watercooler effect

plural watercooler effects

1. alternativeAlternative form of water cooler effect.

   Perhaps by organizing company retreats, firms can make up for some of the lost watercooler effects.

   2021 spring, Joel Mokyr, “The Great Fake”, in City Journal, archived from the original on 29 May 2023

   2 more examples

   One of his first acts established public wells so that the nobility could no longer control the peasants’ critical access to water; this also generated a so-called watercooler effect that inspired people to gather freely and schmooze.

   2004, Barton Kunstler, The Hothouse Effect: Intensify Creativity in Your Organization Using Secrets from History’s Most Innovative Communities, AMACOM, →ISBN, page 39

   Now programmes are lucky if they have a viewing figure reaching 8 million and this has changed both the parameters within drama and the way the industry measures what audiences think about a particular programme. It has also changed the notion of the ‘watercooler effect’.

   2009, Kristyn Gorton, Media Audiences: Television, Meaning and Emotion, Edinburgh University Press, published 2013, →ISBN, page 151