Thank you very much Mr. Speaker, indeed all of my close friends know that Barris, whenever I hear Barris I go into another dimension, thank you very much Mr. Speaker, let me at this time join the prime minister and to say how pleased I am Mr. Speaker to see this resolution where the minister of finance seeks the authority of parliament to borrow from the Saudi fund for development the sum of approximately 75 million US dollars. Mr. Speaker, greetings to colleagues and it's important to understand Mr. Speaker what we are here to do. We are here Mr. Speaker to seek the authority of parliament to borrow money to complete the St. Jude Hospital rehabilitation project and this money Mr. Speaker will also rehabilitate the George Odlam National Stadium Before I go any further Mr. Speaker, it's important to know who we are here today. We are here today to join the authority of parliament to borrow money from the Saudi fund for development, Saudi Arabia government to finance the St. Jude Hospital rehabilitation project and the people who are here today. Mr. Speaker, it's important because the anniversary of the St. Jude fire was just a few days ago The 14th year since many people suffered some died and this is significant. I stand in solidarity Mr. Speaker with the families who continue to suffer. The families of those who died, the family of Mr. Soudin, the family of Mr. Jabatis and the family of Mounas Vijay these families from Belvi, Vijay and Piero continue to suffer and every time an anniversary comes around I can understand the way they feel. I also Mr. Speaker want to take a moment to pay tribute to all of the first respondents. On that fateful night Mr. Speaker, the staff who want duty, the doctors, the nurses, the ancillary staff sacrificed their lives, the nearby residents of Oje who rushed towards danger without thinking of themselves and the people who came from near and far. While it is unacceptable Mr. Speaker that 14 years have passed by we must never forget the sacrifices of all those involved. We must recall their selflessness every year and pay tribute to the remarkable show of patriotism which St. Louisians showed on that night. 14 years is not a long time. It is a long time because we have not completed the project but it is no time for us to forget. St. Louisians are passionate about the St. Jude Hospital Mr. Speaker. St. Louisians have shown by the actions that St. Jude continues to be high on the list of priorities and St. Louisians continue to indicate very forcefully their wish for the St. Jude Hospital project to be completed. Complete the St. Jude Hospital Mr. Speaker. That is what St. Louisians want so that the patients and staff can be removed from the George Ordham National Stadium as soon as possible Mr. Speaker. But Mr. Speaker before I go into the belly of the resolution it is a very interesting time for me as a parliamentarian. I must tell you Mr. Speaker for the boomerangs of history and the passage of time have taught me so many lessons. Very interesting Mr. Speaker that the debate this morning on this motion to borrow 75 million or EC 200.3 million dollars this debate brings together the member for castries north and former prime minister who was prime minister on that faithful night who found himself in VA for odd hours of the night. It brings together the former prime minister, the member for VA for south. It also brings together another former prime minister, the member for Miku south and the current prime minister the member for castries east. It is very interesting Mr. Speaker that all of these people are in the parliament today. History and the passage of time Mr. Speaker has a way of giving you some very interesting playbacks. What Mr. Speaker you play in your mind and you look at each other in the eye and together you say what a day for all of us together to work in this parliament to deliver the people's hospital Mr. Speaker. What a day Mr. Speaker this motion brings me to 2006 when I became a parliamentarian. Between 2006 and 2011 I was in opposition with the then member for VA for south, the former prime minister. The MP for castries north Mr. Speaker was prime minister. I recalled we mobilized, we campaigned, we held a meeting at the hospital site, we demonstrated against what the people said at the time was a lot of uncertainty. Where would they put the hospital where it's next to the Kakaba stretch or where would they put it, a lot of uncertainty. But the member for castries north Mr. Speaker started the project. We came into government in 2011 and the member for VA for south continued the project. The project was conceptualized but the member for VA for south continued the project. Finding a deficit, a huge deficit and at the same time every budget year allocating money to the project. Until he traveled to Taiwan Mr. Speaker and convinced our friends in Taiwan to give us a helping hand and the member for VA for south as minister for finance secured financing to complete the hospital at the time. The work continued Mr. Speaker. Most of the managers as the member for castries east and prime minister said a while ago, kept the work going. The work accelerated by 2016 however the hospital was not completed before the end of our term in office. The people felt Mr. Speaker that despite what we campaigned on we did not complete the hospital and despite everything we said the hospital was an important project and the improvement of conditions at St Jude took centre stage for them and we were booted out of office. And so Mr. Speaker despite the valiant efforts of the member for VA for south who continued the project and everything was in place. The incoming government of 2016 to 2021 changed course and instead of completing the project they stopped the project for three years. This resolution Mr. Speaker speaks to this history and how this history how we are going to cure the imperfections which preceded this government. Again the people decided Mr. Speaker that the last government headed by the member for microsoft did not deserve to preside over the further construction or breaking down of St Jude anymore. And so Mr. Speaker they ushered in this government to do the work for them. It's very important as I look at this resolution Mr. Speaker to chart out this history so that none of us inside of there and the Prime Minister said it over and over again that nobody inside of there should play politics with the St Jude Hospital reconstruction project. Because the people have demonstrated over and over again that they will not have it. And so who be on to any politician who comes in her and tries to play politics with the completion of the St Jude Hospital project. But there are things you never foresee Mr. Speaker in life each of us each of us have certain very strong views on political positions.  And Mr. Speaker I hold very I hold some very very strong views. But for me Mr. Speaker there are things I never saw coming. Can you imagine today this this resolution will be debated by the member for Kastri's North and where the member for Kastri's North is sitting today Mr. Speaker. We are debating this resolution and St Jude and he was Prime Minister when the reconstruction started. Can you imagine that Mr. Speaker and for students of history after today today will be a very important very important day in this resolution. This Parliament Mr. Speaker and I never saw this one coming and I have some very strong political views. Can you imagine the boomerangs of history what they do to your mind and to your position sometimes. Sometimes you bend and you twist if you believe Mr. Speaker that certain things at this time are in the best interest of the country. So this resolution Mr. Speaker brings in the member of Parliament for Kastri's North. A member who some years ago I stood at the St Jude Hospital site and if words could do what tools could do Mr. Speaker at the time I would have skinned him. Because Mr. Speaker this St Jude Hospital project is so close to the hearts of so many people.    You actually know these people Mr. Soudin. He always sat under his bread and a tree he has a big bread and he had a big bread and a tree at his house at Vijay. And a very huge volcanic stone and he was a philosopher of some sorts. Always speaking about philosophy and history of the Labour Party and what he's been through with his old pick up van. I speak like this Mr. Speaker for this resolution because the matter of St Jude is not just about bricks and mortar and galvanize. And that is why the last government Mr. Speaker did not understand the passion of the people where St. Jude is concerned. They felt that you could have taken a backhoe and just mash up a building because they believe that that's not the way to go and they can just do it. There are passions there. It's not just about brick and mortar. So this resolution Mr. Speaker evokes emotions. No respect for our resources. And why didn't history Mr. Speaker tell me about the member for Castry Central. The member for Castry Central again. It's interesting today that the member for Castry Central is sitting on this side. And I have crossed many swords made of words with the member for Castry Central. And I have had certain convictions and certain beliefs in the politics. But it's interesting to see the combination of the parliament for this debate on the St. Jude hospital. It's as if the gods and the spirits met somewhere in the stars and decided that they will find a way to do a compelure. To ensure that we finish the St. Jude hospital reconstruction project. And so no matter where you come from, this resolution speaks to you whether you are yellow, green or blue wave, red, this resolution speaks to you. And today in the parliament Mr. Speaker we will see evidence of this. And so Mr. Speaker people of St. Lucia want us to complete the hospital as soon as possible. All of the debate about St. Jude and there is a lot which will be said. For me personally as the prime minister said Mr. Speaker today is not the day. But today is a day where I stand to support this resolution because the people of St. Lucia want us to remove the staff and the patients, the doctors and the nurses, the ancillary staff from the George Audlum stadium. That is what they want. The people of St. Lucia do not want their relatives to remain in the stadium for much longer. And this government has a responsibility Mr. Speaker to ensure that we fulfill the dreams of the people. This resolution Mr. Speaker has, it brings with it hope. If you look at paragraph 2 Mr. Speaker of the resolution. And whereas it is further provided on the section 64 of the act that money brought by the government must be paid into the consolidated and from part of the consolidated fund. It speaks to this government borrowing money or any government and putting it into the consolidated fund. I look at paragraph 4 Mr. Speaker. And whereas the minister of finance or for finance considers it necessary to borrow from the Saudi fund for development. Consider it and I repeat necessary to borrow. Mr. Speaker of the resolution Mr. Speaker said that the finance minister made a decision that he had to do. Mr. Speaker said that he had to do. And we know the debate about borrowing. But this minister of finance has decided that it is necessary to do this at this time. The member of parliament for V4 South at one point as prime minister decided at the time that it was necessary to borrow to complete the hospital. We lost the government and that was not to be. Although the member of V4 South went to get the money. The reason that was not to be Mr. Speaker I can tell you is for another very long debate. Mr. Speaker if you look at paragraph 5 paragraph 4 sorry let's look at paragraph 4. While ago I spoke about paragraph 3. The loan is repayable in 20 years after the grace period of 5 years. So Mr. Speaker. We will have enough only for VEP of the last 1. We pay the next 5 years. After that we have enough only for VEP of the last 1. Because the minister of finance made a good decision. Because the minister of finance made a good decision. On the next day we will be sad about the coming. And is this the reason. Mr. Speaker, when you look at the repayment, again the repayment as the member for cash is central said, 2%, and it is necessary at this time, we cannot operate at the stadium for much longer, and all of the reasons have been put forward before, When we complete the rehabilitation of the St. Jude Hospital at OJ, there will obviously be greater opportunity to employ advance equipment to improve service to the people of St. Lucia. There will be greater opportunity for collaborations and partnerships with internationally recognized hospitals and universities, Mr. Speaker. We will have an opportunity to return the St. Jude Hospital to an institution of pride and a flagship institution not only for the south or not only in the south but for St. Lucia and for the region. And I have said before Mr. Speaker at this podium and in this parliament that the story of the St. Jude Hospital is a very wonderful and beautiful story. We have had our challenges and the St. Jude Hospital has many challenges today. There are several challenges which we are facing head on. And those challenges have spoken about them before Mr. Speaker and I will continue to speak about them. But these challenges will be overcome. But St. Jude Hospital has a proud history of service and we want to return the hospital to that very proud history. And what is different today Mr. Speaker, based on all the documents, it is very clear that the financing was secured when the last government came in 2016. The financing was secured, it was accessible and the level of construction at the hospital was at a stage where at least for the latest by September 2017 for the latest it could have been done before, they could have completed the hospital because there was a procurement schedule, services had been procured and the commissioning could have happened. This was achievable Mr. Speaker. There was money, services procured, materials and this for the latest could have happened by September 2017. A lot of Papi show happened after that, a lot of Papi show which I have said before is for another debate. When you look at the cost comparisons Mr. Speaker, the St. Jude Hospital reconstruction project at OJ, the original site of phase one, the stage it was at where they found it, the unit rate of construction was about EC 358,000 dollars per square foot, 358 dollars per square foot sorry, 358 dollars per square foot. When they went into the box, when you compare the cost Mr. Speaker, the unit rate for construction was already 766 dollars per square foot at the stage they were at. At the stage they were at, they had not even done the roof yet and why all of this and all the charade and there was no roof as such is again for another show. So Mr. Speaker, you can see the different rates and you can see that this incoming government had to make a decision and this decision was guided not only by the rates but by technical experts who advise that we complete the original buildings. Mr. Speaker, no indication of the future cost of the box of phase two and even when they went into that phase two Mr. Speaker, they had to use part of the phase one again Mr. Speaker, I will save the meat of all of this for the next debate. But just to tell you that when this government looked at everything and the advice of the technical experts, the prime minister made a decision and said we cannot finance this hospital by budgetary allocations every year or else we may not finish. Let me reach out to a friendly government to see how we can get a loan to finance the rest of the construction. Mr. Speaker, the three sources of finance and since we are talking about financing, this resolution is about financing Mr. Speaker. I just want to remind honorable members and the general public of a few things which I'm sure you have heard about already but I think it's important within the context of this debate. The three sources of finance Mr. Speaker, the US $10 million from the Export-Import Bank of the Republic of China Taiwan, the Exim Bank, another US $20 million loan from the Exim Bank in 2020 and the first loan you recall that I have said, the member for VA for South worked very hard to ensure that we had the money at the time. The third source of financing local counterpart funds approved for the project in the annual estimates over the years. And I indicated to you, if you go to Hansard Mr. Speaker, I indicated to you the challenges that the former minister of finance and member for VA for South, former prime minister had. When we got into government in 2011 with the deficit and the decisions which led him to the Export-Import Bank to ensure that there was financing and he never, his government, I was part of the government, the member for Castries East, the member for Denry North, the member for Labry, the member for Souffre. We were part of that government and every single cabinet meeting, the St. Jude Hospital. What are we going to do? We must finish it. He didn't go and break down buildings because it was the member for Castries North who was prime minister. He continued the project and so you see now the financing and now Mr. Speaker, we have loan financing to complete the project. This loan seeks to ensure that the project does not suffer from a lack of financing Mr. Speaker. As we move full speed ahead to complete and to deliver the hospital to the people of St. Lucia. Meanwhile Mr. Speaker, we know that the conditions at the stadium are not ideal. They have never been ideal and they can never be ideal for a hospital. The prime minister and member of parliament for Castries East spoke about it earlier. But then you will say Mr. Speaker, well you are two year old government. Even though you are working on the rehabilitation of the hospital, what have you done? And I will not spend time today Mr. Speaker to tell you everything we have done. But just to say that we are concerned not only about the rehabilitation of the hospital and the completion of the project, but we are also concerned about the conditions at the stadium currently. We have been concerned from the time we came into government and not only concerned. We have expanded resources to ensure that the canopies were removed, these glass canopies removed and replaced. We are ensuring even now, even now if you go to the hospital, to the stadium, you will see an operation which has been in place for a few months to remove all of the metal, the metal pole lines and the joints on the roof of the stadium, all of that is happening now. All the chairs which flew around during hurricanes or storms, we have removed all of these and this work is ongoing. We have made efforts to block some of the joints where water seeps into the rooms and so on. We have done, we have purchased new equipment and esthesiology machines, extreme machines, heart monitors and almost every three months you see it in the media and on Facebook. We work with the hospital to ensure that they get new equipment, new supplies. But there is a lot of work to be done. This place Mr. Speaker needs a lot of attention. But we are doing as much as we can to make the situation better while we work on the rehabilitation of the St. Jude Hospital at OJ. So we are doing all of this. The transitioning of the hospital Mr. Speaker. So while this resolution speaks to the construction and so on, the transitioning is very important. The St. Jude Hospital has a transitioning team and they have activated that. The review team suggested to the government that we get expertise from Pan American Health Organization for other expertise to help us to transition from the stadium to the site at OJ and we have done so. We have an expert from the Pan American Health Organization who is working with us. This expert has come to St. Lucia a number of times and this expert is working with us to transition the hospital from the stadium to the site at OJ. No we are not. We are not at all. We have a project serving committee Mr. Speaker headed by Mr. Michael Williams and they are meeting to ensure that we move things along as we should. Mr. Speaker, I want to say something. I am very thankful to the Minister for Finance, very thankful that the Minister has included the Ministry of Health in the decision making as we move ahead to complete the hospital. The Ministry of Health Mr. Speaker has representatives on the committee and Mr. Speaker we have engaged the doctors and nurses they have done a walkthrough and the issues that were highlighted. The doctors and the nurses Mr. Speaker have indicated what changes they want to see and we have involved them in the process moving forward. So I want to thank the Prime Minister for involving the Ministry and this reconstruction project Mr. Speaker is not a one man know it all project. No one minister or anybody goes down to the site and decides which building to break down and which tractor to use to break down buildings Mr. Speaker. We are doing this together and we are going to achieve our objectives Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to say that the salary that we have invested is important because before the government came to save the Prime Minister, they were going to buy the money to complete the hospital. With all the support we have done, as we have done, the government came to save the Prime Minister. The money that was there was going to Taiwan to save the money to complete the hospital. With the money that was built for equipment, the money that was built for service and the money that was built to complete the hospital. But we lost the election with the other government that was in the way, the government that was in the way. The government came to save the building that was in the way, the government came to save the building that was in the way, the government came to save the building that was in the way, the building that was in the way, the building that was in the way, the building that was in the way, the building that was in the way, the building that was in the way, the building that was in the way, the building that was in the way, the building that was in the way, the building that was in the way, the building that was in the way, the building that was in the way, the building that was in the way, the building that was in the way, the building that was in the way, the building that was in the way, the building that was in the way, the building that was in the way, the building that was in the way, the building that was in the way, the building that was in the way, the building that was in the way, the building that was in the way, the building that was in the osi ewek tu le zane nuk amete l'ajan obigea, ko s'an nuk awe si nuk continuee ka anek mete l'ajan obigea pu fini l'opitala pitek nuk aitobene fahit, ko s'asa premier minis mam paloma kaswi is fe yale puete l'ajan soti Saudi Arabia punu fini l'opitala. Ie portem punu save, misi speaker, ki paritza nuk a fesa nuk a e de situasio a stadium la.  Lan yasha equipment nuz a gehe by l'opital Senjun, anesthesiology machine, s'avledi la, l'ok a fe l'opoasio nuk a mete bagai, neo bagai pu dormi, nuk gehe sa nef. Extreme machine, hack monitors, e komi lot, komi, komi lot equipment. Nuz si ka hede l'opitala pu anje se te bagai, paritza nuk a fini l'opitala a oge. Osi lan yasha bagai lagle, ok a fe transition plan. S'avledi lan nuk fini, lan yamanie puti e mun dokte nos a dhe l'opital ek mete wadhe lot l'opital nef. Nuz a ka tobe al e sa, nuz a nie export ki soti pahu, pan American Health Organization, ki ka he de nu, ek nuk a pay milion milio dola pu sa. Osi Mrs. Speaker, nuk a pale ewek se munna, ki ni yo.8 milio dola set lisiye. Ek yo pa di katten hot pias guvedma. Ek pome minister do usal e o jweni mete la. Nut a dhe an funksion ko mam pala ma vief o sudde la osi.   Se equipment ki te nute hoda, boa bweza, se equipment sa abweze vini a nef. Ko sa renu fini lopitala, se equipment nuk a he jweni, yuk a he equipment, state of the art, top class equipment ki nef. Sa munka do Mrs. Speaker, pome minister la za evolver minister sa te. Pomenen secretary minister sa te siye moa ewek lot mun, jen ki ka tovai sen jude, se doktia sen jude, yo tut evolver aza fe sa la. Sa pa a bagai yo nom, ki kweza anek mene trakta ko aze lopital ba e kon sa. Se pa kon sa nuk a tovai. Tut mun evolver ewek nuk ae delive lopitala ba e jen pii seplisi. Mrs. Speaker, me ka seporte resolution sa la. I support this resolution, and Mr. Speaker, I want to say to the families of those who perished in the fire that there is unfinished business with you and government. Bagai ki kumase po wo, kometin passe, ka e vini a da resolution.  We have unfinished business with you also. So Mr. Speaker, as a member of parliament for VFO South, I stand proud today, but the real day, VFO North. As a member of parliament for VFO North, I love VFO South too, you know. As a member of parliament for VFO North, Mrs. Speaker, I am not only proud, it's really a humbling experience. And I know Mrs. Speaker, the member of parliament for La Brea, and of course the former prime minister, member of parliament for VFO South. I am sure today is critical and important. But you know what Mrs. Speaker, I will take my seat on this note. The glorious moment, this is important today, very important. But the glorious moment will be on this joyous daybreak if the member of parliament will allow me to use some of his words. On this joyous daybreak, when we will go to the St. Jude Hospital, having transition all the patients, the staff, it will be a solemn moment, it will be a day of rejoicing, a day to thank God and the Holy Spirit that finally, finally we have delivered the people's project to the people. I thank you Mrs. Speaker.


All right, why don't we ooh that microphone's hot Can everybody hear me okay? Yeah, it's good Hopefully they'll get the audio started. I don't think I have to wait for any cues for the for the audio being recorded Hi, everybody. Thanks for coming. I know there's a lot of competition for the hour. So I appreciate you being here I'm Matt Westgate if you're in the virtual if you're in the room to listen to the virtual company talk You're in the right place. I am a co-founder and president of lullabot a company that was started in 2006 the reason I'm giving this talk is because we Are a distributed company of about 35 people and so we've made a lot of mistakes over the years And I get to share Some of those pain points and hopefully some of the a lot of the resolutions along the way with you as well So a little bit of background I've been with the Drupal community for about nine years. I actually knew of Drupal for about ten years or so But I first went there saw a scary floating alien head with a tagline community plumbing and quickly ran the other way It was not a very sexy platform however, I went back after frustrations with Jumla and the like that was shiny on the inside, but a little bit less on the interiors and Started to look at the source code of Drupal and what I saw in particular. This was about Drupal 4.1 They were touting the node system. They were touting the node architecture and in particular a gentleman by the name of Stephen Wittens wrote this Confesto of the node system and I absolutely fell in love with it from a source code perspective I looked under the hood and Drupal to me was like reading poetry the Comments outweigh the code and I quickly realized that I was surrounding myself with people that I was really excited to be with And it was empowering to think that there were individuals Solving the same kinds of problems that I was trying to figure out on my own I think my story is pretty similar to a lot of developers in the room and that you start rolling your own code and You know, hooray I created a way for users to log in and so has every other CMS and then you keep going along and I've created a blogging Platform and so as every other CMS and you realize You know with the 10 clients you have the 20 clients you have the 30 clients you have That you're stuck not Implementing new features, but just fixing the same bugs and Doing maintenance tasks over and over again so joining Drupal being a part of that community was an important step and eventually how Lullaby formed My initial involvement was in the e-commerce project the original implementation of the e-commerce platform And it was scary as hell to contribute It was also exciting and delicious to contribute There was there was a lot of encouragement and peer support from day one In the project and that'll come in that'll be an important aspect for my talk later on So I got started with Drupal in about 2002 2003 and in October of 2005 I was at a crossroads where I had a job working for the University Building Drupal sites for a lot of my clients, but there was also a lot of magic happening elsewhere. I had Found Jeff Robbins or more more so Jeff had found me and we started working on some Drupal projects together and I Posted this blog entry and I said I never thought I'd be doing what I'm doing right now I'm at work in my underwear pillow marks on my face and writing a blog entry. Yep. I'm a Drupal freelancer now and that was the beginning of I'd hate to overstate it and say a movement in Drupal, but I wasn't the only one and shortly thereafter a Guy by the name of Moshe Weitzman who you may know He sent an email out to the couple of the Drupal folks saying hey everybody Inspired by Matt. I'm also leaving my full-time job and taking on more Drupal work and more and more Drupal core contributors there was about There was about 60 or 90 sort of hardcore contributors at that time started taking on Freelance work started quitting their day jobs and doing more Drupal work Around that time There was a pivotal moment for me where I was talking with Jeff in the background and we were working on a project together and I Got to fly to California and work out of the adaptive path offices because that was a project that Jeff and I was working on For them and they kept telling us you guys should start a company you guys should start a company So we kind of looked at each other said Maybe we should start a company so in 2006 the beginning of 2006 I sent direct address an email and I said I want to let you know about a company Jeff Robbins and myself are forming and how I think it will benefit the Drupal community Our company name is lullabot and our goal is to provide consulting education and development using Drupal Now at this time both Jeff and I had been involved in Drupal for a number of years There was no concept of a physical office there was no concept of you know Drupal was the best example of how to work in a distributed environment And I'd go on to say that anybody working in open-source software kind of has that mojo already going for them You're working as a distributed team. You have the passion and the fights that go along with it. You Have to build collaboration tools that get out of the way and let you get your job done It was a real source of inspiration For Jeff and I and we didn't even think about a physical company Really, we just wanted to hire our friends in the community and keep doing kick-ass Drupal work so this Drupal the Drupal community showed us that it was possible to work as a distributed team I'm gonna take it one step further and say it also showed us that Drupal is a social network, right that it's a way to communicate and collaborate in lieu of being physically together and I Didn't take it one step further when I look at Distributed companies when I look at virtual companies and say that your company is a social network that you know Being a distributed company. You have to come together in a lot of different ways you have to recreate a lot of the Things that a physical company has the water cooler coming into work saying hi to your team doing more than just getting work done And I find these patterns over and over again are sort of the are sort of the cultural glue not only for the Drupal community But for how distributed communities work as well or distributed companies work as well So I want to approach this from Some of the common questions that we get about a distributed company And I put five of them down that we're gonna go through So the first one is there's no way that you can be a real company. How on earth can you do that? We're gonna take a look at that Communication is inefficient tedious There's no teamwork. How do you get things done collaboratively? It's a lonely job. What about the? isolation and There's no way it's sustainable at some point It's just all gonna all get a fall apart So let's take the first one. How can you be a real company? It is a little more difficult, but it's not impossible So this is from the lovely folks of Wikipedia a concept project called Crystal Island It's a it's a potential bill taking place in Moscow, Russia, Russia, and it's scheduled to be the biggest physical man-made structure on earth currently on hold But this is this is an interesting example of a physical company I think the term physical company came about as a sort of anti movement against Internet-based companies. So, you know before physical companies, there was the brick and mortar companies, right? And brick and mortar companies define themselves when the whole mail-ordered catalog movement came about so now You know now physical companies you can think of Like blockbuster versus Netflix. I guess that's not relevant anymore. What about I? Amazon versus border books. Oh, that's not relevant either Maybe physical companies is needs to be less of a distinction than it has than it has before Because what I'm finding is that never before has geographic location mattered less for the type of work that we do And and I think that I think that we're only going to see more and more virtual companies crop up So some other types of companies you have the physical company with virtual employees We have a we have a saying In Lullabot, and it's a little bit harsh But we say a physical company with virtual employees tends to be a physical company with alienated employees because there's Things that are happening in the office. There's culture that's happening in that physical worksprace That doesn't get translated out or communicated out to the team now. You may have Road warriors that people that travel all the time where it does it matters a little bit less because they're always out They're doing their thing, but for the most part what we see is a lot of alienation when you have to bridge that gap between a physical company and a team of virtual employees a Virtual company so there's a lot of distinction between So I don't like the phrase virtual I don't like to phrase virtual employees. I don't like the phrase virtual company and I wish it would kind of just go away Virtual somehow implies that you don't exist or that it's not real in some way We are we are real these are real people these are real companies and I much prefer Looking at it from a different lens that I'll talk about in a moment. You'll also see this this phrase virtual workers crop up and Just to be clear. That's a movement where companies are cutting their workforce and Outsourcing a bunch of freelancers to get the work done. There was a latest article about Caterpillar and they Hired 30,000 freelance workers to replace a majority of their work staff because they could play them Part-time and on an hourly basis. That's also not what we're talking about here So what do you call a company with no central office and employees spread out across across the globe? I think it needs a new name And I'm not the the first one to come up with this name But I like to I like to call it distributed company with distributed employees the first the first Ones to come up with this name is the is the folks that automatic They refer to their team. They are a completely distributed team of about 150 people And they lovingly lovingly refer to their company as a distributed company So I think as soon as you hire an employee beyond one company or beyond one country you're a distributed company and Lullabot for instance, and this this is the irony We can legally hire employees in the US in Canada in Denmark and The United Kingdom and we're working on a couple other countries too But the irony is that in order to be a distributed company. We had to have a physical presence in those countries so There's all sorts of caveats in gray areas that you're gonna run up against being a country are being a company in a single area in a single Country so just being a US-based company makes things a lot easier and often times What organizations do is they'll have US employees and Then have freelancers for the outside for outside the US that works up into a point and That point is is is when you're you know depending on them for a daily basis then the IRS may have Other opinions about that and at first that's how Lullabot started But then we had to make the switch as a majority a larger majority of our workforce Happened happened overseas So another thing is about expenses. It's it's cheaper at first That's for sure. You don't have to rent a building or or buy a building But it's it all washes out in the end. I mean to do it to do it right cost money and there's a lot There's a there's a lot of overhead that goes into Running a company, you know a lot of people say I have a saying about open-source software and that you don't go with open-source software to save money That's that's a good tagline at the beginning But the reason you go with open-source software is for the freedom and control and flexibility and to create something That's that's your own You know what you don't pay for In upfront costs you eventually pay for in human resources Right to build a team to take it to the place that you want to go. It's the same I think it's it's quite a bit the same with the distributed company You know you you pay for the people you pay for the culture And you pay less for the brick-and-mortar components of your organization There there is a lot of travel There's you know, you will you will pay for travel costs at some at some points in Lullabot's history We had a travel agent Thanks to things like Tripit and other and other online tech services that became less of a need But you still need someone to wrangle it and organize it and you do find a Lot of travel and we do meet-ups. We get together with smaller groups of our team We also have an annual retreat that we do but it's good it's good to get together and I'll talk I'll talk more about that too So as as you can tell with all of these With all of these resources you kind of need what we call a HR superhero superhero It's a lot easier if you stay in a single country and hire contractors But still you're dealing with all sorts of state laws all sorts of country laws It'll melt your brains thinking about all the things that you have to take into consideration health insurance disability life insurance 401k writing things down your your culture your values Birthday cards gift certificates all of those sorts of things HR is probably It's it's one of the most important management roles. I think that distributed organization can have Also, there's Wikipedia, which is crazy helpful in this regard. So Leave it up to the the the global Wikipedia's to document all of the facts about parental leave and make a nice little table for you to go through Or to talk about which countries allow vacation time and how much and and what you need to account for One note about health insurance There's some new laws that are coming into effect that say for a US organization to offer health insurance 51% of its employees have to be employed within that state that that bit us in the butt Probably about six months ago. We had to switch states in order to maintain our health insurance and United healthcare is one that tends to be more general about that than other organizations But again, it is that thing that in order to be a distributed organization You may have to establish a physical presence in a come in a in a state that doesn't have This this restriction But we need to keep an eye on this because it's probably going to come up again And we need to we need to communicate that there is a growing workforce That is working differently than other typical organizations work So management style in a distributed company Have you have you read Daniel Pink's book drive? Motivation 3.0 not many people have read it. I see a couple nuts So he talks about he talks about three components for motivation He talks about autonomy mastery and purpose And I think that's the best way that I can sum up a management style where you effectively can't Micro-manage right there has to be some trust and openness because it's inherently built into the structure But autonomy is your team wants to have control over their work And I think as managers our role is to inspire to empower and to facilitate collaboration Besides you can't you can't lord over them. Anyway, they're they're working from their own home So openness and autonomy is an important component Mastery people want to get better at what they do and they want to learn from each other We have a saying in Lullabot of asking the hive mind and The idea behind it is that we're all pretty tapped in into what each other is working on and we have ways To ask a question to the entire team Not only do we have that but we also have sort of a group chat running all the time where we can ping each other and ask questions bounce ideas off each other and get feedback and Creating a culture where that's that's inherent into into the organization Really meets that motivation 3.0 Qualification and also purpose right people want to be a part of something that's bigger than just themselves You know, they want to shift from the eye to the we space You know, it's it's why I got involved in Drupal You know, look what look what we can do together rather than just me as an individual I think at some point the shift will also go from and this is a little bit Zeni I apologize for that. That's my Buddhist background, but it'll go from the we to us right to all of us What can we do and what purposes are we aligning with that's just that's just bigger than the organization? And for us contributing back to Drupal fills that fills that need for us in a lot of ways But in order to do this work it in order for motivation 3.0 to kind of happen It needs to be ingrained in the culture Jason Freed from 37 signals who I take with a grain of salt at times Says culture is the byproduct of consistent behavior And what that means to me is you need to live it, right? You need to practice what you preach in a distributed company. I think it's lived through communication.  It's it's sort of getting the ambient buzz for For the team right other people are logged in you get to see who's at work It's like it's like showing up and opening the door and punching punching the time card So that's the first thing you do hop on IRC meet your team Then the next thing we do As we say, what's everyone up to and for that we use a tool called Yammer. It's kind of like Private Twitter for business. It's a micro blogging client that we use and it's really changed the way That we communicate with each other We used to use an intranet We used to have a site called the daily report back in the early days where at the end of every day We would type what we did and worked on and sort of communicated that and broadcasted that across the team Now we use a more real-time communication Yammer for that. So what are you working on this hour? What are you doing? What do you need help with that sort of stuff? Notice that I haven't mentioned email yet As often as possible we try to go beyond the silos of email and bubble up the communication to a More broadcast based approach We use email for follow-up and a lot of client conversations But otherwise we try to bring things up into a more collaborative environment So Google Docs or we have an etherpad installation running which is like you can think of it as Google Docs light without all of the formatting but Email email tends to not be the first thing that we check in the morning So you log on to email or you log on to Yammer you go in and today's topic today's theme of the day is Workstations everybody take pictures of your workstations. Hooray So now we're all going through taking pictures of our workstations going.  I didn't know you could do that Wow, where did you get that monitor stand? That's totally cool This is the one of the offices Lullabot offices that usually remains empty except for meet-ups And and when we bring the team down To collaborate. There's a standard standing desk Jared pawnshot standing desk. Thanks, Jared and and Everybody's just taking pictures of that and we do this often. It's a great way. It's a great way to start the day We will say what's what do you what's outside your window and everybody takes pictures of facial hair? Let's do facially, you know, and it's just it's a lot of fun to keep the keep the keep the work Keep the fun moving along on a on a day-to-day basis another great thing about a day in the life of Being a distributed employee is this distraction free work. It's a different kind of mentality I Rather than the possibility of someone coming into your office or standing at your cubicle or you know It's it's less disruptive. It's it's um, it's what we call the the ping and pong culture from the IRC world Where you can turn on your communication systems. You can also turn off your communication systems. You can also say that you're busy Phone calls tend to be scheduled Rather than ad hoc and or otherwise we use we use IRC for communicating if someone's available for To jump on the phone and and have a conversation So, you know during this time you're catching up on email prepping for meetings communicating with your team on various needs I tend to call it a mega collaboration environment For instance, you're getting ready for an interview So you fire up a go-to meeting for a video conversation and usually for our interviews will have three or four people on will have Some lullabots and then the the person that we're interviewing You know meanwhile, you've got an ether pad document open as a back channel And you're taking taking notes that the rest of the team is seeing on this candidate It's it's a documentation culture and you're always the work that you're doing tends to be In a group mentality. It tends to be in a broadcast nature Because we need to share where we we are Using the same communication tools Most conversations happen in broadcast mode. You'll come up with phrases in your organization such as cc liberally That's one that Jeff coined and you know The idea is is that when you're emailing loop other people in don't don't go down into that silo effect because you're just gonna have To tell the team about it sooner or later what's going on and what you're working on what you're thinking about So you do the interview after the call Let's say you go back working on something that you're working on in Google Docs And you know start collaborating again. You don't have to get people on the phone to collaborate You can jump in and continue where you left off and someone may already be working on the thing that you're working on You know, that's what's great about it You might want to listen to some music for a while. So we've got of course our own turntable room We have I think we have jazz music Wednesdays and Dance music Fridays so you can kick back make some hits with the team, you know All these things are really important from a cultural perspective, right? so then you go back check Yammer again and You get Comments like from Joe who's wrapping up who's wrapping up his Fridays. These are real comments He says thanks for the fun week everyone You are more awesome than a cyborg cat wearing a tuxedo made out of bacon writing on a unicorn with a lightsaber for a Horn inside of a flaming space shuttle that is on track to orbit Mars and Then you refresh the screen and holy crap Sally young just put a picture together the whole damn thing Things like this happen often But you know the important part about this is is culture right is is ways to communicate and to collaborate And it gets you out of that out of that silo mode so some other things on whether or not This is a real company or a real company model Recruitment how does recruitment work in a distributed company? You can hire you can hire the best of the best you don't have to be confined to a specific geographic location That was really important to us Drupal was a global project and we wanted to work with people everywhere So and oftentimes your best recruiting tools is the team itself, right? Saying to your team help us create this culture help us find the people that that you want to work with for for instance There are a bunch of perks that come with being a distributed company and Excuse me, so distributed company comes with a different set of perks, right? There's no commute there can be a commuter if you want to if you want to commute you can Go to a co-working space or work with you know work with other or put get an office You have a personal work environment, which is nice. We actually saw pictures of that more time with the family flexible hours Generally a better work-life balance Again this comes from the management and works down management sets and enforces if you are working like crazy You can expect your team to Essentially follow suit. We try to be conscientious on the weekends and and use weekends for more inventing and hacking time And leisurely kinds of leisurely kinds of activities For recruitment when it comes to Things like vacation time and the such We actually set expiration dates on our vacation time because we found if we didn't that people don't take vacation Right, this is a lifestyle approach. You can take time off to go to the dentist You can you know go go to an exercise class in the middle of the day and then come back and work and people Wouldn't stop working they you know You have to help enforce the boundaries there and you got to have time to recharge the batteries And so we really try to enforce that But value values based hiring right talking about those kinds of those kinds of things and Hiring for the company you want to be not always the company that you are the the aspirational kind of hiring Is is really important for for the company culture? So what type of people thrive in a distributed company? Certainly folks coming from the open-source world You know they have experience in a community They have experience doing contributions and working as a team kind of being in that we we space It's really really important comfort with the social media, you know people that Like to broadcast tends to be tends to be a big win strong written and verbal communication skills Obviously, that's that's really important the Written and and spoken culture of distributed company. You don't have the body language, right? You need to depend on these tools more Hobbies having hobbies Sports family things that take you beyond the laptop really help with isolation Having having activities to do when things outside of of your day job Are really sustaining for that work life work life balance? So those are the kind of the things that that we look for Definitely the the open-source contributions are big because you can dive in I mean and that is that is your resume You can see the conversations that people are having and use that as a good reference point retention The weird word So the big thing the big thing about this is that communication has to be a level playing field Everybody has to use it. That's the problem with the physical companies and the the virtual employees Is there's different communication tools being used if you have a level playing field and communication? You're naturally going to have everybody tapped into what's going on And they're going to have their finger on the pulse of of your organization This is lullabot seventh year as a company and we've had We're now at 35 people and we've had five people leave lullabot over the course of seven years I think that's because the job can go with you in a lot of ways if you move or if something comes up and you need to Be at home more a virtual company a distributed company can support those types of transitions in the last seven years I lived in Iowa Oregon Utah and now Rhode Island and it's it's nice to be able to take your job with you Keep giving back be able to say yes to the Austin projects always have room for more gratitude deliberate communication I'll talk I'll talk more about that Like attracts like you know be look for the look for the people and support and continue to Give people the kinds of things that they want to do and work on you know check in often About is there anything you're doing that we don't know about yet? And what can we be doing to support you more? That's what I Excuse me. That's what I mean by Deliberate communication is you can't it's not enough just to walk by somebody's cubicle and pat them on the back And say how they're doing you actually have to pick up the phone And make a concerted effort to have a conversation with them and ask those kinds of questions So sometimes the the clients have different views on distributed companies It can be a tough sell it used to be a really tough sell and we would say you know our work lives in the cloud And so do we that some gotten a little bit corny or over the years, so we say it less but You know one thing to understand is that corporate cultures usually come from and Failed experiment experiments with telecommuting or Or You know telecommuting happened when there wasn't technology there to really support it right Those these tools for collaboration are constantly changing and they've only gotten better And I think it's important to empathize that a physical company has different ways of getting work done And there will be some give-and-take in the relationship. So for instance Kick off a project on site Get together maybe even get together for the for the milestones and work together for a week or two build up that trust build up that collaboration and Then say hey, you know We've got some tools here that I think would be really helpful for this project Maybe you spin off your own IRC channel for that particular team with a client and try to do a little bit of cross-pollination On the tools to have a really successful project So I think that looks like it looks like a real company to me The the remaining myths are a lot about communication Communication in A distributed company tends to be open in nature. It tends to be proactive deliberate and emotional, what do I mean by some of those things so Explicit communication You know Management isn't a natural role to me. I don't feel like I was born to be a manager in the same way that Perhaps one doesn't feel ready to be a mother or father that there's some learned skills that go along with it However, I think anybody that has kids also tends to be really good managers. There's some relationships there and You need to teach these things you need to to You know have again culture is a byproduct of consistent behavior And so outlining what you want those behaviors to be either in a handbook or just through repeated patterns is really really important Be deliberate say what you need ask for help be your own model for accountability if you mess up say you mess up own it and let people know that it's okay to own those mistakes and On the emotional side You know we encourage venting. We don't always know How people feel or or what's going on? But sometimes on our calls will hear some frustration or they're down And what we'll do is well, you know our managers or us will give them a call and say hey What's going on? It sounds like you're having sounds like you're having a tough day and Giving room to vent because if they don't vent now Is it gonna are they gonna vent with a client? Are they gonna become more discouraged and isolate themselves from the group? You know staying on top of those things and being aware of the cues the the things to listen for the Phrases to be aware of is is really important in the distributed company when you don't have those otherwise Non-verbal tools available to you Also support passion support disagreement You know those are all healthy things You know a lot of people have a fear of conflict. I myself do but I'm learning to embrace it more You know we spend time Talking about non-violent communication techniques and we realize that we're all trying to get to the same goal And creating the freedom to do that certainly all the collaboration tools out there make it a lot easier, right? Opening up a Google doc having 20 people contribute to it come up with a you know the next funny name for our product Can be really fun and rewarding and we really want to foster that and let people have an opinion and know that that we've heard them So let's look at some examples of communication overhead Communication is inefficient So one of the things that we've gone back and forth with is that we have two team calls a week the whole team The entire team It's like it's like having an all-hands-on-deck company meeting on Mondays and Fridays The only difference is that everybody everybody gets a gets a turn to say what they're working on We've done the math it's expensive. It's expensive to run but it's So rewarding to do on Monday to jump on the phone everybody gets one to two minutes to talk Yeah, we time it and And they say what their goals are for the week They say what they're working on and we give company updates and then we do the same thing on Friday How did your week go? What did you what did you accomplish? And it's kind of like this power hour of conversation where everybody gets to say what they're doing It's great. It creates alignment Everybody knows what each other is working on and I think these kinds of things are really important to stay tapped in Because you're not going to see everybody that ever everybody in the office each day So, you know this model might change. Is it inefficient? I don't think so as a sustainable probably not in this current form We've got some ideas on how to do it, but having a touch point For the whole organization. I think is really important for a distributed company We do weekly written management reports for all of these all these categories. It might be tedious I don't think it's a lot different from a physical company. I think It's great. It gives the Individuals time to reflect on how their department or how their department or area did and then it gives us time To read them and then offer some thoughtful feedback and support for the week to come And I think I think I've said this but to be explicit the secret advantage I feel of an entirely distributed company is that everyone has to use the same tools to communicate I Have a little typo there, but I apologize for that So it's a powerful concept right to be able to reach into your pocket pull out your phone and Use a tool like Yammer and know exactly what people are doing where they're going how they communicate the funny thing is is things like that actually come in handy for The physical being together in the same area to so Yammer has this feature where it can send SMS messages to A group so we use it here Everybody gets a text message because most of the team is here and we could say you know We're going out to dinner here. This is the person that's manning the booth right now So it has some some really nice adjacent effects to Unifying on the communication tools The interesting thing is is that you use the same tools to communicate but you can also have Rather than broadcasting you can also have private conversations a little bit easier too So you can ping someone an IRC you can you can call them on the phone and not everybody's in the office Watching watching who walks into the to the room with the boss and gets the door and has the door closed to have a private Conversation they everybody starts to wonder what's going on and and all that sort of stuff So I think there's you know, it works kind of both ways. You have less Less politics in the office as well So is it inefficient? I don't think so. There's there's a you know It's it's different. It's less spoken and it's more it's more written kind of communication It's more of a documentation culture But I think there is a kind of cadence To a distributed company again that social network concept of everybody's going in the same direction Once you get the communication tools figured out you know, I It's not inefficient But I didn't know if we could scale it past 10 people I didn't know if we could scale it past 20 people I didn't know if we could scale it past 30 people. The tools have changed a little bit. We're using more video We're using more micro blogging rather than internets, but Definitely see the see the rewards there Yep, so the top five virtual company myths no teamwork And Yeah, these are some of the communication tools that we use. I'm not going to go into detail for all of them but None of them should look too unfamiliar to this crowd in particular Etherpad like I said is a Google Doc light kind of thing We use that for more quickly brainstorming and we use Google Docs for more formatting kinds of things I will talk about a couple of these in particular to highlight the team aspect IRC it's the office the water cooler and all Share the funny YouTube videos Reach out to people during the day if you're an IRC that means that you're at work. That means you're available To have a conversation. It's it's no frills, right? It's low-key Unlike Skype. It's private if you do Skype chat Your friends can ping you at any time and this is reserved more just for the office just for getting getting your work done The ping-pong culture means more flow, right? Someone says hey, are you available? You can say yes. I am no I'm not It's more uninterrupted time to get work done and and we really like that Sometimes you know like any other company people get overbooked And you know, we try to monitor that we try to regulate that But having those uninterrupted times to get work done or to collaborate with your with your team I think is much more easily accomplished in a in a distributed company and IRC is great I mean the reward is seeing everybody work to jump into the room and say holy crap. There's there's the whole office On-site You know, it's I don't know if I call it a tool But it's really important to get together sometimes just to get together to do meet-ups of smaller groups and smaller departments Or to do larger company retreats where you just get time to chill out and relax with each other We also Because we don't see each other All the time we do funny things like when we're setting up the booth For Drupal con we run around with funny capes and masks just because we can So other tools again a lot of these are familiar dropbox is our file sharing trip It's for for traveling. We use Drupal eyes me a lot for onboarding New people that aren't familiar with Drupal. So that's a good way to get them up to speed We have a tech stipend. So rather than buying everybody's equipment. We just give We actually We give people a credit card Or more like a debit card and put a monthly stipend on there for people to buy and save up their equipment For laptop purchases and that sort of stuff We don't have any interest in owning their equipment and everybody has different preferences on the types of tools and technologies and Applications that they want to buy to get the work done. We use let's freckle for Hourly saying what you're working on and using that to build back time for clients when we work on hourly projects We have what we call the lullabot field guide, which is I think nowadays We just wrap up. It's about a 75 page manual mostly talking about communication how to email How to use IRC? What to what you know how to get into the flow of conversations and collaborations and that sort of stuff Lock a file lock a fi is for secure file transfers and turbo bridge is our conference line system So we have 10 conference lines that we use for all sorts of different things Internal private conference lines and then external client facing conference lines that we use So yeah, there's a lot of teamwork going on lonely job. Yeah It can be it's not for everyone if if you're coming from and spend a lot of time in the cubicle lifestyle It is it is a difficult adjustment and we we try really hard to Support and help and and mentor new people as they as they come on bar come aboard It's easy to burn out or fall into a black hole when you're when you're left on your own for too long For me, I find travel helps with that and getting together with a team I think this is where the social network aspect of a company comes in handy. You have peer support You have we encourage the team to be stewards of good communication and to reach out to people Again, that's what most of our handbook is dedicated to To combat loneliness One of the things one of the things that we do from a culture perspective is we say if a tree falls in the Forest and nobody's around to hear it, you know, did it did it happen? Meaning we need to know we we need to we embrace proactive communication because that's that's vital to the organization We don't have the other nonverbal cues that physical companies would otherwise have Co-working is good Sometimes we will we will work together just for the sake of working together because it's been a while Working from a coffee shop fly or drive to go visit another team member go for a run go do something else switch up the gears I Think I think in some in some instances. You'll hit extremes. I know that I oscillate back and forth a little bit Sometimes I'll work too much or too little because I don't know what I should be doing And so that's that's a form of Isolation or I don't know where to start or begin because I'm overwhelmed and Taking a step back sinking up with other people And saying hey, I need a little bit of direction or just even Finding some time or some ways to get together can really help clarify things And again that social background, you know having Something else beyond work, you know hobbies Yes, what's that? Ten minutes to go. Thank you. That's what my clock says to you. Thanks So let me let me write that up sometimes it can be lonely We've talked we've talked about is it sustainable. I don't know. I think we have a way to go automatic 150 distributed employees minus QL now Oracle 450 distributed employees There's some really good presentations out there on the net from the minus QL folks about how they run their virtual organization It's very very much the same I think Sustainable I'm reminded of this quote by Eric Reese In his book lessons learned he says values are the foot you leave on the floor when you pivot How will we know when it's no longer sustainable when we can no longer leave our foot on the floor? That's the only unit of measure that I that I have for that. I'm really excited to cross that bridge though and get to that point So at least in a physical company Oops Let's see Yeah, yeah, so I not a real so the myth so not a real company. I think that's a myth Communication is inefficient. I think that's a myth. No teamwork. I think that's the only job sometimes it can be Sustainable maybe So at least you don't have to worry about in a distributed company someone eating your lunch your car being ding the parking lot awkward bathroom moments However, I will say It's still possible to have awkward bathroom moments. Remember the mute button on your phone But as a distributed company you may not be able to get help on a project without asking for it you may Not be able to meet in person every every day with your team or not always have the gumption to be self-driven So I want to tie this back into the beginning. This is my last slide My first experience a distributed team And healthy social network was Drupal. I came in Dries was warm friendly inviting as well as the other 30 people working on the project at the time That really made me feel welcome and I felt welcomed in the community since 2003 so that was The tipping point that was the point for saying, you know something like a distributed company is possible it can be achieved so Let's continue to make Drupal open And accessible way beyond the source code. Let's do it for the people too It's it's how great things happen Thanks Anybody have any questions? Yep, and use the microphone there. They tell me it's being recorded So what about the scheduling planning and setting and meeting customers expectations? Do you find some specifics there setting planning meeting? We've tried a couple things the The handiest thing we've used is Google Calendar Google for business. I Don't want to be an advertisement for Google, but they've got some good things going on And we allow read-only access to everybody's work calendar So we can see and collaborate that way for each of our ten conference lines We have corresponding calendars. We have a conference call calendar that people book time and reserve time So everybody learns to check that beforehand For outbound Scheduling kinds of things we've used Tungal Tungal dot me To try and connect and collaborate because there's a lot of emails that go back and forth Can you make it this time? Can you make it this time? No, I can't but I can do it the next And so we we tend to outsource that if you will to Tungal so that everybody can go and see who's available when Comes in pretty handy for that project scheduling So in terms of Just just the fact that you know when you're I've done a lot of managing of distributed groups and managing people's Time and commitments and then setting customers expectations and meeting those expectations Bring some specific challenges of worrying how you guys approach it. Yep, definitely So in terms of project scheduling management management all of that again It's tapping into the social network aspect of your company being visible remaining visible learning to Virtually raise your hand when you need help Knowing that if you know a good interview question is if you spend you know say you've spent three days on this bug That you can't resolve what do you do right and say well I just I start kicking the wall and then I Google it and then you know It's like no you ask for help and to have that be embedded in your culture helps keep the project on track So that's one of the one of the ways Yeah, in the In the early stages of of starting lullaby, how did you overcome the Stigma from clients thinking that you weren't a real company and how did you?  Yeah, yeah, um, yeah, the offices came about because we thought wouldn't it be fun to have a yoga studio So it's kind of less less about the clients But yeah, we did we did hit that hit that obstacle and we found that Taking the first step taking the first initiative to actually go out and meet them Rather than sort of waiting for that conversation to happen kind of being proactive about it showed okay These are real people doing real things in any time that we did an Education event a workshop or we were gonna go to a conference or we were gonna do our do our conference We would invite the clients we would invite them out to kind of to meet everybody to see everybody So anytime we had a group kind of thing if we could bring clients into it one way or another it showed Hey, look, we're real people getting real things done. The other thing that we would do Is at some point you you reach a point where you can say you know Don't take our word for it. Talk to let me give you the name of of the the last project that we did the person that we Worked for and talk to them and see if he felt You know see see what their experience was and so you know often having your other clients be spokespeople People for you can go a long ways to alleviate the the uncomfortableness You had mentioned a field guide that was a 75 page manual Do you have any tips or any books that you could recommend for a company? That's doing that my company is right now going through that through a results only work environment And we have several people who have given us some insight, but do you have any? Yeah? That's a great question. So we have a lullabot book club again It's just a group on Yammer that everybody says hey, I read this book and it's kind of awesome There's there's a number of books. There's a there's a book called small giants, which is by I think Bo Burlingham Earl Burlingham, Bobby Bobby B. Somebody Burlingham and it's talking about how companies choose to Be great instead of good and what that difference is so it's sort of a cultural alignment But I think is really good for Distributed companies remote companies. We're in the in lullabot right now. We're reading a book called tribal leadership Which is really an interesting one about? I Again moving from that eye space to the we space and breaking having little tribes into the larger groups That's a good one another one that I fit that I just read was the five dysfunctions of a team and it kind of reads like a story and it talks about fear of conflict and communication and Building a culture of openness and trust in the organization. It's an instant story form It doesn't make for a very good audio book if you're into that, but it's a better It's a better book to read But that's a that's a good one too Which one did I just say the five dysfunctions of a team? Hey Matt Quick question. Do you hire? more junior developers and if so, how do you? Integrate them into distributed culture. Yeah Junior developers and and how do you how do you bring them on the the onboarding process is really important in a distributed company?  They sit there You know they open their laptop.  So we try to use the buddy system, so we give we give Each new person a buddy in this case. They're they're distributed. They're in another location Sometimes we come on site, so we've been toying around with the idea that if we hire two or three You know junior developers for instance that we would fly them all to a Central location and spend time and work with them for a week You know we have this office space that we really only use for meet-ups or for bringing the team in and doing some work together But but that's good You know having resources like Drupalize me kind of helps with that but definitely Orienting them on the first day and giving them someone to talk to that's not their boss. That is their you know side-by-side Person that they'll they can work along with is really empowering for them to get them what they need But there's a lot of reading that first day that they handbook and knowing what's expected of them that sort of stuff Your opinion has your innovative use of social networking and global team building Diminish the need for traditional project management function Or eliminated that the need for that function Yeah, so what's the role of traditional project management in a distributed company and distributed teams? That's that's a really good question I don't know if I have a definitive answer for that So there's a lot of different types of project management and we've seen different types in in different organizations You know, there's there's project management that is Is more like cat herding and pushing things along and then there's you know again the role of of management, I think in a distributed company is to motivate to empower to facilitate to make sure that projects are flowing unstuck and I think it more becomes that and Acting, you know, we find project management as a role to interface with the client as a role to move things along We have a we usually do a daily 15-minute call that we invite the client to to say what are you working on? Are you stuck? What do you what do you need to move forward? And I think the traditional project management is more about filing reports and in this case I don't I mean to sound I don't mean to overstate it But the reports kind of file themselves, you know You've already created that culture where everybody is documenting writing sharing bubbling up Someone's taking notes on each of the scrum calls the clients are already on there And it just becomes less about that and more about facilitating the actual work I think this follows up on that on that question. This yeah, this is the last question Do you use any sort of issue tracking or bug tracking systems? Yeah, we use a lot. I don't know what the Sally, what's our favorite one these days? Assembler all right assembler There's we use a whole bunch and it's sometimes it's what the client prefers and we have our preferences too But we've used unfuddle for a number of years and where it looks like all the kids are on the assemble bandwagon these days Thanks everybody


Hey you guys, I am temporarily back To address a video I saw that really has my feelings my feelings are All over the place with the situation Before we get starting into the video though. I want to you have to excuse the background. JB is in the front here Jebessa is my son my seven-year-old. We call him JB I want to thank you guys for all of your well thoughts prayers and wishes My family has been affected by COVID for the past almost two weeks now We are doing very well our symptoms have been extremely mild I'm gonna try not to cry God is so good. I give all honor and glory to God for Everything that he has done you guys So I will be having a very detailed video on everything that we've gone through Including including tips and all this and what to expect because at this point in our country I resigned in Phoenix Where it's been we're being hit the though one of the states has been hit the hardest again Our symptoms have been very mild. I've been drinking tea taking my vitamins. So anyway Excuse me Gonna be Preparing my hair in this video This is not gonna be our routine chit-chat video because I have some things I want to talk about to get off my chest because my emotions are so High with everything that my family is going through and just when I see some I'm an impact when I see someone being Mistreated someone who I know whom I know is generally a genuinely a good person That does something to me. My hair has been in this state since For almost a month at this point it's been in twists. I've been trying to keep it moisturized, but yeah So today, I'm gonna finally wash my hair Y'all have to excuse my energy Little a little low right now. I'll give and you know Considering all things given I'm gonna be using the African prides Morse to miracle detangle and condition pre shampoo to Pretty cool my hair and I have some water here. We're gonna take down my twists. Oh my god I don't know if I'm even gonna have the energy to wash my hair you guys because I will say that's the one thing my husband and I are Experiencing now. It'll be almost to it'll be two weeks on Friday Almost two weeks for me two weeks for him And we're just very fatigued at this point very very tired. So anyway Question that has transpired between yellow granix Monique and YouTuber slash influencer Linden land now before I give my own thoughts and opinions. I also want to address this I'm not someone to jump on the bandwagon of drama situations I'm not One to come I'm not a follower. Okay. I like to assess the situation.   All right, even if I know the person I want to make sure that I formulate my own opinion in this situation. I was well aware of what had transpired between Monique and Linda and Linda again, Linda Lynn is the youtuber Based out of New Orleans and she's not in New Orleans. She's from Louisiana And so she did a review two months ago regarding the me yellow granix new rice water collection. Okay, several of the youtubers also reviewed this Collection which I will be dropping down some links below in the description box. All right, so Two months ago Linda did the review and she gave her very honest opinion Now these were products that she purchased with her own money and her own coins. Okay Um, I guess the owner did not really care for her stance on the products And she had a few choice words with Linda Not only in the comments section, but also I believe she contacted her through Instagram and She proceeded to make several I don't know if it was several But she made Instagram live regarding the situation um, this is my thing We've have seen this happen time and time again as far as YouTube research in Florence who's excuse me Who are sponsored they get a peer box and they make a video because they're getting coins to make to make this particular Video review and you can tell that they're stretching the truth. You can tell that they are Misleading their subscribers or viewers and they're not being honest. So in this day and age it is very hard to find People who are transparent people who give Great feedback and people youtubers that you can trust that when they're gonna review a product That you're not gonna go out and spend your hard-earned money on it and it's not gonna be trash Let's just be real. Okay, Linda is one of the few people out here on this platform Who gives honest reviews? You may not care for her delivery But you're gonna get the message and so I find it very very appalling and That Let me back up and say this from the brand owners perspective, I get it the company is her baby It's really hard to hear someone critique your baby You know what I mean your line but also in the same token as a brand owner and as a business owner You should be able to accept constructive criticism without getting so emotional Now Linda was one of many people that reviewed the meal organics line and quite as it kept She wasn't the only one that had things to say charade did a review I got some other names here press for curls fate in the city Denise Adore This collection was very popular a month or two months ago and plenty of other youtubers Reviewed the line and had mixed reviews But something about Linda's review triggered in my opinion triggered the brand owner if you guys I'm a type of person when I this type of Linda referred to as nice nice nasty. This is very passive aggressive behavior. Um, and so that happened That was two months ago apparently Monique's husband Contacted Linda call her late at night Basically to let her know that I guess they're still up in their feelings about the review That as a black woman, she should be supporting and this is you know You can go and look at the video to get the exact, you know words that she was using As a black woman, we should be uplifting on every black woman and then try to put in a Christian spin on it. Let me tell you something the way Linda's right. This is they're not acting Christ like Girl didn't the Bible say the God said vengeance is vengeance is mine. No, I'm at Monique and Earl. Let me say no Vengeance is ours So this has almost this when I saw Linda's video, I was so upset y'all I was yes because as someone who does honest product reviews, I Couldn't only imagine if a brand owner was down in my or whoever was down in my comments Let me know it's totally different to give me feedback on my review than to be this aggressive and just You know what I mean? There's a way to come across and to share your opinion without being nasty One thing that I gathered that I really think has hurt Linda personally Is that Monique? Monique almost feels as if Linda is coming for her on a personal level I don't think it's first of all, I know Linda. I've talked to Linda We've collaborated on a few projects here on YouTube. It's not even in Linda's character risk character Excuse me her personality to come for someone Militiously to intently to you know her intentions were never to make a video and Trashed his woman in her brand but she is the type of person you could only push her to so to a certain extent as we have seen Now with her you know as we've seen this all played out They have really crossed the line when it comes to being unprofessional and petty and The fact that her husband This is supposedly okay. This is he used her Personal information that he obtained through a previous order that Linda had made to call her from a block number That's an evasion of privacy. That's a problem. I wouldn't even have accepted that phone call after I heard who it You introduced yourself and you let me know who you are. Yeah Unfortunately, I won't be able to accept this phone call right now click If you want anything to say to me, I need it in writing you see what I'm saying you need to email me your complaints You need to email you need to contact me so I can have that paperwork. So I have a paper trailer of you contacting me all these times This is harassment This is borderline bullying. I could tell that she was so hurt about this overall. I get the feeling that she's tired She's tired of having to deal with this beat BS. Excuse my language She's just exhausted through you know having to deal with this I'm pretty sure she has other things better that she could be doing right now We're in the middle of a damn pen dip. I posted on my community tab a couple of days ago I don't know what I'm gonna upload this video. I would no longer be reviewing any product from me Eleganics, I just don't I don't feel comfortable doing that and I don't like the way they have treated Linda I just don't it has really left a bad taste in my mouth I will finish finish up this pomegranate and honey line. Oh, yes But yeah, I won't be featuring their their products in my videos anymore And that's sad because I want to we all want to support black owned business. We want to do that Okay, I'm pretty sure a lot of us want to do that We want to see that money funneling back into the black community And so I really do feel like at this point a lot of the things that we are witnessing a lot of the things that we We will be going through as individuals as humans the experiences that we will be going through in 2020 It has almost a spiritual I Don't know how to explain it you guys. Do you know what I mean, but you can feel it There's something behind it. So that's so many of us feel it doesn't feel right like it's They're they're the ones that are malicious this bitterness Like why can't they let it go? So I'm very curious to know if they do try to sue her on what grounds, you know I was talking to another youtuber who I'm not gonna name any names, but What grounds can they show proof that linda's video? um Hurt their their their sales for that quarter for that month or whatever or was it due to the pandemic? I mean it could be a combination of things um She again, she's not the only one that had A review that wasn't so positive now. Let's rally around and support this young lady Um, again, I'm not saying don't support them Don't buy them if you want to purchase their products and it works for you and you're okay. Go right ahead I'm saying at this point. I won't be reviewing their products on my channel going forward and so be it Um, but linda, please keep your head up. Like I said continue to pray over the situation Seek legal counsel and just know that there are those of us here on this platform and the in the natural hair community That agree with you. We stand with you Don't back down and um, you will be in my thoughts and prayers. So, okay, you guys said is it take care