 Okay. Cool. All righty. So firstly, thanks everyone for coming. My name is Alexandra Settle. Alex Settle, please. Some of you may know me, major. You can find me on IRC as A Settle or you can also find me on Twitter as Tuesday. I work for Rackspace. I currently actually work in the OSIC Center, so the OpenStack Innovation Center, which is a partnership with Intel. I also work on the Rackspace private cloud documentation, work upstream on OpenStack Ansible and OpenStack Manuals. Okay. Doki. Let's get started. So firstly, can we just have a raise of hands here? Firstly, who understands the home in a way joke? Okay. So like basically the British and the Australians. So just a little clarification for maybe those that are kind of like, should this be funny? Home in a way is a really popular soapy in Australia. It's like your 7pm watching time. And I did this talk in Australia and obviously this title was like, oh my gosh, hilarious. But here it's slightly less computing. So just a little bit of background on that one. Okay. Sorry. I've missed a slide already. So this is for my colleague, Darren. He is a big fan. Okay. So a little bit of clarity. I've worked from home. I've worked from, I should say, for two and a half years with the Rackspace cloud builders. And basically I only recently moved to start working in an office in the UK just to give you a bit of clarity of why I'm here and why I'm talking about why I feel like I can talk about this kind of thing. So to give you an idea of the size of Australia, this is basically Europe inside. As you can see, Spain takes up about like a quarter of Western Australia. And that section in particular is where no one lives. So on this map, when we were working from home, we lived in these six different cities between 15 of us. And we each had a different time zone. So as you can see on this map, actually I have a pointer. Oh no. That's not going to work. Oh no, it's going to be the mouse. Okay, so just mouse it. So basically like in the mid, there's a half hour difference. On each side there's another time zone difference too. So we all had to communicate continuously. We were all working in a totally different time zone when our main office, head office, was in San Antonio, Texas. That included with a bunch of developers who were also in the UK. So we were fairly spread out and that's not to include our, not to disinclude, sorry, our European Rackers as well. So we're stretched over a large portion of people. And basically what ended up happening was like my calendar was the busiest from 3 a.m., which is not really a very good time zone to talk to anyone. So that became quite difficult. So as a result, our team did our best and we rallied together to basically form our sort of super team. My credit kind of goes to my boss, which is basically the woman sitting in the second row here with purple hair. She basically drove this sense of culture between us, formed like groups, ISE groups, made sure we communicated and we had our own culture outside of what was rack space. That is not to say we didn't have rack space culture, but we derived culture from there and we grew and we built something that was our own. So we were able to work together throughout our different time zones. And you know what, we still managed to communicate with our American and UK colleagues, building our own culture and having our own team forward a front. And we said, hey, this is who we are, don't ignore us. And that was super important for our entire functioning for the last couple of years. The whole team is still there, minus myself now. And you know what, this was really great, but this took a lot of time and effort. And people talk a lot about working from home and how like, you know, you need to communicate and you need to make sure you do face to face, but no one really talks about what's really important, is creating a good culture and a good team and making sure that those communication channels are actually effective. So either you're here because you thought the title was funny, you're in my fan club or you read my abstract. So basically in 2016, teams work full and work is highly distributed. It's safe to say that most people in this room work from home, manage work from home or sorry, are in a team with work from home employees. Can I get a raise of hands of who works from home? Cool. So who manages a team with work from home employees? One. And does anyone work in teams with someone with other people that work from home and you struggle communicating? Yeah, cool. So it's pretty much like everyone in this room, right? So we've all had experience with those that work from home, working from home, what the difference is. So basically, I will be going through these hopefully in the next 40 minutes, hopefully not too quickly. If I am talking too quickly, please tell me to slow down. I do tend to do that. So firstly, we're just looking at considerations to make when you're working with colleagues that work from home, especially when you're working in office because a lot of the time it's really easy to be surrounded by your people and forget about the fact that you'll have a whole other subset of people that are super important to you. Maintaining good team culture when you're working in a remote team, incredibly important. Sometimes you feel like you're a silo, like let's work through that, make sure you can have a good team culture. How to work from home efficiently and effectively. When I was researching this talk, it came up pretty quickly that lots of people have done these kind of talks. And I don't really want to reinvent the world. I want to talk about what cool things you guys can do to on top of some advice you've already been receiving. And basically how to maintain effective online communication between teams. Okay, so this is pretty self-explanatory. Over the last 10 years in the US law, the numbers of those working from home has increased 103% since 2005. These stats are incredibly hard to find. This is the best one I could find. Because basically people aren't measuring this anymore. No one is saying, oh my gosh, we have worked from home employees. This is amazing. This is really special. Instead they're saying, no, we just have employees. This is the norm. This is the day to day. So basically, like, originally let's say 2005, working from home meant that you were a special employee. You meant maybe you couldn't commute in, maybe it was something different. And like the whole thing is, is like, maybe your colleagues were jealous, functioning between teams was really hard because communication channels were less and less. But fortunately, things are getting better. The internet, as we all are here for, enables us to communicate pretty much 24 seven. When you have those relationships with colleagues on multiple platforms. But this isn't the problem. Like the problem isn't whether or not you can communicate with people. When you're working from home, you're not short on platforms and tools to communicate. Over the last few years, just been researching on how best this and everyone was giving good advice as I was talking about. So I'm just going to run across a couple of quick pieces of advice people have given. And maybe some of you identified them. Maybe you have a better advice. And if you do, please stand up. I'd be really interested in having a bit of like, you know, conversation here. Because this isn't just about me saying, oh my gosh, this is the best way to work from home. Because quite frankly, if you are working from home or have worked from home, we're all experts in this area. So basically, figure out how to best juggle time zones. I don't know if anyone has heard of this app. It's called figure it out. It's a plug in to go in your Chrome browser. Basically, you just select which time zones you need to be aware of. And every time you open a new tab, instead of opening to a blank page, it opens up with your selections of time zones. So you're constantly aware of what times people are working in, especially when you're working across the globe. So this was one good piece of advice I saw. Communication tools. Basically, like make sure that you have something. Slack, ISE, Skype, all the above. If anyone has any other interesting tools, please feel free to stand up. That's the whole meetings, face to face, of course. I mean, it's really hard to communicate with someone when you can't see what they're thinking, what they're feeling. I'll talk a little bit later about how important it is to read body language so you can understand more of this. I'll go into a bit more facts later. Let's just keep going. Form relationships. Try and strike up personal conversations with your colleagues. I know that's really hard for some people who don't necessarily want to reach out. I've heard a lot of people say, but I don't care about my colleagues or, like, I don't care, I'm just here to work. The whole thing is, you can't manage a good team. You can't be a good team unless you have relationships. So keep these things in mind and we'll go into them in depth a little bit further. So basically, one of the things I noticed when we're walking through best practices of working from home, which is you've been into the game is really great because that way you get an insight into a couple of quick things to start off with. But what people are talking about, what people aren't talking about, how it impacts your life as well. Working from home can often be really lonely, isolating. And a lot of people really like that and that's fine, but that doesn't take away from the fact that people need other people. And you need other people to work in a team and you need other people to manage and you need people to report to. That's how structures work. So you can't keep pulling back each time and saying, hey, I'm a silo, I like working alone, because it doesn't really work that way, especially with the bigger picture. So and the good thing about working from home on the flip side is it gives you a freedom of flexible working hours, freedom of movement and an enviable work-life balance. I know perfectly well when I first started working from home my parents were just like, how could you possibly manage that? Like, how do they know when you're working? And it was just like, well, I say hi in the morning. Like, it's not that hard. And it took a little while to get them around to the idea that working from home is actually no different to the office. You still say hi to your colleagues. You have breakfast with your colleagues, except they can't see you eating and making a mess of yourself, which is one plus. Basically, but a lot of the time people are talking about how do you better how to be a better work from home colleague, not how to be the best distributed team. So one of the things I've realized after working from home for this period of time and having a highly distributed team internationally was that everyone works from home differently. Considerations to make when working with work from home colleagues. There's a lot of works in that sentence and it gets a bit tongue-tasty after a while. So basically, as a manager, this is a personal, like this is advice that I have received from managers and this is something that if my manager asked me what could they do better for me, this is something I would deliver to them. Basically, ensure your employees' voices are heard. When they, like, people struggle when they are under, like, muffled under layers of management. And one of the things about working from home is that a lot of the time you are the last person to find out information. Because maybe you're in the wrong time zone. Maybe you were running to the post office because you actually do have those flexible working hours. You're not there when sometimes those major conversations are made online. A lot of the time what will happen is these conversations just run through IRC, for example. And before you know it, you've changed your, like, you've changed the direction for the afternoon. Make sure, as a manager, you are reaching out to your work, like your work from home employee each time and saying, hey, you caught up. Is this something, like, you do understand what's going on? Make those face-to-face contacts and ensure it's happening. Because otherwise, a lot of it, like, as I said, you just get muffled. And one of the best things is communicating upper management, like, changes enables your, like, it gets a trust bond. And once you have that trust bond, there's a level of freedom and, like, independence and your employees can grow from there. So basically, oops, sorry, I've lost my train of thought, naturally. Where are we? As a work from home employee. So basically, reach out to your team lead. It's the same thing. This whole thing is about being in a team, making sure you're going both ways each time. So there's three parts to work from home teams, which is basically your manager, you work from home employee, and those that work in the team that are in the office. All of you have to reach out. So as I say, reach out to your team lead, or senior manager, whoever will be most applicable, and catch up once a week or less, depending on what's best for you. Like, get out there and make sure it's much your responsibility, as it is your managers, to communicate and make sure it's all happening. And the same as being an office employee. Take five seconds out of your day to pin your colleague and say, hey, man, did you catch that? Is that something you're aware of? Because a lot of the time people are just, there's a lot of miscommunication. And I was in a talk for Osconn last week and it was on conflict. Basically, she very well pointed out that most conflicts happen because there is a gap in information. And that gap in information just gets wider and wider as people are less inclined to talk to each other, because what they're doing is they're just fighting over more or less the same thing. So to avoid simple things like conflict, reach out, make sure everyone's up to date, make these small considerations out of your day to just make the team run a little smoother. Maintaining good team culture in a remote team. So basically, as a manager, reach out and include your employees' activities. I don't know if everyone has like a fund-budgety type thing, but Rackspace has a fund budget. Once a quarter, we get a set amount of money for your team to go do a thing, which is awesome. This isn't always applicable for everyone, but this is just an example of what we have. So when I was working from home, we struggled with this at first. There was that whole distance, hey, like you live in Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne, Tasmania, which is like the middle of nowhere, and Brisbane, like how are you all going to connect and communicate? And it started because one day we ended up calling it the Great Pizza Coup with 2014. Basically, we found out the Sydney office was getting free pizza, and we were like, what? Why don't we get free pizza? And so my colleague and I decided we were going to order pizza to everyone's houses. But naturally, it just doesn't work. So after lots of brainstorming, managers came back and they said, hey, cool, we love the idea that you guys want to do something, but let's just like not order pizza, hey. So here is movie vouchers. So they sent out movie vouchers to everyone, and they said, hey, look, if you're a remote and on your own, take yourself and maybe your partner, or perhaps even your kids, or just yourself or a friend, go to the movies. If your team is all together and you'd like to go to the movies together, do that. It was a fun way to engage a social activity without necessarily putting pressure on having to like get all this budget to meet up. It meant that there was still that heavy emphasis on that work is not the only important thing in life. And that was amazing. So basically, even if like this scenario can't work out, when you're planning these kind of events and you're saying, hey, we're doing the Christmas party that the person can't come, just reach out to them and show that person is like realizes they're a valued number of the team. Like that's all people really need to feel. They don't need to just like, if you make your work from home, employee or colleague feel isolated, they will act isolated and they won't come in and join the team and there will be a lack of cohesion. So basically, and then the same point rolls down, as I work for my employee, get involved, don't sit back and say like, oh, gosh, I'm too far away in an hour to work from the office. Contact your employer and say, hey, is there a chance that maybe I can come in once a quarter? Is there a way this can work? Can we potentially meet up at the conference, plan something in advance? Stop pretending that these things just happen out of thin air. You go get it as well. And same thing as an office employee. If you're organizing something, include your colleagues. Just because they're away doesn't mean they can't come. You never know, right? Like, you can't say no when you don't know. Continuing on. So basically, like, a successful company culture leads to successful, like, business. And, like, that requires a revolving culture. An evolving culture is incredibly important. You need to keep up with the times. You need to make sure that your, like, employees are happy. Working from home efficiently and effectively, this is a slightly harder one because, as I said, everyone works from home differently. So, reiterating what I said again, sometimes working from home can be a really lonely and isolating thing. You are by yourself, you're a silo, and sometimes you just don't know how to reach out to people because it's not a, like, consistent communication platform. So what do you do? You have to find a way that what, so that work does not impact your mental health. So, like, full disclosure, basically, when I first started working at Rackspace, my first six months was fine. I was like, I'm doing cool, whatever. And then basically the next year after that was just massive crash. I, like, shut myself from my office. I worked stupid hours because I could. I suddenly developed an incredibly bad relationship with Buzzfeed, which actually hasn't ended. But that's okay. But the thing is, I had to break myself out of that. So I, like, went looking, you know, how can I make this easier? How can I make this better? I'm not okay. I'm not myself. I'm quiet. I'm shut down. I don't reach out to people to go hang out. What can I do to make this better? So I found myself a co-working space. It was this beautiful, beautiful house that had been renovated by some architects after the Brisbane 2010-11 floods. And it had this amazing open-plan space, a pool at the back. And I was, I spoke to Rackspace and they were quite happy to fund that for me for a few months while I just got myself back together. I didn't have to go in every day. I went in once or twice a week, paid as I went. And quite frankly, it was really good because I got to meet other creatives and other techs and reach out and talk to them about what they were doing. And it didn't matter so much they were my immediate colleagues. It just mattered that I had someone to go to and say, oh gosh, I have this problem. And they'd be like, I can't help you. And I'd be like, that's okay. And that's all that mattered, you know? Like it was just someone that you could go to and have lunch with. That was awesome. Another good one was basically like each day my bedroom would be here, my office would be here. So instead of just like trawling my blanket out to my bedroom as I had been for the last year, basically got up, walked around the block twice and then went back in as if I would be walking to work. The commute may seem like a pain in the butt, but you've just got to have that mental understanding that there is, that's the bedroom. That's the office. And you have to separate that. And there's an amazing amount of people who I talked to and they're like, oh, I just worked from home on my pyjamas all the time. And like I get that, it's really comfortable, why wouldn't you? But you have to have that separation. It just doesn't work that. Like it can't work that way long term. And I know a lot of people feel like it can, but eventually you're going to have to break that cycle. So another one is agree on the communication tools your team uses. This is a really hard one because everyone seems to feel like one communication tool is better than the other. I have heard the Slack IRC arguments so many times. But you know what? Put that aside. It's not about what's better, what has giffy, what can be plugged into what, what, like, it doesn't matter. Okay? Like if you guys are working from home, you need to find a way that's consistent and clear. If you have several communication tools, like we use IRC for communication chattles for dev, we have Slack for internal stuff, we will use Skype for video conferencing, we'll use Hangouts for big group chats. That's great, but make sure it's consistent. Don't jump across the board because your colleagues need to know where they can go to speak to you, what they can do, how they can get their best and easiest. That's super important. Just make sure that when you're discussing this with people, you do that straight up. Be consistent is basically my top middle overarching thing there. And ensure your colleagues know how to contact you, which basically comes back to agreeing the communication tools. Just make sure that they know where you are, what you're doing. I mean, the amount of people I know that don't even say hello in the morning, like, I don't care if you're in a grump, guys, like, I need to know that you're online so I can contact you when necessary. This is a little different, I suppose, because a lot of us are here for OpenStack and like OpenStack channels, I mean, they're not your work colleagues, you don't need to jump in and be like, hey guys, I'm here. But when you are working from home and you have those communication channels as your main form of communication, then yeah, you need to let people know you're there and people need to know that when they need you, they don't have to run around in circles trying to find your email. Make it easy. I mean, a lot of people are, as I said before, quite happy to sit alone and say, hey, like all I want to do is be by myself and work by myself. It's easy to work by myself. I do a better job by me, but you're a team and this is not about you, this is about the bigger project. And you need to think about each time that you are hired or asked to do something. There is an umbrella project that you're in and you need to focus on that. So stop focusing on the little things like what communication your channels are using or like, oh, I don't want that person to bother me. Like, you need to be a part of that team and think about what everything, what everyone is doing, what they're all working towards. It's the same thing as you. It just might be a slightly different way. Maybe you can collaborate on that. So there, remember the goals of your top level project. Maintaining effective online communication between teams. So this is where I come back to what I was talking about before. Seventy percent of communication is body language. Twenty-three percent is voice and tone and inflection. And seven percent is your spoken words. So basically, how do you get your nonverbal message to match your verbal message? But how do you make sure this happens effectively online? So this is really hard because a lot of the time I like the amount of times I have had people be like, oh my gosh, did you see someone so they snapped at that person? And I'd be like, I don't think they did. But neither of us actually knows. So how do you make sure that that stuff doesn't happen? Each time you want to express yourself how would you express your message? Does your message translate? And do you think someone could possibly take offense to it? A lot of people type super quick. And what they tend to do is with just what comes out of their brain, just go straight into their fingers and there isn't really a filter. And not everyone needs a filter. That's cool. I know I need a filter. Sometimes I will type the most ridiculous stuff ever. I have sworn in so many ISE channels, but that is not a good thing. Basically, you need to take a step back and say, hey, wait a second. I'm trying to congratulate this person, but would that potentially seem patronizing? OK, let's look at my verbiage. OK, let's start this again. And like reading back to the main problem, if you work from home, no one's ever going to see how you are. Like if you're potentially occasionally work from home, maybe you work from home two or three days a week, at least you still have that human interaction with your colleagues. So they're sort of like, OK, I understand what the person is like. I understand that maybe their intentions behind this message isn't as bad as I might think it is. But if no one ever sees how you are, oftentimes they can misunderstand you. So make sure you're taking this back, thinking about it, before you're really just going in there. OK? Because, you know, I do have a particular story about this one. Only recently, I had a colleague that insisted that his other colleague learned to read. And you know what? That just wasn't OK. But the thing is, he didn't mean it that way. He actually just meant it as like, you should learn to read, dude. But instead, the whole channel was like, oh my gosh, like, did you see him? He told him, how could he? That's so rude. That's OK. That's just creating conflict. Like, think about before you say these things, perhaps even ingest. Because sometimes it's just, it's not worth it. All righty. That is definitely it. That has been half an hour so you can all go 10 minutes early. But is there any questions? That is great. Yeah, actually, that's a fantastic point. One of the things, I went to the Swift mid-cycle at the beginning of this year. And there was actually this pow wow session that went on until three o'clock in the morning because the Swift team couldn't work out why people weren't talking to them in IRC. Like, they just blew their mind. Like, why wouldn't people come and ask us questions? And I was with my colleague, Andy, here. And I pretty much just turned to him and I was like, it's because no one seems friendly. And he was just like, well, how can you make it friendly? And I was like, well, instead of just running in with a question and demanding things and like chattering away as you knew we would, why don't you just start off with a normal conversation? Hey, how's it going? Like, it just makes that barrier so much easier. If you're constantly making it seem like this is a really techie channel and we're really serious, you're never going to get these new contributors coming in and being like, hey, this is awesome. What a cool environment. Yeah, so it's a really good point. Thanks. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's on a really awesome idea. I don't know if everyone heard that, but basically like no one really wants to pollute the tech channel. So what this team does is they have a social channel on the side. And that's exactly what we tend to do at Rackspace as well. We have basically a pollution channel. We can talk about shit. Pardon me, sorry. And then this. Oh my gosh, I'd gotten, I'd gotten half an hour in. I hadn't said anything bad. And then we have a channel for just general talking. And I completely understand because a lot of time you want to go to a place where you feel like, hey, I can ask my questions and there isn't someone being like, oh, did you see my cat into dance? Like, you don't really need that in your channel all the time. So if you can separate that awesome, but if you have a community where you understand each other and you feel like you can talk whether it's two things in the same channel that's cool too. But that's a really good advice as well. Thank you. Yes. Yeah. That is a massive challenge. I'm going to rest up for a minute. I will. Yeah. Okay, so just to repeat that question. Basically, like, so if you have, like, you know, five different projects you're working on and each channel has like a tech channel and a social channel within, you know, Slack, IOC and many different platforms, how do you like funnel that information to make it easier? Is that right? Yes, okay, cool. I just want to make sure I understood that probably. That's really hard. I mean, I think I'm just going to reiterate what I said before. You have to make sure, like, you're consistent. If your project has like an IOC channel and a Slack channel, maybe just sit down with a channel organization or maybe even the PTL and be like, hey, can we, for some reason, can we make this easier? I mean, to be honest with you, in my experience, as far as things have gone, I have always ended up just having to juggle the things, the many things, because people seem to always want to communicate in different ways. And I guess one of the things when you're working from home or if you're working remotely in any way, like you mostly are with OpenStack, you kind of just have to put in a little bit of extra effort to keep up. And I know that kind of is not the best answer and that's not kind of the answer you're looking for. There's no one solution fits all type thing. But if you can find, sit down with your team and manage that and say, hey, this is not really working for me. We are spread too far across. None of the information is coming in. Have that conversation. It's the best way you can do it, honestly. I apologize, I can't offer more than that, but that's probably my best solution, at least what I would do. Yes, again. Yes. Yeah. It depends, right? Yeah. That's a really good point as well. I should have brought this up earlier. If you are really genuinely interested in keeping up with every single channel and you go to bed, have an IRC bouncer, or at least make sure your Slack is set to a sleep so that you receive the messages when you turn back in again. That's a really good way to communicate between different time zones as well. A lot of people complain, like, oh, I missed that message or I missed that memo. I didn't see the thing. Where was the update? I don't understand. And you get these constant points. And especially I recognize that from having lived in Australia, which is basically nowhere on the map. And no one cares about the Australian time zone. Let me tell you. So one of the best things was to have a server and a bouncer set up to make sure that each morning you came in and you could scroll back and say, okay, America is doing this, the UK is doing this, and I've just woken up, oh, Jesus, and go from there. And funnel it. And if you have to ignore a channel, don't feel guilty for not catching up on someone's dog. It's not gonna happen. Focus on what's important, which is your job, the umbrella, making sure you're doing what you need to do. And if you need to talk to people, do that. But don't be afraid to say hello as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Turn everything off. You don't need to be online 24-7. And I mean, for some people, you do have to. That's okay. But manage your workloads. Make sure that you're at least saying, hey, I need some downtime. Have your ISE bouncer set up so that when you want to come back and you want to catch up, you could do that. So yeah. Yes, absolutely. Like that's an important point as well going back is like make sure if you're managing away from home team, manage your expectations accordingly to know that that employee often needs to break. It needs to run their times down. They're not gonna be working 24-7. I mean, that's just it. And you yourself need to manage your own expectations. Just because you have a deadline and you don't have to leave the office at six when it closes, make sure that you're actually shutting down at some time. Like don't sit there all day and night. You're not gonna, like the more you run, you're not gonna get any better. You will eventually run out. It's, you know, your brain only has a certain amount of power. Make sure you recharge it and you work at it like, you know, look after yourself basically. Don't run yourself down like I did. I'm sure you've all probably run yourself down at some point. I'm probably preaching to the choir. But yeah, make sure you guys are just looking after yourselves here. I'm not a morning person. Time zones, you're not just time zones but working times that you start at it as well. Yeah. Cool. Yes? Sorry, very popular to have you. You have to stay longer at you because of that. I think a good point, sorry, just to like repeat that again, basically like when you're working from home, you'll find yourself often like, you know, doing the dishes or the laundry, you know, and it's hard to show yourself from that. My counterpoint to that is, is basically you have to have a bit of self-control. I mean, would you do the dishes at work? Would you do your laundry at work? And I admit to being the first person when I wake up from home, I'm like, oh sweet laundry day. But you can't keep doing that. Like, you have to recognize that just because you're at home doesn't mean that work goes on the second shelf. You need to make sure that your work day is fulfilled. And if potentially like you're having a mind block, you just can't do it and you need to have that break. Ah, sure, if washing makes you happy, go do the washing. But there's not many people I know that that's the case for. But honestly, make sure you have that break. I mean, I get it, it's hard to ignore but you just like maybe write a schedule out for yourself. Make sure you schedule it down. Yeah guys, eat lunch. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, take breaks. We're just watching the dishes isn't as fun. Like, oh, I love my lunch hour. Like, you know what I mean? Yeah, no, get your eyes at the screen. I mean, look what happened to me. This is like six years later. I would add 2020. Yeah, go for a walk, go exercise. Thank you much. Was there a question at the back? Yes. So what's my opinion between the difference of like, which would be better? Is that what you're asking or? Yeah, right. Yeah. Somebody left the company. Yeah, right. Okay, so just a. Yeah, okay, just to like reiterate that question. What's my opinion between the difference of like synchronous and asynchronous modes of communication? So basically like, what is the best form, like not the best, but what is a good form of communication versus like email or like instant chats? To be honest with you, that's a really hard one. I would say, okay, so I'll give you two different scenarios. Now I'm living in the UK and I'm in an office. My head immediately goes to, hey, contact me on IOC or Slack. Like email is just such a long form of communication. I just can't do this right now. But honestly, when I was working from home full-time in Australia and basically my time zone was completely separate, the best thing was email because it meant that that person had sat down, taking the time to write that email and I got all the information I needed. So I wasn't just being delivered this, like, yeah, 30,000 cat pitches and this person's dead. So, you know, like, you know, like that was really important and that was a big differentiator, but that doesn't work for everyone, right? So I think that all comes back to like, how do we separate the channels again? So if you're gonna have a Slack channel and you're gonna post cat pitches, make that your social channel and make sure you have a work and like maybe an important notification channel. So one of the things we actually have is we have our doc team channel and then we have our dev team channel and then we also have like a, we actually have a success channel. So anything, any like individual does something major that perhaps you're not overly like catching up with all the time, you can actually just check on that success channel and see what cool things our team is doing. That's always a really good way. At first I was like, oh my gosh, this is really quite lame. But then I found out I was actually learning a lot about my colleagues and the work they were doing because we weren't all working on the same thing at the same time. So that was quite cool. Having a channel that was specifically dedicated to news. That was good news. Probably have the like dead one in a different channel. Yeah. Yes, we even actually have, yeah, we actually have an open stack success box too. I don't know. Does anyone use that? Okay, cool. So basically these guys, it's always these guys. So basically there is actually an open stack success spot. If you guys wanna look it up, I'm sure you can, but it's pretty much hashtag open stack. This hashtag is, yeah. Yeah, so then it all gets generated so that everyone in the community can see what cool stuff you're doing. So like when, you know, I know, when we released then open stack docs for Newton, that was basically like, whoa, did a thing. Success. When I remember to use the success spot. I know, that was actually kind of exciting. We never use the success spot. Yeah, I need more questions. I like, I don't know, pointers. Cool. This was good groovy guys, groovy. All right, awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming. I really appreciate it. And I also really appreciate the conversation we just had. That was really cool. I think I'm ahead of time. All right, awesome. Thank you.