Erin Distributed teams, Love letters to 12 Spokes 0
A couple of weeks ago, the 12 Spokes team, which usually spans four time zones, converged on a cabin in the Utah mountains for a week of magic. Actually, the word “cabin” is entirely inadequate. Before you go thinking, “Those 12 Spokes, they’re so profligate, look at that castle where they held their retreat,” this [...]
Erin Distributed teams, Running a business 0
You know how when things are working, you don’t really think about them? For example, when I run my dishwasher every night, I push the start button and forget about it. It’s doing its job—why should I waste brainpower on it? The 12 Spokes remote team is like my dishwasher. It works so well, I [...]
Erin Distributed teams, Dreary business details, Hiring, Running a business 2
I’ve put out lots of job postings for Ruby on Rails developers in my day, and yet I’ve never used the 37 Signals Job Board because, well, how do I put this delicately? The 37 Signals team is renowned in our little corner of the world, and deservedly so. Their philosophies and products have changed [...]
Dave Distributed teams, Dreary business details, Running a business 0
I get this question all the time, especially when I go home for the holidays. It’s a valid question, I suppose. When you work in an office, that’s your default way to know the other people on your team are working. [Ed. Note: it's sad that people think their physical presence in an office proves [...]
Erin Distributed teams, Dreary business details, Hiring, Running a business 0
Don’t get me wrong. I love our remote team. I feel like we’ve put together an awesome group of the best talent we can find across the country. Everyone’s an awesome communicator, so getting the point across is just as easy when we’re 1,000 miles away as when we’re across the table from each other. [...]
Erin Distributed teams, Hiring, In the Field 5
True story: Last year, Trey was conducting a phone interview with a developer. It was going badly. Five minutes in, Trey was thinking, “There’s no way I’m going to hire this guy.” The interviewee’s voice was flat, his answers were uninspired, and he just wasn’t fun to talk to. When you’re bombing an interview in [...]
Ethan Distributed teams, How-to, Pair Programming, Running a business, Web Design & Development 1
Here at 12 Spokes, we’re about as distributed a team as you’re going to find. From Salt Lake City, to Washington DC, to Columbia in Missouri, everyone on the team was recruited for talent, not location. This is awesome because we really can get some great developers on board without uprooting their families and without [...]