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We've done both (office in Berkeley, but now two founders in Berkeley, and the other 7 or so around the US). A couple of points: a) It should be all remote, o

We've done both (office in Berkeley, but now two founders in Berkeley, and the other 7 or so around the US). A couple of points: a) It should be all remote, or all local. You ruin the fun for people if a chunk of the team if talking, and chat is dead. b) My co-founder/wife and I purposefully avoid shop talk, and keep it all in chat. c) Remote is a good life style for some people. We look for people who will be happy at home, people with lives and families, who don't need to meet friends to go out with and lovers at work. This fits our culture - we attract outdoors types, who like time to themselves. d) Some people are self-driven and make good remote workers. Some people need to be in an office and get constant nudging from physical social pressure (and their boss). e) Tools: weekly Google Hangout, frequent one-on-ones, Slack, Trello, Github - almost zero email.

justonepost 11y ago
a) Yep, I agree, all remote or all local. That's my experience as well. Mixing the two doesn't work very well at all. c/d) Yes, you definitely want mature people who understand what remote is all about. If you don't have that, it won't work. e) Zoom is pretty good. No email? Huh! That's a new wrinkle I haven't tried before.
- andrewljohnson 11y ago
  There are very few things we want to email about that don't better fit in a Slack channel, or as a Trello card. Our Slack channels are: Dev, Comm, GIS, Recruiting, and Random We basically only email if an outside party sends us some big email to discuss.
  - s73v3r 11y ago
    Email tends to work better for things you want to archive. Especially if you're not actually paying for Slack.
- gingerlime 11y ago
  Second time I see Zoom mentioned here, but never heard about it before. What's the benefits over Google Hangouts / Skype?
jedberg 11y ago
Hey, question for you. Have you found a good "remote whiteboard" solution? Our company is all remote, and this is the one area where things could be better. Sometimes we really want to just get in a room and whiteboard something, but we can't.
- andrewljohnson 11y ago
  No, can't say that I have. We sometimes collaborate in realtime on a Google doc, Trello card, or Screenshare on Hangout. Maybe we have a more show-and-tell-and-iterate approach.
  - jedberg 11y ago
    Dang. Oh well.
- tetraodonpuffer 11y ago
  just brainstorming (haven't tried it) but as a low tech solution have you tried screensharing somebody's desktop running something like Krita? If most people have a wacom tablet they ought to be able to just take control of the session and draw on the "whiteboard" with also the advantage of Krita doing smoothing and making handwriting look nicer in general
  - jedberg 11y ago
    Yeah I thought about equipping everyone with a wacom and then finding a good way to share that experience. Or maybe find an iPad app, since the iPad would be a lot more useful than the wacom. :)
- askot 11y ago
  Please check out Deekit app @ https://www.deekit.com https://www.deekit.com and see how our tool can help with your teams whiteboarding issue. It is free (for now), browser based (chrome or firefox preferred), with IPad app coming soon. Any feedback is appreciated.
- spaceknarf 11y ago
PopeOfNope 11y ago
> frequent one-on-ones Doesn't that just waste people's time? The weekly google hangout as opposed to a daily one is a good decision. Less disruption to those actually doing the work. > a) It should be all remote, or all local. You ruin the fun for people if a chunk of the team if talking, and chat is dead. I've worked in both situations. I'm remote now on a 100% remote team, but I've also worked in the main office and communicated with two remote co-workers. With Google Hangout and Zoom, I've noticed no difference between these two setups. People who work better by talking everything through in person will just use google hangouts to have conversations with the people they need and leave the rest out. You still wind up with some people being left out of the loop and chat is still 90% dead, except for the occasional entertaining gif and water cooler talk.

justonepost 11y ago

a) Yep, I agree, all remote or all local. That's my experience as well. Mixing the two doesn't work very well at all. c/d) Yes, you definitely want mature people who understand what remote is all about. If you don't have that, it won't work. e) Zoom is pretty good. No email? Huh! That's a new wrinkle I haven't tried before.

andrewljohnson 11y ago
There are very few things we want to email about that don't better fit in a Slack channel, or as a Trello card. Our Slack channels are: Dev, Comm, GIS, Recruiting, and Random We basically only email if an outside party sends us some big email to discuss.
- s73v3r 11y ago
  Email tends to work better for things you want to archive. Especially if you're not actually paying for Slack.
gingerlime 11y ago
Second time I see Zoom mentioned here, but never heard about it before. What's the benefits over Google Hangouts / Skype?

jedberg 11y ago

Hey, question for you. Have you found a good "remote whiteboard" solution? Our company is all remote, and this is the one area where things could be better. Sometimes we really want to just get in a room and whiteboard something, but we can't.

andrewljohnson 11y ago
No, can't say that I have. We sometimes collaborate in realtime on a Google doc, Trello card, or Screenshare on Hangout. Maybe we have a more show-and-tell-and-iterate approach.
- jedberg 11y ago
  Dang. Oh well.
tetraodonpuffer 11y ago
just brainstorming (haven't tried it) but as a low tech solution have you tried screensharing somebody's desktop running something like Krita? If most people have a wacom tablet they ought to be able to just take control of the session and draw on the "whiteboard" with also the advantage of Krita doing smoothing and making handwriting look nicer in general
- jedberg 11y ago
  Yeah I thought about equipping everyone with a wacom and then finding a good way to share that experience. Or maybe find an iPad app, since the iPad would be a lot more useful than the wacom. :)
askot 11y ago
Please check out Deekit app @ https://www.deekit.com https://www.deekit.com and see how our tool can help with your teams whiteboarding issue. It is free (for now), browser based (chrome or firefox preferred), with IPad app coming soon. Any feedback is appreciated.
spaceknarf 11y ago

PopeOfNope 11y ago

> frequent one-on-ones Doesn't that just waste people's time? The weekly google hangout as opposed to a daily one is a good decision. Less disruption to those actually doing the work. > a) It should be all remote, or all local. You ruin the fun for people if a chunk of the team if talking, and chat is dead. I've worked in both situations. I'm remote now on a 100% remote team, but I've also worked in the main office and communicated with two remote co-workers. With Google Hangout and Zoom, I've noticed no difference between these two setups. People who work better by talking everything through in person will just use google hangouts to have conversations with the people they need and leave the rest out. You still wind up with some people being left out of the loop and chat is still 90% dead, except for the occasional entertaining gif and water cooler talk.