minute interruption.
Re:Building a walkie-talkie for remote work by p_l on Saturday January 25, 2020 @01:23PM (#22147697)
One interruption an hour is enough to result in me not being able to get anything done for the whole day...

Actually, I'm starting to think I lost ability to concentrate because of that.

Re:Building a walkie-talkie for remote work by dorkley on Friday January 24, 2020 @07:14AM (#22137399)
You've clearly not got a clue how a software engineer works if you think its not derailing.
Re:Building a walkie-talkie for remote work by mosselman on Friday January 24, 2020 @02:58AM (#22136258)
I am not sure you really know how concentration works.

For example:

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2015-28923-001

"We found that cellular phone notifications alone significantly disrupted performance on an attention-demanding task, even when participants did not directly interact with a mobile device during the task."

Imagine then what damage random people's voices asking you things while working would do to your concentration.

Re:Building a walkie-talkie for remote work by jiofih on Friday January 24, 2020 @03:21AM (#22136365)
Did you read the Pragli article at all? It specifically addressss this.
Re:Building a walkie-talkie for remote work by p_l on Friday January 24, 2020 @04:02AM (#22136558)
I did. I see no mention of special do not disturb handling, instead high value placed on others being able to start voice communication without waiting for you to accept - the only thing that is opt-in is answering them, by the time your attention is already wrecked.
Re:Building a walkie-talkie for remote work by tom_mellior on Friday January 24, 2020 @04:18AM (#22136639)
> no mention of special do not disturb handling

There's a section on setting manual statuses, including one specific example of "focussing - do not disturb". The animated screengrab below suggests that if someone wants to contact you with such a status set they will get a window informing them and the option to bother you anyway. Not sure how special you would want your handling, but something is definitely there. Though it isn't really clear to me if the example in the screengrab is based on a status or on a calendar entry.

I do agree that this isn't something I would want to work with, and as I wrote elsewhere, if my company had this I would set it to perpetual DND or just not run the software at all.

Re:Building a walkie-talkie for remote work by p_l on Friday January 24, 2020 @04:27AM (#22136667)
The resigned me would accept that DND mode because somehow it would be made hard to work without this software, possibly with HR involved. The naive me would think there's going to be something better or that people would actually respect that. The cynical experienced me wants a progressively higher level of pain delivered before you can call someone in DND mode.
Re:Building a walkie-talkie for remote work by jiofih on Friday January 24, 2020 @06:33AM (#22137221)
They also mention that what finally made it feel nice is automatically setting DND mode when there is a calendar event (including any “focus time” blocks you create).
Re:Building a walkie-talkie for remote work by p_l on Friday January 24, 2020 @07:47AM (#22137616)
A big problem is that many people will ultimately ignore DND anyway.
Re:Building a walkie-talkie for remote work by jiofih on Friday January 24, 2020 @12:57PM (#22140725)
The caller cannot ignore it, it will simply cause audio to not be accepted automatically.
Re:Building a walkie-talkie for remote work by amhokies on Friday January 24, 2020 @08:30AM (#22137987)
From the HN guidelines: Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that."
Re:Building a walkie-talkie for remote work by moltar on Thursday January 23, 2020 @11:35PM (#22135433)
Problem is most people are socially inclined to say yes. It’s just human nature. They are more willing to break the flow than to break the social norms.
Re:Building a walkie-talkie for remote work by hinkley on Friday January 24, 2020 @12:28AM (#22135636)
I really feel like this part is something you could automate.

Give me a choice box of now, snooze bar, or several other options culminating in “take it to email, my hair is on fire.”