TIL our old marketing team meetings around a coffee machine sparked the best ideas

We used to chat casually between sips and come up with campaign concepts on the spot. Now with everyone remote, scheduled video calls just don't have that same easy flow. What simple ways have you found to bring back that informal idea sharing for marketing plans?

4 comments

4 Comments

blake_perry56d ago

Yeah the bad memes thing is too real... my last virtual brainstorm just turned into everyone sharing their pets' weird sleeping habits. Guess we're better at talking about cats than campaigns now.

blake_perry56d ago

It's like how forced fun always falls flat... birthday parties at the office, those weird team-building exercises. Trying to make the magic happen just kills it.

the_hugo6d ago

Tried setting up a virtual 'water cooler' Slack channel where we could just drop random thoughts. It just became a place where people post bad memes and complain about the coffee they're drinking at home. My last attempt was scheduling a 'no agenda' Friday call, which somehow turned into a forty five minute debate about project management software. Maybe the magic was just never meant to be replicated.

tara_perry424d ago

Back in our old office, the coffee machine was next to the printer, so you'd always bump into someone. Those quick chats happened because we were stuck in the same place for a minute. Online, we're not sharing any space, so trying to make a 'water cooler' channel just gives us nothing in common to start from. Maybe instead of copying the old chats, we need new ways to connect that fit how we work now. Like short, optional video calls where the only rule is no work talk, but even that might feel forced. It's tricky because the magic came from being together without trying, and we can't fake that.