What do you honestly think of asynchronous communication?

I think you need both synchronous and asynchronous ways of communicating. Asynchronous should be the default for distributed teams as to your point it allows people to follow up when they get to it (especially important when you're not in the same office, country, timezone). Synchronous communication should then be reserved for the most important/complex discussions where face-to-face or voice is still the best way of communicating. The problem with most tools today is that it's either/or and it's also really up to the team and user to use the tool the "right" way. Slack can be used asynchronously but in most cases the expectation is that people will respond right away and the product is also not really set up for asynchronous. Slack channels usually get pretty chaotic with multiple people talking about different things at the same time so if you don't follow along in real-time it's more difficult to make sense of things once you get back on Slack. If you then really want to discuss something asynchronously you then end up creating a doc, task, etc. which is not ideal either.

We all use asynchronous communication (Slack, email, Trello, Asana) daily. I think the real change is going to be video. As an agency owner / consultant, the biggest limitation of my time is having my day blocked out by Zoom calls. There are definitely times when synchronous meetings make sense, but there are just so many meetings where you're waiting for 45 minutes to an hour just to get one piece of information. That waste multiplies exponentially by the # of attendees as well. I actually built a product Grapevine 2.0, for this exact reason. TL;DR - Meetings are coming back post COVID, but there's a huge opportunity to reduce the amount of meetings & Zoom's were all in, using Async updates (Video, Slack, Productivity Tools, etc.)

IHMO the benefit of asych comms is that it empowers people to work with their own workflows and it allows opportunity to think more/research before responding. But, I think one of the big downsides is that it doesn't usually allow for quick follow-ups, clarifying questions, etc. I usually get most of my helpful information not from the top-level communication, but drilling into the conversation. Another challenge with asych is that it happens to take place too often via text-not voice/face-to-face. I think that opens the room for too much interpretation, assumptions, miscommunication, as long as taking like... 5x as long.

I'm in favor of async communication. I've always found sync communication to be painfully slow and disruptive to productivity.

Asynchronous communication is not a great fit for everything, but it is great for work environments that value autonomy and the fabled "work-life" balance - it takes the pressure to respond off the individual, leaves it to them to determine when to engage.

Definitely prefer it! Formally been running it 6 years, having done it for most of my career as much as I could. If people are expecting to get responses during working hours, they have no chance. Partly because I prefer to finish tasks, but also because I may be in other calls. Plus, sync communication blocks everyone and delays the person needing my help if they don't just put at least the first request in an email or chat. Since asking to meet, not getting hold of me, then getting hold of me to arrange a meeting, to then have the meeting and get the info could be 5 days. Put what you need in an email or chat, I'll respond at whatever time of day.

Hey! Even though I'm a *huge* extrovert and love live discussions, it's just not feasible for a lot of teams now. Some communication needs to be done live. But a lot of it doesn't. If we can take the latter and put it in async, I think people will be more willing to 'show up' for the stuff that REALLY needs to be live. We actually launched Spokn, which helps companies make and share internal podcasts, today on Product Hunt for this exact reason. :) Our thought is that if something can be shared in async (think weekly updates, new hire announcements, strategy updates, big win announcements, etc), audio is an amazing format because it's so human and gives people a break from their screens. Would love to hear what you all think and a big thanks @elle for kicking off this convo! https://www.producthunt.com/post...

There are lots of benefits for asynchronous communication for things that aren't urgent.

There's value in coming together and having a discussion when it comes to alignment, brainstorming and the big picture. Do too much of it and you approach the land of unproductive endless meetings and constant interruptions. Asynchronous communication allows individuals to do deep work and think things through. Do too much it and disconnect can creep in. There has to be a balance, as some other commenters point out.

Not sure if anyone has encountered the new IA/rework of Loom's core product but here's some background from CEO on why Loom is pivoting to be more of a Clubhouse/social media feed. Feels like a BIG departure from their core offering of enabling asynchronous communication. https://www.protocol.com/workpla...