Help Us Make Office Optional Better

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Help Us Make Office Optional Better

Thank you so much for joining us at Office Optional last week. We learned a lot and were delighted by the energy and inquisitiveness everyone brought to the day. As we think about whether to hold Office Optional again next year and how to improve all of our events, your feedback makes a tremendous difference to us. Please fill out this short survey today. In a week or so, we’ll have the conference video available for sale, and we’ll offer it to you at a very steep discount. Look for a separate email on that. We’ll also blog many of the tips and questions about remote work that we received during Office Optional. As a preview, below are a few of our favorite tips submitted by attendees.Thanks in advance for filling out our short survey today! Sarah and the Office Optional team * For in-person meetings, we don’t do ANYTHING that we think could be accomplished in a virtual setting, and instead pack our team retreats/conferences with things like: intense, long-term planning brainstorm sessions; team building, conversations about things that are deeply personal.         -- Sarah, Teach for America, Wheeling WV * We also try to spend our in-person time in different team members' home towns, so that we get to see them "in their element," meet their families, eat at their local restaurants, hike in their local parks, etc. It's HUGE and completely amplifies the purpose of getting together in person.        -- Sarah, Teach for America * Occasionally, we'll have a distributed movie-watching session using Netflix. We open up a HipChat channel for commentary. Works great for team bonding!        -- Shaunuak Kashyap, Rackspace, San Jose CA * Oversharing is key, so we have a daily QOTD (question of the day) in our chatroom every day, even if the questions are really dumb. I love knowing which of our team members secretly listens to Miley Cyrus while working.        -- Sarah, LKR Social Media, Mammoth Lakes CA * Our onboarding tradition: get the whole team on Hangout. Each person asks the new hire a weird and personal question, then the new hire gets to ask one back to them. Side effect: existing team members learn even more about each other.        -- Sarah, LKR Social Media * Security is important for protecting IP. I’ve been using Zoom for HD web meetings. Zoom provides three levels of security: 128-bit encryption, password-protected meetings, ability to lock the meeting after everyone has joined so no one else can eavesdrop.        -- Rich Harris, TeamLeadContrast, Plattsburgh NY * Test your new headset and microphone before using it in for meetings first time!        -- Galina Landes, Emanio, Walnut Creek CA  Featured Sponsor