As an Internet company, this year is already the fourth year of entrepreneurship. In October, we just passed the fourth anniversary. At present, our company adopts the name of "virtual person" to call each colleague.

For example, I belong to the media department. In our department, there are: Shan Xiaoyi (that's me), Shan Xiaoxiu, Shan Xiaoqian, Shan Xiaolan, Shan Xiaorong; in the media department, there are: Shan Xiaopeng, Shan Xiaotian, etc., and we usually call each other directly.

When I first came, it was still quite novel for me. It was the first time I came into contact with this way of using virtual names within the company. I think the advantages are as follows:

Harmonious relationship, not seeming strange and awkward

It is normal not to know the colleagues around you when you just joined the company. It would be awkward to call them by their names. Calling them by their names would seem disrespectful, and calling them by their names would not seem so familiar. After having virtual names, it is much better. Just call them directly, without worrying too much, and without so much psychological burden.

Eliminate hierarchy and get closer to leaders

In fact, our boss himself has a nickname (although we don’t usually call him that). On the one hand, we treat everyone equally, and there is no sense of establishing any special class.

With virtual names, it is easier for supervisors and subordinates to communicate. They can just call each other by their nicknames, without having to use those hierarchical terms such as “supervisor” or “manager”. In this way, the sense of class is weakened in an invisible way, and office relationships will be more harmonious.

In fact, Alibaba is not the only company that uses nicknames. Many Internet companies have also begun to use nicknames to communicate. For example, a beauty e-commerce company I know uses nicknames internally, such as Gardenia and Hibiscus.

In short, using this kind of virtual person title is still very common in the Internet industry. I think it would be even better if state-owned enterprises and institutions could do this one day, so that the problem of strict hierarchy within the system can be eliminated.