Maya and Pilar discuss some of the ways in which remote workers are networking. And very special guest Matt Ballantine shares his experiment “100 coffees”. Recorded on 21 March 2024. To get in touch, head over to https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/contact-us  Maya shares a recent event she ran as part of Remote Work Europe, with Ali Meehan on “speed networking”. Someone else organising networking-type events is Lisette Sutherland from Collaboration Superpowers, who is running virtual coworking sessions: https://www.collaborationsuperpowers.com/workshops/schedule/?type=1112 Maybe this kind of event is something organisations could run, instead of assuming the best way for people to connect is through face to face social events? 12.25mins Special guest Matt Ballantine tells us about his relationship building experiment: 100 coffees. Read about it here: https://mmitii.mattballantine.com/category/projects/100-coffees/ Connect with Matt on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattballantine/ Listen to his previous episode on this show: https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/collaboration-in-organisations Listen to the WB40 podcast, or even, book a coffee time with Matt: https://calendly.com/matt-ballantine 27.15mins What about online communities? Belonging to a public group and a private one, and a free one versus a paid one, are very different experiences. Remote Work Europe has a public, open group on Facebook, and a private community, over at https://www.remoteworkeurope.eu/connected Communities and relationships can exist both online and off: we mention Social Now as a conference about the digital workspace: 16th and 17th May in Lisbon, and also the online community Asynco. And relationship building can be synchronous or asynchronous. Virtual Team Talk, set up back in the day by Pilar and Lisette, is still around! 43.15mins And Social Media? How’s it going over on LinkedIn? If you want to become active on the platform, join the RWE challenge: https://www.linkedin.com/events/levelupyourlinkedinspring2024-a7175914652218834945/comments/ Or, you might want to join Alison Jones’ Book Proposal Challenge. And being part of a challenge itself is a great way of meeting new people with whom you have something in common! 52.30mins In the absence of people, can generative AI bots help? A cheeky transition into some resources we have around generative AI: Maya has created the course: Generative AI Secrets For Remote Work Search Success And Pilar is now blogging about her artistic projects with and without genAI over at Spiralling Creativity, where her latest post ponders on whether genAI is a Clown .