Remote Working with Matrix in covid-19 times

Posted on 2020-03-15 by Nico Schottelius

TL;DR

Stay isolated in real life, stay connected digitally.

  • Go to https://account.ungleich.ch, create an account, it's free
  • Verify your account by email
  • Go to https://matrix.ungleich.ch, login with your new account
  • Type /join #covid-19:ungleich.ch if you want to talk about topics related to the virus.
  • Talk to people. You are not alone.
  • Create your own rooms as needed (as in above channel if you need help)
  • Stay home

Coronavirus, remote working and how to not go crazy

The covid-19 virus forces a lot of us to think differently, behave differently and work differently. Whether you have to work from home or whether you do it voluntarily, you might want to stay in touch with other people. With your teammates, colleagues or other people.

Isolate in real life, stay connected digitally

One of the most important things to do at the moment is to not further spread the virus. Here in Switzerland, we try to reduce the risk by social distancing. No shaking hands, coughing and sneezing into your elbow and in general to stay away from other people.

If you are not used to staying alone or being isolated, this can be a tricky thing to do. Luckily, we do have the Internet that allows us to talk with each other, without causing a danger to each other.

While there are a variety of tools out there to stay in touch with each other, we propose to use the Matrix chat for a variety of reasons:

Matrix is federated. Federated = open to talk to others

Matrix is federated. As opposed to Whatsapp, Telegram, Hangouts, Skype or Slack, Matrix is open to connect to others. Let me guide you through how it differs to other systems:

If you create an account on https://account.ungleich.ch and then go to https://matrix.ungleich.ch afterwards, you can talk to anyone in the world, who is also using Matrix. Not the one from ungleich, but maybe the one from https://matrix.org. Or from somebody completely different.

Matrix is not a closed system. If you decide that you want to write to somebody on a different server, you can do so.

Matrix also allows you to call other people or have video conferences.

A Matrix channel dedicated to COVID-19

So coronavirus. Social distancing. We created a channel dedicated to the coronavirus to discuss the topic. If you created an account above and joined https://matrix.ungleich.ch, you can join the channel by typing /join #covid-19:ungleich.ch or use the matrix.to service.

The covid-19 channel is open for everyone. You can discuss how you feel, whether you are affected, infected, bored or ask questions about how to behave. Beware though, we are not a medical team. This is more the type of alcoholics anonymous style, not a digital hospital.

There is now also a German speaking channel available.

Your own Matrix server

If you are newly into remote work and you want or need your own Matrix server, this is something that we provide. You can checkout the Hosted Matrix Chat for details. It allows you to manage your own chat rooms and to control whom to invite to what.

If you just need a place to talk with your friends, you can do so freely on https://matrix.ungleich.ch.

Future of the coronavirus

No one of us knows at the moment how things will continue with the covid-19 virus, but we wish everyone to stay safe. And hopefully above chat helps some of us to not stay too alone, even if we are alone at home.

Stay safe!