Chapter 18

Follow the Sun

Do you know what the worst possible way to distribute a team on a planet is? We found out. In late December 2010, Beau moved back to Perth, Australia. Team Social became the most distributed team in the company, despite our small size, with each employee eight hours apart from another. Mike and I were on Pacific Standard Time, Andy was +8, and Beau was now +16. I foolishly tried to use a meeting calendar to see what our meeting time options were and plugged in different options again and again. I thought there was something wrong with the tool because every time I tried a new combination, someone would have to be up at 2:00 a.m. Finally it dawned on me that my team had hit the natural limits of space and time on planet ...

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