This is an area that's important to me as a future remote worker. Tools and services that enable remote team collaboration are going to become more and more vital as the trend for companies to allow and even encourage employees to work remotely increases. We need tools like Bench to push collaboration and lower the potential costs of going remote. All the best with the launch 🚀
@fredrivett we are already there. [bench] team is spread across Los Angeles, Poland, Estonia and New Zealand. We are working remotely for years and decided to create a better tool for us. Good luck with your future remote work Fred.
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@augenblick75 Scratching your own itch is a classic move! Congrats on getting this out there 👏
This is cool. Just signed up :)
I usually use Google Docs to discuss idea with my team in Singapore and Vietnam. Google Docs works well with text but not so much with graphic. But what I like about using Google Docs is asynchronous communication.
We are in different timezone and speak different native language. We need time to think and elaborate idea. We need time to give quality feedback. That's why we do not use Skype.
I will try to see if this works for international team like us :)
I agree the video is not the best BUT I think that's an interesting product and tagline... I feel like a more appropriate one would be like "Sandbox (or Whiteboard) for collaborative meetings" 🤔
Feel like I can't stress enough the clarity of the UX here. 'We all point, to avoid lengthy descriptions' as a headline on the website really says a lot. We frequently forget something like this when we're transferring real world human behavior to digital design. I think your awareness of things like this will really drive you guys forward and accelerate your growth.
Truly seamless & intuitive as well :). Any plans to share your design thinking in more detail with Medium/Blog posts, etc?
@leftearpod you made my day Jake. As the UX people we almost never get appreciated. When UX work is done correctly nobody notices it, they just use the product. I plan on posting on our design/product philosophy in the near future. Thanks for the encouragement. Cheers!
This is an amazing tool that will IMHO become a staple for many teams @entrepreter. Love how, by default, there is no camera. So many tools have video by default and it just takes up resources and bandwidth. This is the interactive version of slack....on 'roids. :)
@abe_storey really appreciated your time on the demo. Loved how you understood we were a complement to slack users. Something that can give you an edge in collaboration. :)
@abe_storey@entrepreter I love when people pick up on the notion that cameras are distracting in 98% of collaboration meetings. [bench] is about stuff you need to discuss not about people faces.
@osakasaul Thanks for the epic feedback session, your insights into your world are invaluable, and I really respect how open you were in where [bench] fits and doesn't Thanks for the extra support and encouragement!
Interested to try it out! One thing that isn't immediately clear though is whether what's shared is recorded or saved at all? (The mention of the secret link makes me feel it's not)
@afhill Yes, you are right Andrea. We need to do a better job explaining how secure the service is. The whole connection between users and server is encrypted. The only way to access your bench is with the link. If you don't want others to have access to your bench any more you can 'reset' the bench. It will kick them out and change bench URL to a completely new one.
Also the whole voice communication is peer to peer, it's not going through our servers at all - no recording there.
And finally when you delete file from your bench or delete bench the content is erased from our servers. There is no way to recover it, even if that was a formula for converting coal into gold :D
On the other hand we are working on the recording feature so users can record their conversation for a future reference.
@afhill a couple people have mentioned that isn't clear, so we'll bring that into our messaging. Your [bench] a permanent space for your files and conversation. The only way anything disappears is if you delete it. Glad you had a play and got deep enough into the product to ask this question. Let me know if you want to jump into a deeper demo and I can show you some of the more advanced (and waaaaaay cooler features).
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