As you may or may not know, the Planetary team is fully distributed, which encourages us to get creative with not only how we communicate, but how we bond as colleagues and friends. Like many other companies, we foster a fun and open dialogue on Slack, ask silly questions during our standups and have a dedicated weekly 'meeting' for casual hangouts, but we often thought that that wasn't enough.

Our team is small but mighty, and we try to keep our marketing spend at a minimum to enable our client rates to stay under the competition. Riffing on the concept of ‘Engineering as Marketing’ popularized by the Weinberg and Mares’ book, 

, Planetary decided to experiment. As a digital studio that has successfully ideated and launched over 100 products, Planetary is in a prime position to design and develop a tool of our own, so we conceived a service that would enable a seamless way for remote teams to spend time with one another. We figured that, if we offer a useful and immersive experience for those users, it will inevitably generate leads and opportunities for Planetary. Sounds simple enough, right?

During an internal Discovery session, we discussed the need for the tool or service to be hyper-relevant to our business. After exploring many thoughts and ideas, we decided to lean on our internally-built SaaS product, Spacetime, which allows for remote teams to easily schedule meetings across different time zones. We discovered that if we leverage our learnings (and some code!) from Spacetime, we would already have a head start. We knew that a large part of the tech community faces the same issues that we do with having a remote team, and when we realized we could help solve that, 

As the name suggests, Pizzatime allows for your remote team to partake in a pizza party. To sign up, your host picks a date and invites your team. The ‘magical’ Pizza Bots then organize the party by finding compatible times and orders your pizzas. As a team, you hop on a video chat and eat your pizza while sharing some good conversation.

Because this was still a marketing play for Planetary, we had a limited budget and needed to use internal resources during downtime to get Pizzatime spun up. Despite those challenges, our team was able to build out the infrastructure, and using 

, designed and developed the site in under a month while only utilizing about an hour of an engineer’s time. I knew we were onto something when a pizza magically arrived on my doorstep one Thursday afternoon.

 has been used by many remote organizations all over the world, written about in 

. By our measure, that is a success. While Engineering as Marketing can be one of the more difficult channels to generate leads and new business, it certainly has proven to be beneficial. I’m certain this won't be the last time Planetary experiments with our engineering skills—in fact, we’re cooking up something as I write this.

Pizza Brings Business

Planetary's Partner Josh Gross and Designer Tom Treadway discuss the new, and much anticipated, Planetary.co.

As an agency, Planetary creates immersive experiences for their clients daily. But what happens when their client is themselves? We chatted with Joshua Gross and Tom Treadway to find out what went into redesigning Planetary.co.

Congrats! Planetary's new site is live! I'm told it has been at least 3 years since the last build. Why now?

 We've done a lot of work, learned a lot of new things, and the web has evolved significantly since we built our last site. Now seemed like the right time to really take advantage of the new technologies to showcase the variety of work we've done in the past 6 years we've been around.

 The site began to feel out of touch not only for how we saw ourselves as a team, but also ineffectively represented the quality of our work & the extent of our capabilities.

When you started this process, what was your original design thinking, and how did it morph or change into what we see with the live version?

 We really wanted to put some lovely motion-centric touches on the site, which is something we really haven't done in the past. Historically, our site has been less… showy and we really wanted to try something different and more visually impactful this time around.

The design went through a ton of design iteration, as we bumped into technical limitations and refined the content and information.

 The original design thinking was that the site should be a reflection of our approach to any - simple & effective. I think the live site remained pretty true to those objectives.

What tools did the design team use to accomplish each stage of the design phase?

 We relied on Sketch to do most of the design work, including clickable prototypes. The design team mocked up some of the interactions in After Effects and our development team would prototype these interactions in code to see how the actually looked and felt in the browser. There was definitely a lot of back-and-forth.

How did you involve the rest of the team in this process of determining the general look and feel?

 It was a collaborative process with the team; we got everyone involved in determining what information to show, what case studies to feature and even the way we really positioned ourselves.

 We reviewed regularly with the entire team so that everyone had a say in the direction. It wasn't just a task for the design team, but for the entire team since we all work cross-discipline. Of course, as the designer, it's my job to try many as many different things as possible and exhaust all options. But it's the entire team's responsibility to collaborate on finding the strongest solution.

Obviously as an agency, Planetary has (paying) client work that is simultaneous with this internal work, how did you manage to break off time to get it all done?

 There's an expression that has come up time and time again over the years at Planetary: 

It's really tough to balance our client work and our internal projects since the former always take priority. Fortunately, we have a great team that was able to make some time to balance the design and implementation of the site between other work; it took longer than we'd maybe have liked but I think the end result was worth the wait!

 Of course - as a small team it was important for us to establish a workflow that allowed for the handling of internal experiments as well as client work at the same time. We're almost always building new products & technologies while handling client work, so this time it was no different.

What was the most challenging part of this project?

 Honestly, the homepage of the site. Up until the last two weeks of the project, we had an entirely different concept for this page. A pre-coffee moment of epiphany one morning between myself and Tom kicked it in the direction you see now, which is far stronger than what we had before.

 As is the case with any project, pivoting and finding our footing again when we hit a roadblock. When you're trying new things and experimenting with new technologies, those difficulties are inevitable.

Heaven forbid you had to do it all again, what would you have done differently?

 I don't think there's anything we would have done differently, but there's always room for improvement. The site took us a bit outside our comfort zone, so I think we will be better suited to handle these challenges come next time.

 Now we can get our focus back to our client work…along with a few surprises in between ;)

 We're working on lots of stuff both internally & externally. Redesigning our website wasn't just about marketing, but also about improving the way we operate as a team, so we're looking forward to tackling some big projects with new clients in 2019.

Planetary Launches its Newly Redesigned Website

Meet the Planetary team! We’re a team of multidisciplinary designers and developers spread out across 3 times zones and 4 countries. Despite having a dispersed team, we come together and build awesome products while having fun, and we want to share our insights!

Each week, the series Planetary Perspectives will feature an interview with a team member on their experiences of working remotely, building productivity, and maintaining work–life balance.

Where are you currently working from right now?

How long have you been at Planetary and what is your role?

Please share an interesting and unusual fact/hobby about yourself.

My dad left his career in software engineering to become a doctor, I dropped out of medical school to become a software engineer.

What do you enjoy most about working remotely and what do you find to be challenging?

I enjoy the autonomy, flexibility, and freedom. For example, I decided to go live in Brazil for a couple months last year and was able to do so without any interruption to work.

How do you create your most productive environment to work in?

I usually have classical music playing in the background to keep time moving. I also like to have a good view near my desk so I can rest my eyes every once in a while. I built a shelf for my keyboard and monitors so that I can work standing up or sitting down. I like to stand to help get my blood flowing when I’m feeling sluggish, and I like to sit when I have good energy and really want to get into “the zone”.

What is a common misconception of working remote that you’d like to clear up?

That you don’t have a commute. On average, I drive about 100–200 miles a week. The only difference is my commute takes me to mountains, beaches, and deserts instead of an office 😁

What do you think Planetary does well in regard to having a dispersed team?

I appreciate that we have short and productive meetings during the week. Oftentimes, remote teams schedule a lot of meetings to make up for the lack of in-person contact; but for me, meetings that are too long or frequent can be a huge productivity killer.

We also have a retreat every year where we get together, work in the same place, and spend quality time to getting know each other.

“We’re also expected to mostly self-manage, which empowers you to get work done in the way that works best for you.”

How do you build rapport if you aren’t meeting someone in person?

We have the opportunity for team-bonding during our weekly video chats and on our annual retreats. Outside of those events, working on projects together calls for us to communicate clearly and regularly. When done effectively, this collaborative culture helps build trust between all of us. We also share non-work-related stuff in Slack and that helps team members get to know each other better.

Planetary Perspectives: Andrew Coelho

You have a product, website, tool, or campaign that needs building. You need to find an agency or freelancer. Now what?

As an agency, we’ve seen our fair share of RFPs and Project Briefs from prospective clients. The variation between briefs is extensive: the information they reveal about the project and what they include has been different every. single. time. we’ve received one. Over the past 10+ years, I’ve seen and worked with everything from dozens-of-pages long RFPs to a couple sentences in an email.

While this isn’t the most engaging topic you’ll ever read about, it’s vital to hiring the right partner to build your project. The quality of a brief makes a huge difference in how any agency, studio, or freelancer will approach their recommended solution, estimate costs, compile their proposal, and present the pitch. The better the brief, the better you — 🎉 the client 🎉 — will be able to ensure that your expectations are met and that you build a successful relationship.

I’m not here to walk you through every possible element of building an RFP or how to find a good partner; those are larger topics covered extensively elsewhere. Instead, what you’ll find below is a checklist of seven vital elements to consider while creating a project brief. Each element has resulted in improving the ultimate outcome of projects I’ve been involved with over the years. Save it. Bookmark it. Put it in Pocket (do people still do that?). Reference it next time you have a brief to write.

Additionally, you’ll find a (free) template you can use for your own project briefs at the end of this article.

Do you have an upcoming presentation? Is there a drop-dead date where this project will no longer be relevant if not ready by then? Do you have a budget that expires at the end of the quarter?

This seems like it would be an obvious one, but it’s surprising how frequently this is left out because there is a soft timeline, certain dates aren’t yet confirmed, or simply because it’s overlooked.

Sometimes a project doesn’t have a hard deadline and that’s okay! Sometimes important dates aren’t yet finalized, and that’s also okay!

Even if you’re working with soft or unconfirmed dates, still include loose dates. It can be as simple as:

While these aren’t hard dates, it does provide some goalposts to keep in mind as the project progresses; times when the team may be distracted, unavailable, or need to demonstrate progress on the project.

Even better, include any notes about what may be happening during or needed for those key dates. Including this information allows the partner to plan for and mitigate bottlenecks if and when your team is out, as well as helping you look your best 😎 when you need to present progress internally or publicly. An example:

Presenting to the company board. Will want to show a complete walkthrough of the app.

~1,500 visitors for an industry conference; we’ll want to be able to demonstrate the product and it’s value to potential customers.

Who will be participating in this project and what are their roles?

In any project, there will often be several folks invested in the outcome and success of the project. While putting together a project brief, the potential partner may not know who these folks are, so including a reference of who will have some say in the project is extremely valuable.

Specifically, knowing each stakeholder’s job title and role within the project will allow the partner to understand who they should keep in mind at each phase of the project and how that might impact the timeline.

If, let’s say, a stakeholder is building the conference booth (from the example above), the partner may want to include them in the beta and plan to schedule training time in advance of the event. If you have a VP that is providing feedback during the design phases, the partner may want to be sure they’re available for a regularly-scheduled check-in time.

The best way to present this information is in a simple table, like this:

Talk about the goal of the project, not just what you want it to do.

At the heart of every project is a purpose: the goal that you, or your team, is ultimately trying to achieve. Goals may include decreasing customer churn, increasing internal team efficiency, improving mobile user experience, or any array of many other possibilities.

By providing this insight, your potential partners may identify a goal you had not considered or an approach you didn’t even know was possible. Ultimately, there may be better, cheaper, faster, or even more valuable ways to solve for these newfound goals. You’re looking to find a partner with expertise; take advantage of what they can offer!

How does this project fit into the organization’s needs, marketing goals, etc? What are the initiating factors?

In addition to providing insight into the goals of the project, an often overlooked aspect of a brief is the context. Why are you pursuing this project now and how does it fit into the larger [quarterly, yearly, short-term, long-term] goals that you, your team, or your company are trying to achieve?

This doesn’t mean you need to reveal long-term strategy or closely-held plans, but the more context you can provide, the better. A good partner will be able to empathize with the level of urgency or stress, or provide the right information over the course of the project to feed into the larger strategy.

This is definitely an “optional” element, as not all projects have clear measures of success (note: if yours doesn’t, it’s worth looking more closely at why), but aligning with your partner at the outset of the project on what success looks like will benefit the entire project and all teams involved.

Often, success factors can be an extension of the project goals: are you trying to decrease churn by 15%? Increase onsite time by at least 10%? Improve app usage on iOS by 25% while decreasing the crash rate by 5%? Any of these qualify as measures of success.

As a note here, payment typically should not be contingent on success being met unless your partner works under model or applies a “Fees at Risk” model. The reason here being that the work is still being done and, often, factors of success may be out of the hands of the partner; payment contingency implies that the partner is solely responsible for success.

Who will be using the product, seeing the end results, or interacting with the experience? Who do we need to impress?

Often, there are two audiences you’re going to be working for throughout the course of a project.

The first is the most important: the ‘end user’; the individuals that will be seeing/using/touching/feeling/experiencing the output of this project. It’s a good idea to have a picture in your mind — and in the brief — of who this person is, how old they are, and their “backstory.” While a good partner will help you round out the details, consider the high-level details that will go into a 

The second audience is either an internal audience of your peers or superiors, or an audience of industry peers. Who within the organization or industry do you want to help or impress? While this may not factor into the product itself, a good partner will help you identify the obstacles this audience may present and wants to make you look good too — it’s not just about doing the project well.

Existing infrastructure we need to work within? Someone we should talk to before suggesting any technical solutions?

All too often, we hear questions like the following after putting together a proposal:

“We were hoping to see a solution that uses X.”

“Our systems use Y internally; will the technology in your proposal support that?”

These questions often mean we’ll lose a project because we didn’t take into consideration the tools or technology limitations you or your organization has in place — even if we were fully capable — simply because they weren’t mentioned upfront.

If you want all partners presenting their best solutions 

that also work with existing infrastructure

, start on an even playing field by including any technology limitations or requirements you or your organization have at the outset. When this information isn’t included, don’t be surprised to receive proposals that don’t align with your organization’s needs. This may mean coordinating with your IT or internal technology teams before distributing the brief, so take into consideration any extra time necessary.

Above are just seven elements that you should consider when writing a project brief as part of an RFP or reaching out to a potential vendor for a software-based project. It is by no means a completely comprehensive list of elements.

However, we have also compiled these recommendations into a template document that you can use for your next project brief! The template includes sections for all of the above, nicely formatted and readily readable, as well as sections for additional information you may want to include. As a Google Doc, it’s print and PDF-ready, easily copied and used, or modified for your own needs.

You can get the Project Brief Template here:

7 tips for writing better project briefs

I moved to Berlin, Germany without ever having been there before. I just decided it would be interesting to try something new, and went. My first day in my apartment was the first day I had ever been there. One year later, I love it!

My secret talent is a bit unusual — I used to be really good at knitting & crocheting when I was a kid. For some reason I picked that up as a hobby and was obsessed with it for a bit.

What was transitioning into remote work like for you? What did you love, stress over, and learn in those first few weeks?

Transitioning into remote work life was a relatively simple process for me. Before working freelance/remote, I was commuting 2 hours (each way) every day to the Apple Campus in Sunnyvale, California. Cutting that wasted time out of my schedule seemed like a no-brainer. I was mentally and physically exhausted from spending 12 hours a day at work. That being said, I quit my full-time job with no other job lined up, so the uncertainty made me a bit nervous. But one project led to another, and two years later I haven’t looked back.

When I started working from home, I began to test the ways in which I could make my schedule work most effectively for me — which turned out not to be the standard 8-hour office shift a full-time employee normally has. I realized I could get up early and work really effectively for a solid 4 or 5 hours, take a break mid-day to run errands or take care of personal things, and finish my last 4 hours with the same efficiency as I had in the morning. I think most people who work in an office have a huge drop in productivity after lunchtime, which means you have about 3 to 4 hours at the end of the day of wasted time.

“After a few months, I realized I was not only doubling the amount of work I produced, but the quality was significantly higher. It also reduced my stress levels greatly.”

I think Planetary does a really good job of giving you the flexibility that you need to work your most efficient schedule, but the team workflow still has structures in place to make sure you’re not just working in a vacuum (design reviews, team check-ins, and one-on-ones).

“At the end of the day, the work that we do is collaborative in nature, and work is always the strongest when you have insights and perspectives from multiple people.”

Planetary has found a good way to balance these elements.

I think the most common misconception of working remotely is that I don’t work full-time, or that I’m doing it because it’s “easy”. Since my schedule is more flexible, I get to travel a lot and have mid-day breaks to recharge so that I can spend my time working in a more focused and effective manner. Working remote is about being efficient, not about being lazy.

You need to be dependable to others, as well as yourself. Set deadlines and communicate them to your teammates. I believe that this is what drives momentum in a team environment and creates work-life balance — everyone wants to enjoy their life but also do the best work they possibly can. Everyone shows up (metaphorically speaking) to work their hardest and contribute to make something awesome together.

How has living in different places informed or contributed to your role as a designer/developer/project manager?

It has been awesome to see different creative perspectives, and to get to meet designers and creatives from all over the world. It has opened my eyes to different design styles, inspirations, and methods of collaboration. Everyone has a different source for their passion. Through living in different cities, you start to meet people with so many different reasons for doing what they do.

How has it allowed you to achieve things you wouldn’t have if you had to work in a specific place?

It’s about work-life balance. If I didn’t work remotely, I would never have had the opportunity to move to Berlin and travel around Europe. It just wouldn’t be possible if I had to be in an office every day.

Planetary Perspectives: Tom Treadway

I’m an avid homesteader; gardening, raising livestock, gathering wild edibles, and hunting are all staples of my lifestyle. While I rely on technology to lend me a lucrative career, I also strive to get back to my roots.

Finding out-of-the-box solutions to problems that folks would typically give up on. I’m inventive, and if there’s a way, I will see it.

I find the schedule flexibility to be the most enjoyable, as a mom it’s important to me to be able to work and parent with minimal conflicts. My challenge is overworking almost entirely by accident — it’s easy to do when you love your profession.

My transition was different, but I embraced it. I was the most relieved not to have to commute every day! My children were much younger then and I needed to set rules on when to parent during work hours. After a few weeks, it became more comfortable for everyone, and it’s been smooth sailing ever since.

What traits do you think are important for someone who works remotely?

Honesty and dependability are definitely at the top of the list.

“A company which allows its employees to work remotely takes a systematic risk in the employee’s accountability. If you aren’t transparent about where you’re at in your workload, then there’s no way it will work out in the long run.”

I keep the same hours every day. I feel it helps maintain my work ethic and drive when I give myself regular business hours. But I also take full advantage of breaks, daily or vacations, which keeps me from burning out.

A misconception I had was that I wouldn’t feel like I was a part of a team. It takes all of us sharing a common goal to bring Planetary success, and that can only happen if we work together. I’ve never once felt like I was a lone developer after I started working remotely.

Culture-building and communication. While working remotely, it can be easy to feel removed from a team environment. However, at Planetary, it’s a group effort to keep connected and enjoy each other’s collective time online. The annual team retreat is also a huge help too, giving us a chance to meet each other in-person, building our team dynamic and culture.

Communication. There’s nothing like being utterly transparent with people, and our team does this exceptionally well. Deadlines, project statuses, workloads, hold-ups, and challenges are all discussed with open minds. We trust each other in a way that I haven’t experienced anywhere else.

How has working remotely been advantageous for other aspects of your life? How has it allowed you to achieve things you wouldn’t have if you had to work in a specific place?

For starts, I have the unique opportunity to be a stay at home mom while supporting my family. I’m grateful for the time I get to spend with my children that would otherwise be lost. Next is the ability to live/work from anywhere — which allowed me to purchase a hobby farm in the Appalachians. Remote work has provided not just myself, but my family, opportunities that wouldn’t be possible otherwise.

It’s been great getting to meet developers with a variety of backgrounds.

“While some have gone to school and others are entirely self-taught, we’re all united by a common goal of building excellent products.”

I think we all contribute to each other to strive to do better and to stay motivated to learn new things.

Planetary Perspectives: Samantha Black

As a teenager, I was a big contributor and participant in the arcade machine build/restoration community. I built two arcade machines, as well as developing software for use by the (small) community.

I think the most enjoyable thing about working remotely is that it really gives you the freedom to work where you’re most comfortable, whether that’s an office in a coworking space, a coffee shop, your house, or literally anywhere else.

On the other hand, the most challenging part might be that you don’t see the team in person on a regular basis, so you need to find other ways to build camaraderie and connection.

Energy and collaboration. One of the biggest fears I’ve heard about being remote is that you lose this sense of excitement and ease of collaboration.

“Being remote-first and focusing on making sure our team regularly connects has really ensured that being remote doesn’t impede the spontaneous collaboration and excitement around projects.”

That you can’t build a cohesive, energetic, productive team. Clearly it’s possible, but remote employees need to come first, not second. Structure your communications, activities, and events around being able to participate as remotely.

The best ways I’ve found to build rapport are by creating opportunities to chat that aren’t solely centered around work. One-on-ones, games, and just open chat where teammates can share what they’re doing in their free time, what they like to do, etc.

“In essence, creating possibilities for serendipitous moments of learning about and sharing with others.”

What’s your weirdest/most interesting video conference experience?

This is a tough one, mostly because little things happen fairly often. My favorite moments are when someone (a pet, a child) sneaks into the background, doing something unexpectedly distracting and the person on the call has no idea. 😂

In managing/working in a remote team, what are some things you implement to promote team-building?

This is a challenge and, honestly, we’re still trying new things out. One of the most important things is making sure the team sees each other at least twice per week, and has a chance to check in with one-another.

We’re also exploring ideas around remote events such as pizza “lunches”, games, and other team-building exercises that can be worked into an average week without being disruptive.

Additionally, once a year, we get everyone together in person. Some in-person time really helps the team get to know each other outside of just the day-to-day work context.

When it comes to efficiency and maximizing team dynamics during projects, what advice do you have more someone managing a remote team?

If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that the best way to manage a remote team is good organization and trust. Organize your projects and tasks to make sure requirements and deadlines are communicated clearly in an asynchronous way. Don’t rely on synchronous communication for important details. Ensure the team knows where to find and understand what’s expected of them. Then, trust them to do the work.

Planetary Perspectives: Josh Gross

I’ve been here for a bit over a year, as a front-end developer.

I have 8 different middle names, they don’t even fit on my ID. Always a good icebreaker at airports.

I look like I’m on top of everything even when I’m not 😅

What was transitioning to working remotely like for you? What did you love, stress over, and learn in those first few weeks?

I’ve been a consultant for a while prior to working at Planetary, so I was used to setting my own goals and schedule. Still, it was a challenge to do that as part of a remote team, since I wasn’t getting the same feedback that I would have gotten in person. I couldn’t tell if the other team members liked me or not, or if they thought I was any good. That was unsettling.

You need to be able to manage yourself. You need to know how to get stuff done even without someone to refer to constantly.

Initially, I was working on an old MacBook Pro and moving around the apartment based on my mood. After a while, my back was hurting and I was frustrated with not having a dedicated spot. I grew tired of it and invested in an actual desk, with a top of the line iMac, as well as a nice chair to improve my posture. I feel much more comfortable that way and I don’t have to figure out how I’m gonna setup every day. I can just get to work (and my back stopped hurting!)

I think we’re really good at connecting as people, not just workers. Most of the time in Slack (our go to internal chat app), people just talk about fun things they’re doing outside of work.

“There’s always a nice discussion you can jump in to talk about something else for a while.”

I still haven’t worked with half of the team (as different skills are needed on a per project basis) but I know and appreciate them already thanks to that.

The number one thing for me is to support other team members when they need help. I try to be as reactive and helpful as possible whenever someone gets lost or can’t figure something out.

Last year, the team was at a retreat in Colorado, which I couldn’t attend. We did a video meeting where I was the only one actually on video, and everybody else was looking at me from around the table. That was weird and fun 🙂

How has living in different places or working with teammates from different places informed your role as a designer/developer/project manager?

It has given me more appreciation for the different lifestyles that people have. When working with others, I tend to be pretty demanding. Seeing how people have vastly different lives and approaches to problem solving than me has made me relax way more.

Planetary Perspectives: Dagobert Renouf

Since we first shared Spacetime publicly in 2016, 

 of teams have signed up and use our app every week. We’ve slowly become one of the most popular tools for sharing your work hours and time zone, especially amongst distributed teams.

Top teams are distributed over 15, 26, or even 40(!) different time zones and are adding new locations constantly.

In that time, we’ve received tons of positive feedback and dozens of requests for new features. We’ve definitely heard all of it and have spent the past few months rebuilding the Spacetime experience. Today, we’re excited to share the new Spacetime.

 tools, giving team admins the ability to better manage their team. Additionally, we’ve made the product more reliable, faster, and easier to use—the underlying technology has been completely rebuilt.

Today, we are also introducing Spacetime Pro, which expands on the already valuable features of Spacetime. With Pro you’ll be able to add single-channel, guest, and non-Slack users, support teammates with schedules that vary day-to-day, and group users by internal teams.

What new standard features are we introducing?

You can now update your name, profile picture, and email address from a convenient control panel.

Team Management: Administrators can now manage their entire teams! Yes — finally. You can now add and remove teammates, as well as control their level of permissions.

If you have contractors, consultants, clients, compadres, or cohorts that aren’t on Slack, or are Slack guests (single and multi-channel) you can now invite them to your Spacetime teams!

Personalize your Spacetime view by grouping members into custom categories like project, management level, team, location, or favorite color.

Multi-Day Scheduling: Many of you don’t work the same hours every day (especially, say, weekends?) and Spacetime should be able to correctly reflect your schedule. You can now set different hours by day of week — we’re really excited about this one 🎊

Not just weather. Show your current country flag (🇯🇵) or work availability (✅) as your status icon, updated automatically.

We hope you give Pro a try and we would absolutely love to hear your feedback. Sign up is completely free, so there’s no risk or cost to see if it works for your team. If you sign up for Pro with the link above, you’ll receive 20% off!*

We’re here to make your team work better, together. We hope the new Spacetime helps you do that! ✌️

Announcing Spacetime 2.0

The Remote X is a series by the Planetary team to feature the experiences of remote teams across the world (literally!). Every week, we interview people leading or working in remote teams and share their knowledge with others in the hopes that we can all grow and benefit from their experiences.

, a marketplace that connects companies to talented tech and business employees across the world. For this week’s Remote X post, she tells us about her experience working in a cross-cultural team, and managing her own team remotely.

Hey Lauren, where are you based in right now?

I’m living half-time between New York and Tallinn, Estonia! That’s right next to Russia.

Cool! Could you tell me more about yourself and your role in Jobbatical?

My name is Lauren Proctor, and I’m the Head of Marketing at Jobbatical. I was working remotely in New York when I kind of signed up for Jobbatical on a whim. They contacted me directly and said “Hey, wanna go on a jobbatical working for Jobbatical?” and that was it!

I have also been running my own company for about 9 years! I still run it on the side, but I mainly do marketing for Jobbatical, and it’s such a cool company.

So we have an office in Tallinn, Estonia, and we also have an entity in Malaysia. Right now there’s no one working right there, but we plan to go back to somewhere in Southeast Asia and have offices there as well.

Our headquarters are here, but we have people working all the time from Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, the UK, San Francisco and New York.

There are about 27 of us now, and from 11 different nationalities!

On a personal basis, how do you structure your day while working remotely? Do you find it a challenge to keep yourself focused?

The biggest thing for me is time zones — I’m most creative between 4pm to 2am, so that makes it hard if I’m in the wrong time zone. I’m really trying to figure out the “when are you on and when are you off” thing!

I’m one of those people that won’t do something if I don’t want to, but fortunately, I love my work. If I get to choose what I want to do right now, 80% of the time, it’s to be working. So that’s lucky for me, and makes working remotely very easy. Well, easy for me, but not my girlfriend!

Why did you guys choose to grow a remote team?

I think travel and the inspiration that you get from being where you wanna be is so, so integral to the DNA of our company. The idea of flexibility and working where you’re happy is so important to us, that in some ways, we have no choice but to figure out remote work.

“The idea of flexibility and working where you’re happy is so important to us, that in some ways, we have no choice but to figure out remote work.”

It’s certainly been a struggle to figure out the logistics of such an asynchronous communication style. However, we also believe that it doesn’t matter if you’re from India or South America — if you’re good at design or if you’re a great web developer, it doesn’t matter your passport, those skills are going to the best. So we wanted to think about hiring the best people we possibly can, and it doesn’t matter to us where they are.

Do you guys do video conference calls often?

ALL THE TIME. We’re on Hangouts every day. Well not the whole team, but basically every day, we’ll see each other in some form.

As the head of marketing, how do you manage your team and keep them organized/productive?

We try to keep really definitive goals, and track not only what we’re doing, but also how much time we’re spending on them — for example, this takes 5 hours and produced these results. So I think we try to really be data-based.

We also use Asana, Slack and Hangouts a lot.

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