Working together remotely has been a core part of Nightnurse Images’ daily operations since the beginning. Our three offices are spread out on three different continents and the ability to work together remotely is a vital part of our mere existence. We would like to give some insight into how we work, what programs we use, why, and for what purpose.
Truth be told, our team and the people in it are a pretty essential part of our company. Not just because of knowledge sharing for work purposes, but also for the unique friendship that exists between the members of our team. However, with three offices that are located in respectively New York, Buenos Aires, and Zurich there is not a possibility of being all together in one physical space. Nevertheless, we still need to work together and therefore we rely greatly upon online communication and sharing tools.
To ensure a smooth collaboration we use different online tools for communication and information sharing, which are important, not just for clear communication internally, but also for communicating with our clients. These tools include:
- Google Suite (Gmail, Google Calander, Google Docs, Google Sheets, etc.)
- We use Gmail for internal and external communication and Google Calander keeps track of our internal and external meetings and special events. Google docs we use for text creation and sharing and Google sheets for sharing and keeping track of important data, such as finances, numbers of new clients, projects ad clicks, and more. We use Google Suite because it is accessible and sharable.
- Slack
- We use Slack for internal communication, quick things that do not need an email. Slack helps us keep both our inbox and internal communication clean, so nothing gets lost.
- Notion
- Is our knowledge-sharing platform. In Notion, we share everything related to processes.
- Vertec
- Vertec helps each employee keep track of work hours. We also use Vertec for project coordination, overview, and invoicing.
- Basecamp
- In Basecamp we communicate with our clients on the projects. Here the visualizers share the images throughout the different stages of the image-making process and the client can give feedback and approve.
- Zoom and Google Teams
- We mainly use Zoom and primarily for meetings and project coordination. It has happened that we have used Google Teams, but mostly if it has been suggested by the client. Both platforms work great for virtual face-to-face communication and screen-sharing, which is the primary function we use.
- Whatsapp
- Whatsapp is probably mostly used by the team for social interaction, however, it has happened a few times that we communicate internally via Whatsapp for project coordination.
- MailChimp
- We use MailChimp to send out newsletters, party invitations, basically anything that deserves to go out to a bigger crowd. Our selected audience is often our clients or anyone that has signed up for our mailing list e.g. via our blog.
An additional thing that helps us is our current management system, Holacracy, which allows us to keep our management structure no matter how or where we work. Meaning that everyone in the company knows exactly what their accountabilities are, at all times and they have full-decision power. If any tensions occur we process or solve them in our tactical or governance meetings, which ensures clarity, clam, and confidence for every team member.
These are the tools we currently use. Feel free to share your experience and what tools you like to use in the comment section below!