One of the best things weve done to help with the water cooler problem was to have a group im chat (hipchat). we try to avoid private im whenever possible. This means that not only is it easy to see what others are talking about, you can read it over after.the fact if youre busy.
Indeed ... Hipchat has proven to be a great way for our teams to communicate. Also, it creates a nice log of conversations for historical reference.
Secondly, Hipchat is a great central posting ground for all your apps, both internal and external services. The same apps that we have created to increase internal transparency on work being done are set to be relatively spammy in Hipchat, which allows the team to receive passive updates on activity with no extra work from individual team members.
