My replacement for green status circles.
I have been working remotely for over 5 years. In almost all communication apps there are green status symbols, trying to show if someone is there or not. Those symbols actually just show if they have that app open, they could have left the computer on and went to lunch, who knows! I wanted to create a more meaningful way for teams to share and update status so I created https://www.mydigitaloffice.io/ . Would really love feedback from people here!
This seems quite interesting.
I might just be spitballing here but couldn't you integrate this in some kind of collaboration tool like Slack that people are already using?
Thank you for the comment. I have used Slack for so long now. I do not like forced Async communication. Their status is green I message them and they get back a few hours later, "Sorry was in a meeting, what's up?" then at that point I am gone and respond a few hours later. Slack has strong points as an email replacement, but it is actually pretty weak in terms of Async and synchronous communication balance. Not their fault. Any chat app even a perfect one will never be perfect IMO. We are visual beings and one image says 1000 words. So in short, no we could not integrate a virtual office space inside a chat app but we could use Slack as the Async portion like internal emails and when you need real time interaction jump in your office and just see what is happening; no need to chat anyone, anything.
Neat product @mdo! Congrats on the launch.
Although I find it very interesting I think you'd need some sort of integrations with existing tools like Slack to push users to take it seriously.
I also recommend you check out https://remo.co/, your product reminded me of them a bit.
They seem to have some traction going for them! Might want to share some ideas.
We are integrated with Zoom. Maybe should add that on the landing page because they have a thorough review process.
Know of all of the companies in my space from 20 years back. Second life and even MS bob are on my radar. Might reach out to remo and ask about their pain points and if they pivoted to a virtual conference tool.
Checking out Ryeboard, it looks great! How many people are on dev? I am also a developer / creator.
PS on the Slack mentions. I remember when I first tried Slack, 4-ish years ago. Someone said it was trending and I should check it out. "Nasa uses Slack" was what I read first on their landing page and signed up and tried it ASAP. Imagine what the world would be like if they were not crazy good at marketing (or accidentally good, but I doubt it). "Hey Slack you should integrate with a lot of other already popular chat and email services people happen to be using right now." Just saying. It could have been just a blank sign up sheet with no app and I would have still signed up to try it. Magic marketing. Now they are the default, like Kleenex :)
This is an interesting idea. I like the idea of having this "digital meeting room" and people can set where they are. It makes people seem as if they are kind of in a real office, and is better than a green circle. I get the painpoint and the use-case.
However, I will echo what @AthosBlade said. I feel if you shipped this digital meeting room and let people select where they are, and somehow that integrated into their Slack status, you may have something more compelling.
I use Slack everyday at work because it's required by my company. I can't force them to change to this platform. But I could tell them to adopt this to make the Slack channel "feel more like an office". Plus, if you integrate this with Slack or MS Teams, you get distribution through their App Stores.
So overall, I like the "Digital Workplace" component but I think the "Chat" and the "Tasks" component may be too broad. There are entire companies dedicated to just solve "Chat" (Slack, Basecamp, Teams) and Tasks (Asana, Jira, etc.). I would double-down on Digital Workplace and add it as an app for Teams/Slack/other chat providers.
I really appreciate the detail in your response. Moving data from MDO into Slack via an integration is definitely a possibility.
Slack's status is exactly what I want to avoid. Just looking and seeing the sales team in 'The Boardroom' takes just a moment in a virtual office. In Slack I would need to mouse over each person, and happen to notice they are all in a 'Meeting in the Boardroom.'
Slack just started really pushing here in Japan. You would be surprised how many companies are still completely unaware of Slack.
If I made an integration it would be like all integrations, some people would use it, some would not. For example, people really wanted a Zoom integration with MDO as well. So we added it in. Maybe only 10% of our user base actually uses it. When we ask why: "We do not use Zoom" is the most prevalent answer. More than likely this would be the same: "We do not use Slack plugins."
Think it would be a great feature to help on-boarding. i.e. Integrate your Slack account here and invite all of your team members into My Digital Office. Not seeing the technical value of pulling a visual status tool back into a chat tool.
Statuses haven't been a problem I felt while remote-working. The idea is interesting, but I doubt whether it'd be enough to replace the remote-working communication tools that already exist in the market. Unless it replaces Slack, for instance, I don't see much value in using another tool only because of a more advanced status functionality.
It could somehow be more valuable as a plugin, or as an integrated tool with one of the prominent remote-working apps.
Moreover, for the marketing site, you might want to consider putting some videos or gifs to showcase how your app is working.
Thank you for your thoughts! Much appreciated :)
This comment was deleted 7 years ago