Do Not Cancel: Hacking co-worker connections
How I used my TED hack week to imagine new ways to connect with colleagues
TED hack week
Product person or engineer, all of us on the TED Tech team get three hack weeks each year to work on something we’re passionate about. Projects can be fully executed or a simple idea as long as they serve to make TED a little better.
TED is growing, and recently consolidated into a new, much larger office. We now span two floors, so there’s much less chance for the daily, random interactions that I came to expect when I began at TED four years ago.
For my first hack week project, I want to find new ways to connect people who might not normally get to interact — something TED does very well at our conferences each year. I envision a simple app that randomly pairs participants with another staff member for a 25-min (hard-stop) coffee chat. The catch? You cannot cancel. This is Do Not Cancel Coffee.
My hypothesis is that participants will be more likely to keep coffee dates with those they don’t know well, reinforced by a calendar invite from a third party that screams, “Do Not Cancel.”
There are similar connection apps out there, but the unique information we have about TED staff could make DNC Coffee smart very quickly. I began by thinking of ways we could leverage our internal data to make unexpected connections. How might we:
- use the Google Calendar’s API to crawl through TED schedules to automatically find times when both people are free?
- use TED.com profile data to match staff with common interests?
- pair newer staff with those that have been at TED for years?
- use Gmail API to prioritize matching people with those that have emailed least frequently?
- use TED watch history to link staff that have favorited the same talks or playlists?
Starting simple
To start, I’m building a simple proof of concept. Piloting on Wednesdays and Fridays, a Wufoo Form will ask staffers to select times when they’re willing to be randomly paired for the following week. From there, calendar invites will be sent from a custom DNC calendar. Each Monday, subscribers may opt-in by providing their availability during a few predetermined windows of time.
Encouraging staff to spend unstructured time with different teams doesn’t only help Tech understand how to best celebrate other initiatives on TED.com. It also connects us to the parts of TED’s mission that push “Ideas worth spreading” beyond video views. Further, it forces intentional breaks from a computer screen to allow for more creative thought.
Phase one of DNC Coffee is underway, and being made available on our internal resource channel. Eventually, I hope to automate the process and roll out to the wider TED team.
Follow me and Made By TED to see where it goes!
