Re:No evidence that chance meetings in office boosts innovation
by stcredzero on Thursday June 24, 2021 @01:34PM
(#27621074)
This article is heavy on quotes but very light on actual data.
Here's the thing: Data on serendipitous meetings is going to exist primarily in the form of anecdotes! Fundamentally.
And I really take issue with the racial angle that feels like it is basically part of every single NYT article these days. A lot of the issues reported here feel valid, but just zooming back out (maybe pun intended?) for a second, this reporter seems to be arguing that actual face-to-face interactions are so fraught with racism that minorities need to be "protected" by remote work
Historically, here's how it has worked throughout history: To break into a field as a member of an under-represented identity group in that field, you had to be "So good, they can't ignore you." In fact, there are many areas of human endeavor where "So good, they can't ignore you," is just the regular price of entry. It is, in fact, the standard price of entry for those entities known as "startups."
Is this, in an absolute sense, fair? No. There are always going to be proxies to actual merit used in evaluation. That's just the reality of how non-omniscient beings work. We can only strive to make things as fair and accurate as we can. That certainly does not mean seeing that the lever is thrown one way, then wrenching the lever the other way. The lever needs to be changed from being a dumb lever and hooked up to meaningful data.
Here's the thing: Data on serendipitous meetings is going to exist primarily in the form of anecdotes! Fundamentally.
And I really take issue with the racial angle that feels like it is basically part of every single NYT article these days. A lot of the issues reported here feel valid, but just zooming back out (maybe pun intended?) for a second, this reporter seems to be arguing that actual face-to-face interactions are so fraught with racism that minorities need to be "protected" by remote work
Historically, here's how it has worked throughout history: To break into a field as a member of an under-represented identity group in that field, you had to be "So good, they can't ignore you." In fact, there are many areas of human endeavor where "So good, they can't ignore you," is just the regular price of entry. It is, in fact, the standard price of entry for those entities known as "startups."
Is this, in an absolute sense, fair? No. There are always going to be proxies to actual merit used in evaluation. That's just the reality of how non-omniscient beings work. We can only strive to make things as fair and accurate as we can. That certainly does not mean seeing that the lever is thrown one way, then wrenching the lever the other way. The lever needs to be changed from being a dumb lever and hooked up to meaningful data.