Chapter3: HowtoBuildCultureinaRemoteTeam 30 Async Our internal blog tool, called Async, was inspired by P2, a WordPress theme Automattic uses. Async makes it really easy to post updates. We use it to replaceallourteamemails.Theasynchronousnatureandthreadedcomments make it a lot easier to share things—from posts welcoming new teammates to discussing architectural scaling issues—Async helps keep everyone on the samepage.It’salmostlikeourownminiversionofReddit. Hangouts,PairBuddiesandZoom Chatisawesome,butbeingabletotalkinrealtimeandvisuallyseesomeoneis still pretty important for some issues. Slack calls for quick, ad-hoc one-on-one meetingsorZoomforbiggerteammeetingsmakeiteasytoworkinrealtime. Duringthesechats,it’s always fun to have a five-minute personal checkup just to see what the other person/people are up to. Pair Buddies are a weekly random pairing with 2-3 people on the team that allows you to catch up on work, life, or anything else. We use Donut, a Slack app, for the random pairings. Pair buddy chats help keep some semblance of theofficesociallifeaspartofworkandencouragepeoplewhoworkindifferent departmentstogettoknoweachotherbetter.