Social Sharing
The kitchenette may have been replaced by your kitchen, but you can still get the watercooler experience with asynchronous social sharing. See how Currents can help your team stay close with work and work-adjacent talk and sharing.
Google Currents is a social sharing platform that's just for the Berkeley Lab community. Unlike Facebook or Twitter, most things in Currents can only be accessed by people with a Berkeley Lab Identity. Currents is a great way for teams to share interesting content, or to keep track of what your colleagues around the Lab are doing. You can share and interact with content from your colleagues across the Lab, or create Communities you define, with members of your group, division, or interest group.
Note: While we try to make sure that all Collaboration tools support external collaborators, Currents is currently limited to those with LBNL accounts by Google.
Chat
Chat is another great tool for creating informal connections. Try creating informal chat rooms/spaces with topics like "Watercooler" or "Pets" or "Weekend Plans".
Try this:
Create a watercooler for your team by visiting Currents, selecting "Communities" and then "New Community". Invite your team using an existing Google Group, or from a list of your group, team, Division, etc. Then use the watercooler as a place to share interesting (and work appropriate) things like journal articles, ideas, and, of course, cat gifs.
Google Currents is part of the Berkeley Lab Technology Toolkit - access is provided at no cost to all Lab accounts and full support is provided by IT.