Effective Communication

We're an all-remote company that allows people to work from almost anywhere in the world. We hire great people regardless of where they live, but it's important for us to practice clear communication in ways that help us stay connected and work more efficiently.

To accomplish this, we use asynchronous communication as a starting point and stay as open and transparent as we can by communicating through email, Zoom meetings, and Slack channels. We also place an emphasis on ensuring that conclusions of offline conversations are written down. When we go back and forth three times, we jump on a synchronous video call.

We communicate respectfully and professionally at all times.


Ear Effective & Responsible Communication Guidelines

Assume Positive Intent. Always begin with a position of positivity and grace.
Kindness Matters. You are looking at a screen, but you are really talking to a person. If you wouldn't say it to a person's face, don't send it to them in a text message.
Express Your Thoughts. We live in different locations and often have very different perspectives. We want to know your thoughts, opinions, and feelings on things.
Own It. If you say it or type it, own it. If it hurts the company or an individual, even unintentionally, we encourage you to look at things from other points of view and apologize easily.
Be a Role Model of our Values.
Feedback is Essential. It is difficult to know what is appropriate in every one of our team members' countries. We encourage team members to give feedback and receive feedback in a considerate way.
Don't Underestimate a 1:1. Asynchronous communication (e.g., via text) is helpful and necessary. In some cases (e.g., to clarify misunderstandings) it can be much more effective to jump on a Zoom video call.
If you see something that concerns you in Slack, video calls, emails, or any other forum, we encourage you to respectfully say something directly to the individual in a 1:1 format. If you are not comfortable reaching out to the individual directly, please reach out to your direct manager to discuss.


Speech Balloon External communication

There are 6 key practices to consider during any meeting. They are the following:

Video Calls - If this is your first time meeting a customer/prospect/partner/etc., turn on your camera when you log in to Zoom. This will help to make the customer/prospect feel more comfortable as they are certain your undivided attention is geared towards them.
Agenda - Always have an agenda prepped and ready to go. Share this with your audience. Make sure that everything on the agenda is accurate and ask if there’s anything missing that needs to be addressed during this call or for the future. When there is no agenda, it translates to you not caring.
70/30 Rule - Ask open-ended questions that leave the audience talking 70% of the time, while you are talking 30% of the time. Please note that this varies based on the type of meeting that you are conducting. Be conscious of what questions need to be asked and to capture those items.
Take Notes - Effective note-taking is a valuable skill that will help you retain and recall any important details. Be the person who remembers all the details of your audience's needs.
Pre-Close Summary - 10 Minutes (1-hour meetings) or 5 minutes (30 minute meetings) prior to ending the call, ask the audience to build out an agenda for the next step or meeting. This helps to secure next steps and to ensure there are no balls dropped.
Post Meeting Action - Immediately write down notes and next steps and input into a proper directory (Airtable Activity Tracker).


Check Mark Top Tips and Best Practices

All written communication happens in English, even when sent one on one, because sometimes you need to forward an email or chat.
Use asynchronous communication when possible: merge requests (preferred) or issues. Announcements happen on the appropriate slack channels and people should be able to do their work without getting interrupted by chat.
You are not expected to be available all the time. There is no expectation to respond to messages outside of your planned working hours.
It is very OK to ask as many questions as you have. Please ask them so many people can answer them and many people see the answer, so use issues or public chat channels (like #role-b2c-writers) instead of direct messages or one-on-one emails. If someone sends you a handbook link they are proud that we have the answer documented, they don't mean that you should have found that yourself or that this is the complete answer, feel free to ask for clarification. If the answer to a question isn't documented yet please immediately make a request to add it to the knowledge base in a place you have looked for it. It is great for the person who answered the question to see you help to ensure they have to answer it only once. A request is the best way to say thanks for the help.
If you mention something (a merge request, issue, commit, webpage, comment, etc.) please include a link to it.
All company data should be shareable by default. Don't use a local text file but rather leave comments on an issue.
When someone asks something, give back a deadline or that you did it. Answers like: 'will do', 'OK', 'it is on my todo list' are not helpful. If it is small it's better to spend 2 minutes and do the tasks so the other person can mentally forget about it. If it is large you need to figure out when you'll do it, by returning that information the other person might decide to solve it in another way if it takes too long.
It is OK to bring an issue to someone's attention with a CC ("cc @user"), but CCs alone are not enough if a specific action is needed from someone. The mentioned user may read the issue and take no further action. If you need something, please explicitly communicate your need along with @ mentioning who you need it from.
Avoid creating private groups for internal discussions:
It's disturbing (all users in the group get notified for each message).
It's not searchable.
It's not shareable: there is no way to add people in the group (and this often leads to multiple groups creation).
They don't have a subject, so everyone has to remember the topic of each private group based on the participants, or open the group again to read the content.
History is lost when leaving the group.
Use  low-context communications  by being explicit in your communications. We are a remote-only company, located all over the world. Provide as much context as possible to avoid confusion.
When discussing concepts, be careful not to lean too much into hypotheticals. There is a tipping point in which it decreases value and no longer becomes constructive at helping everyone come into a unified decision.


How to make a Companywide Announcement

Consider the subject and the audience. Questions you might want to ask yourself; is this relevant to all team members globally? is this something important, urgent and high priority? is there a better place for this communication, such as a more informal slack channel?
Keep it simple, brief and summarize what is important. Cover the 5 W's. What, Why, Who, When, Where (you can also add How, if required as a call to action). The majority of information should still be in the Handbook which you include links to.
Common companywide announcements include (but are not limited to): organization changes, policy iterations, requests to participate in a company survey, process improvement and security/safety announcements.
Optional AMA. If desired and appropriate, offer a companywide Zoom call to host an AMA (Ask Me Anything).


Say Thanks

Thank people that did a great job in our public Slack channels.
For writers:  role-b2c-writers  and  role-b2b-writers 
For editors:  role-editor 
If someone is a team member just  @ -mention them, if multiple people were working on something try  @ -mentioning each person.
If possible please include a link with your thanks that points to the subject matter that you are giving thanks for, for example, a link to a great article a writer wrote, or the editor edited.
Please do not mention working outside of working hours, we want to minimize the pressure to do so.
Please do not celebrate ContentDistribution contribution graphs that include working for uninterrupted weeklong cycles, as this does not foster healthy work/life harmony for all team members. While CD team members are free to time-shift and work weekends in place of weekdays, we discourage celebrating the absence of time away from work.
Don't thank the CEO or other executives for something that the company paid for, thank the company instead.