Facing a calendar overloaded with overlapping meetings that hindered deep work, Datasite leveraged Loom and Atlassian’s Teamwork Collection to slash over 4,000 meetings in five months, fostering a cultural shift towards mindful asynchronous communication.
- Reduced 4,000+ meetings in five months using Loom-powered async communication
- Saved approximately half a million dollars in meeting time costs
- Established ‘time empathy’ culture promoting mindful use of synchronous collaboration
What happened
Datasite’s rapid growth and complex M&A operations led to a heavy reliance on meetings, resulting in calendars filled with overlapping calls and limited space for focused work. Leadership recognized this as a systemic issue affecting productivity across teams. To address it, Datasite adopted Atlassian’s Teamwork Collection, integrating Loom for asynchronous video updates, alongside Jira and Confluence, creating a connected collaboration environment.
By committing to this approach and promoting top-down adoption, Datasite reduced the number of meetings by over 4,000 in just five months, saving substantial time and resources. Executives modeled the new behaviors by replacing meetings with Loom videos and seamless onboarding techniques ensured minimal friction for employees adopting the new tools.
Why it matters
The traditional meeting-heavy workflow limits employees' ability to engage in deep, focused work and drains organizational energy. Datasite’s shift illustrates how asynchronous communication tools, when thoughtfully integrated and supported by leadership, can reclaim time and improve context sharing without losing connection.
This change goes beyond cost savings—Datasite’s concept of 'time empathy' encourages people to consider others’ time before scheduling synchronous interactions, fostering a more respectful, efficient working culture. The initiative demonstrates how established enterprises can modernize collaboration by focusing on quality and intention rather than quantity of meetings.
What to watch next
Organizations looking to reduce meeting overload should evaluate how asynchronous tools like Loom can be embedded into existing workflows alongside project management platforms such as Jira and Confluence. Monitoring adoption metrics and leadership modeling will be key to successful cultural transformation.
Additionally, the long-term impact of cultivating ‘time empathy’ on employee well-being, productivity, and collaboration effectiveness will be critical indicators of success. Datasite’s ongoing use of a deliberate adoption framework may provide a replicable model for other companies facing similar challenges in managing collaboration at scale.