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Designing Inertia in Distributed Work and “Phavatars”

Kim Scott once told me a story of how they’d drink a beer together during a Google hangout across timezones. When I was at Automattic, I recall having people check-in with their meal of choice. It all makes me wonder if there’s a world of phavatars — physical avatars to create persistence and accountability.

What’s the BFD if you’re not a remote team? I strongly suggest that IRL teams use virtual sticky-noting technologies when they’re together just because it’s faster and because it scales so fluidly. Also you have the shared artifact always available to you for later use. And throw in some virtual food if you need to, like me. —JM