Collaborate from afar

Sometimes the best collaborative moments happen spontaneously by the coffee machine, but given this isn't possible right now, you need to get a little creative in how you engineer these encounters from afar.

Using Discuss, you can create dedicated spaces for 'casual collaborations' between teams. Giving your staff room to express ideas, recommend books or TED Talks, or share a link to an inspiring article they just read, will bring different perspectives together and spark innovative insights. 

Create different channels for different conversations

A common mistake is to create one Discuss channel called 'General', and let the comments flood in. Doing this means you risk losing important feedback amongst all the noise.

Instead, build channels for each department, team, topic, project, or conversation. The more specific you can get, the more focussed the discussions. 

Having dedicated channels will also encourage engagement, because teams can easily spot conversations that interest them the most or where they hold the most knowledge.

Use Discuss after every meeting

For a truly productive meeting, you should always create a record of what was discussed, list any action points, and set a date to follow-up. Otherwise, it can get really tricky to keep track of progress or invite further feedback.

Get into the habit of capturing this information in Discuss after every meeting. Doing so ensures important conversations don't get lost, gives people the chance to ask any follow-up questions, and helps you keep knowledge organised.

You can also add and assign tasks to your staff within each Discuss channel. This is handy when you have action items that need to be completed by certain employees by a certain date, whilst keeping all related information in one place.