Attention CTOs: Culture Matters

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6 pointstheo3 comments

"you need to be in shouting distance or at least on the same floor"

What is, this a trading floor? For something that requires as much uninterrupted focus as coding, being within "shouting distance" of someone seems like the worst idea ever.

Fairly certain he means it as "be in the same room", "be present", "don't be in your high and mighty office". It's a phrase that doesn't actually mean shouting.

To any of the fair number of us who've worked in "best practice" open spaces, it means exactly that.

People standing up and shouting across two rows, for the sake of their own convenience.

I'd be careful in the use of such a description. And, overall, the OP reads as a pretty vacuous and narrow-minded post. He's looking for the like-minded, for all the "openness" to which he pays lip service -- that's how it comes across to me.

Not much value in my comment, I suppose, other than to point out that, for a fair fraction of us, "within shouting distance" is a quite literal (and unpleasant) experience.

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