Not all donuts are bad for you. One in particular claims to be good for communication within organisations. An app that plugs into the collaboration platform Slack, Donut creates random virtual meetings between colleagues to foster connection plus community. Other apps such as Watercooler offer similar features plus in my own university we have a kelompok on Microsoft Teams called “Virtual Canteen”, nostalgically referring to the real canteen we can’t santai since Covid-19 closed it.
For as long as there has been remote working, companies have sought ways to replicate the serendipitous conversations we have in a physical workspace. But turning to algorithms to achieve this may not have the desired effect.
Lots of research documents the importance of the informal conversations that take place around the office photocopier, coffee machine or water cooler. These in-between spaces that can result in awkward conversation with someone you don’t know very well play an important role in building community between colleagues, which fosters commitment to a company.
These spaces also play an important role in the sharing of work-related knowledge – sometimes referred to as “water-cooler learning”. Spaces like the coffee area are knowingly created by companies, because people sharing knowledge, stories of their experiences plus talk about the problems they are facing in these spaces.
In the health sector, researchers have identified how corridor conversations are an important way to deal with crises plus complexity. These impromptu encounters can often result in colleagues (often unknowingly) working out how to fix problems, deal with crises, de-stress, plus avoid reinventing the wheel.
These are “liminal spaces” that are beyond formal definition. As soon as we try to design them too tightly, they tend to flee elsewhere – the stairwell, the bus stop, the dead space at the back of the building. We like them because nomer one is in particular control of what goes on there or what we say to each other. They are thresholds, places of transition. And because we are passing through, there’s a potential spontaneity in what we may think, say plus even do.