The Great Meeting Migration: How Remote Work Accidentally Fixed Community Building
March 2020 changed everything about how we work, but here's the plot twist nobody saw coming: forcing everyone into virtual meetings accidentally solved some of our biggest community building problems. Not all of them, and not without creating new ones, but in ways that might actually stick around long after we've forgotten what "unprecedented times" felt like.
At Kern & Turn, we've spent the last few years watching this accidental experiment unfold—both in our own team and with our clients. And honestly? Some of the "emergency solutions" we cobbled together during lockdown turned out to be better than what we were doing before.
The Accidental Democracy of Square Boxes
Remember the first few months of Zoom calls when everyone was the same size square on the screen? CEOs looked exactly as confused by the mute button as interns. That person who never spoke up in conference rooms suddenly had an equal-sized box and a chat function where they could contribute without interrupting.
We discovered that some of our quietest team members were actually brilliant contributors when they could process thoughts in writing before speaking, or when they didn't have to compete with the loudest voice in the room for airtime.
The unexpected win: Remote meetings accidentally leveled some playing fields we didn't even realize were tilted.
The catch: It also made it easier for people to disappear entirely, camera off, attention elsewhere.
The End of Performance Meetings
Pre-2020, how many meetings were really just elaborate performance pieces? People would show up, nod thoughtfully, and contribute just enough to prove they belonged in the room. The actual work would happen in the hallway afterward or in smaller follow-up conversations.
Remote work killed most of that theater. When you're on a video call, it's pretty obvious who's engaged and who's checking email. The meetings that survived had to actually accomplish something, because nobody wanted to waste time staring at their own face in a little box for an hour.
What we learned: Most meetings were social rituals disguised as productivity. When we stripped away the ritual, we had to figure out what was actually necessary.
The revelation: Turns out, a lot of what we thought was "community building" was actually just habit.
The Great Intentionality Awakening
Here's where it gets interesting. When casual office interactions disappeared—the coffee machine conversations, the quick desk drive-bys, the impromptu lunch invitations—we had to become intentional about connection in ways we'd never been before.
Suddenly, checking in on someone required actually scheduling time to check in. Celebrating wins meant planning celebration. Building relationships meant being deliberate about relationship building.
The accidental efficiency: No more pretending that random office chitchat was the same as meaningful team connection.
The new challenge: Some of the best ideas really did come from those random conversations we lost.
Virtual Coffee Breaks That Actually Work
Remember when everyone tried to recreate office culture online with virtual coffee breaks and digital water cooler chats? Most of them were disasters. Awkward silences, people talking over each other, the inevitable "can you hear me now?" technical difficulties.
But the ones that worked taught us something important about what genuine connection actually requires:
Structure helps spontaneity. The best virtual hangouts had loose frameworks—maybe everyone shares one good thing from their week, or talks about what they're reading, or shows something from their workspace. Completely unstructured time is harder to navigate virtually.
Smaller is better. Office parties with 50 people translate terribly to video calls. But 4-5 people can have surprisingly intimate conversations in virtual spaces.
Opt-in beats mandatory. The virtual events that felt most authentic were the ones people chose to attend, not the ones HR required for "team building."
The Documentation Revolution
When everything moved online, we suddenly had records of everything. Meeting recordings, chat transcripts, shared documents that tracked decisions in real-time. We could finally answer the question "what did we decide in that meeting three weeks ago?" without playing telephone.
The community building bonus: New team members could actually see how decisions got made instead of trying to decode office politics and unspoken rules.
The efficiency win: Less time spent re-explaining context and more time spent moving forward together.
The trade-off: Sometimes the magic was in the things that didn't get recorded—the tangents that led to breakthrough ideas, the informal mentoring that happened in passing.
Time Zone Democracy
Working with distributed teams forced us to think differently about inclusion. When your team spans multiple time zones, you can't just assume everyone can make the 3 PM meeting. You have to rotate meeting times, record important conversations, and create multiple ways for people to contribute.
The unexpected lesson: Geographic diversity led to more thoughtful communication practices that benefited everyone, not just remote workers.
The revelation: Some of our "efficient" in-person practices were actually just convenient for whoever happened to be physically closest to the office.
The Decline of Meeting Theater
Pre-2020 meeting: "Let's circle back and take this offline to ideate some solutions."
Post-2020 meeting: "Sarah will research pricing, Tom will draft the proposal, and we'll review it Friday. Any questions?"
What changed: When meeting time became obviously finite and constrained by technology, we got better at actually deciding things instead of just talking about them.
The side effect: Some of the relationship building that happened during meandering conversations got lost in the name of efficiency.
Home as Context
Seeing people's actual homes, meeting their pets, hearing their kids in the background—it humanized everyone in ways that professional headshots and LinkedIn profiles never could. The executive who seemed intimidating in the boardroom became relatable when their cat walked across their keyboard mid-presentation.
The community building gold: Shared vulnerability (even the accidental kind) creates stronger connections than shared conference rooms.
The new normal: We learned that professional doesn't have to mean impersonal.
What We Accidentally Figured Out
After three years of remote work experimentation, here's what actually improved our community building:
Intentional connection beats accidental proximity. Scheduling time to check in with team members often creates deeper conversations than hoping to bump into them in the hallway.
Structure enables authentic conversation. Having a framework for discussion (even a simple "how are you really doing?") often leads to more genuine sharing than unstructured social time.
Documentation serves relationships. When everyone can see the same information and track the same decisions, there's less time spent on catch-up and more time spent on actual collaboration.
Inclusive practices benefit everyone. Designing meetings that work for remote participants often makes them better for in-person participants too.
Opt-in engagement is more meaningful. When people choose to participate rather than being required to attend, the conversations tend to be more authentic.
What We Lost (And Whether It Matters)
We also lost some things that might have been more valuable than we realized:
Serendipitous encounters that led to unexpected collaborations. Nonverbal communication that helped us read room dynamics and individual energy levels. Informal mentoring that happened naturally when experienced and new team members worked in close proximity. Celebration rituals that felt spontaneous rather than scheduled.
The question isn't whether remote work is better or worse for community building—it's whether we can keep the improvements while finding new ways to replace what we lost.
The Hybrid Future of Intentional Community
The most successful organizations we work with aren't trying to go back to 2019 or stick with 2020 solutions. They're building hybrid approaches that combine the best of both:
Intentional in-person time for relationship building, creative collaboration, and complex problem-solving. Structured virtual connection for regular check-ins, decision-making, and inclusive participation. Async collaboration tools for documentation, project tracking, and giving everyone time to contribute thoughtfully. Flexible participation options that accommodate different communication styles and life circumstances.
Building Forward, Not Back
At Kern & Turn, we've learned that the best community building strategies aren't about recreating what used to work—they're about understanding what people actually need to feel connected and then designing systems that deliver that consistently.
Sometimes that means a scheduled virtual coffee chat. Sometimes it means working side by side in the same room. Sometimes it means a shared Google doc where everyone can contribute ideas asynchronously.
The real lesson: Community building isn't about the medium—it's about the intention behind the connection.
The Plot Twist Continues
Here's the thing about accidental solutions: they only work if you pay attention to why they work and then do them on purpose. The organizations that will thrive in whatever work looks like next are the ones that took notes during the great meeting migration and learned from the experiment instead of just enduring it.
Remote work didn't fix community building because virtual meetings are magic. It fixed some community building problems because it forced us to be intentional about connection, inclusive in our practices, and efficient with our time.
Those lessons work regardless of where people are sitting when they have the conversation.
The great meeting migration is still happening. We're still figuring out how to build authentic relationships in a world where digital and physical spaces overlap in complex ways. But we're doing it with better tools, clearer intentions, and a deeper understanding of what actually brings people together.
And honestly? That's probably the most valuable thing we've learned how to do on purpose.
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this article, check out our other blog posts for more insights.