Ever been to a cringey Zoom social hour at work, playing online trivia or doing awkward icebreakers with your colleagues? Sometimes virtual socializing at work is great…and sometimes it feels like a waste of time. But in workplaces where IRL hangs aren’t possible, should we really skip socializing altogether?

For our first ever live show, recorded at Atlassian's Team '23 conference in Vegas, debaters Deb Lao and Marshall Walker Lee took to the stage to debate this thorny topic.  Deb defended virtual socializing, citing the benefits of a workplace BFF and the value of dedicating work time to culture building. Marshall countered, making the case that so many of these Zoom hangs are so poorly executed, they should be canceled so more organic team bonding can flourish.

Does your calendar look like a game of Tetris, meetings on top of meetings from Monday to Friday? Or do you cringe when someone pops a meeting invite into the middle of your deep work afternoon? Now, how would you feel if you had a whole day of your schedule totally cleared? Today’s episode explores the promises and problems with implementing a No Meeting Day for your team.

Debater Rani Shah is a superfan of the practice and has been doing No Meeting Days for years. She’s supported by Dr. Vijay Pereira, who shares his research on how No Meeting Days can boost autonomy and decrease feelings of micromanagement. New debater Deb Lao joins to argue against the practice, supported by meeting expert Mamie Kanfer Stewart who pitches some alternative ways to solve your meeting woes. 

Are your work chats filled with emojis? Or are they all text, all-the-time? In this episode, we debate if emojis belong in workplace communication at all.

Debater Maren Hotvedt points out the problems with emoji, including cringe-worthy misinterpretations and accessibility challenges. She’s joined by accessibility researcher and assistant professor at Rochester Institute of Technology Dr. Garreth Tigwell, and qualitative user experience researcher Esha Shandilya. Emoji super-fan Shannon Winter advocates in favor of emojis as a culture builder and tool to express identity, with support from Tomoko Yokoi, entrepreneur and researcher on digital innovation at International Institute for Management Development and ETH Zurich.