Workplace of the future - Page 14
Last year I decided to sail across the Atlantic. I previously had spent 3 months learning how to sail in South Africa and figured that learning should be put to good use–otherwise there’s no point, is there? After some quick research, I decided to join the 270 boats crossing the Atlantic with the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers (ARC) in November 2013: “Every November since 1986 the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers (ARC) has set sail from Las Palmas, bound 2,700 nautical miles westward across the Atlan
Most companies have meetings of some sort. Many startups have daily standups . As a fully remote and distributed team with members in a variety of countries, continents and time zones , Buffer meetings have to be a bit diff
Hi there! This is an older post that we’ve kept around for transparency but that means that sometimes the information is no longer accurate. Head to our homepage to view our most recent posts. Earlier this year, Buffer had a job opening for a position we (at the time) called “Life Saver.” That person, we thought, was going to work in lots of different and important areas to help keep Buffer running smoothly—things like helping to plan our multiple annual retrea
We talk about “steps” a lot at Buffer-how many we’re aiming for every day, how many we’re getting and how we’re making changes to get more. That’s because each member of the Buffer team gets a free Jawbone UP (among other neat perks) when they join us full time. Why? Not only is general self-improvement part of Buffer’s core culture, exercise pops up quite often as a specific form of self-improvement for many of us. Here’s how Buffer founder Joel puts it: In the last three years, I’ve gone fr
At Buffer , every product decision we make is driven by quantitative metrics. We have always sought to be lean in our decision making, and one of the core tenants of being lean is launching experimental features early and measuring their impact. Buffer is a social media tool to help you schedule and space out your posts on social media networks like Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Linkedin. We started in late 2010 and thanks to a keen focus on analytical data, we have now
Travel is a high priority for lots of us at Buffer—it’s a bit ingrained in our culture , and it’s always a great experience to see the world and broaden your geographic and cultural horizons . Travel is also the time where it can become a challenge to hang onto go
Not only do we strive for personal improvement every week at Buffer, those of us who work on the blog here get the opportunity to dig into the science of self-improvement in many different areas. Here are a few resources for improvements that might be on your list: • 6 Research-Tested Ways to Improve Your Memory • 8 Ways to Improve Your Morning Routine [http://blog.bufferapp.com/youve-got-25000-mornings-as-an-adult-8-ways
Hi there! This is an out of date post that we’ve kept around for transparency purposes. Go here to view the latest version of this post. Being a distributed team as Buffer is has a few special challenges, many of which we’ve talked about here on the blog. :) Working out our office perks isn’t one we’ve
If you’ve ever tried to work on a few different elements of your life at once (say, exercise, eating well and learning a new language) you’ve probably found that it’s a delicate balancing act. Some days you’re really rocking one category while the other takes a backseat. Some days all are making incremental progress. And some amazing days, you make big strides in all your areas of change. Self-improvement can be like one big game of Whack-a-Mole that
How would you like everyone on your team to see every email that you send? At Buffer, we love it! Our value of transparency extends all the way to the inbox. Every email is public within the team. Every bit of communication gets shared. Everyone knows everything. There are no secrets. If this seems like a radical idea, well, it kind of is. I came from a traditional office environment where email was as standard as it comes: You emailed only those people who needed to know. You cc’ed folks some
Last week we introduced y’all to Buffer’s weekly improvements on the blog for the first time. This week we’ll dive right in to see what each Buffer team member is working on! (We love chatting about each other’s improvements, too. See all of our comments here.) We love hearing your improvement goals, too—tell us about them in the comments so we can c
Hi there! This is an out of date post that we’ve kept around for transparency purposes. Go here to view the latest version of this post. Being part of a remote team has special opportunities and challenges. In this video, hear Joel and Leo talk about how Buffer started remote working, as well as all the different tools we use at Buffer to work closely together even though we’re physically far apart. Want a little more info on those tools? Here’s a deeper look at some of the products and servic
In August 2012, my cofounders and I decided to pull the plug on Fancite, the startup I had been working on for over a year and half. Making that call was one of the toughest things I’ve had to do. Sunil and the C-suite, South Africa The days that followed were highly existential. Initially, I was relieved and excited about doing something new, however as a few days passed my (perceived) reality hit me: “I wasted all that time building something that achieved nothing.” I remember being filled
I’m pretty big on words. As Buffer’s content crafter, I guess that kind of comes with the territory. However, I’m not alone on this . Words are an extremely valuable component to the way we get work done at Buffer. As a distributed team , the words we use in our communication with each other carry extra significance. As a company focused on cultur
The entire Buffer team starts each week fresh with new goals—both work and personal. One of Buffer’s 10 values is a focus on self-improvement, and it’s a lot of fun to share our personal improvement goals and cheer each other on each week with our daily pair calls . Improvement goals can be almost anything, from exercise and eating better to home projects to learning a new language to listening more. Since we
Anne Isabelle Ritchie coined a concept in the 1880s that we still use today. Modernized, it is: “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; show him how to catch fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.” The conventional wisdom is that it’s always preferable to teach someone how to fish. However, the Buffer support team has been thinking about this concept a lot lately. We’re learning that often there is a huge market for skipping the lesson completely. This can be a stretch for tech supp
The internet is not lacking tales of all-night coding sessions. Or non-stop, no-time-for-weekends crunch periods at critical and not-so-critical times. So, it would seems to be the case that it is possible to program constantly, only taking breaks for as long as it takes to answer a call of nature or maybe scarf down a pizza. Which is really strange to me. I feel like I have never been as productive as I have been since starting at Buffer . And yet, I have never spent
In August 2012, my cofounders and I decided to pull the plug on Fancite , the startup I had been working on for over a year and half. Making that call was one of the toughest things I’ve had to do. The days that followed were highly existential. Initially, I was relieved and excited about doing something new, however as a few days passed my (perceived) reality hit me: “I wasted all that time building somethi
In most industries, including the tech world, “support” is a piteous word. Posts like this one , while written in jest, enforce the stereotype that working in support essentially sucks. We are known for getting abused by ranting, angry customers. We can’t take a day off, because the emails never stop flowing in. We must just be doing this to get trained with the company, right? Well, I’d like to offer a slightly different view
How do we know what features to work on next for Buffer? A few months ago, we had the opportunity to test out a method of investigating which types of social accounts Buffer users would be most interested in using next. Here’s the tool we used to find out which type of account was most-wanted, and how we followed up with everyone who sent us a request. What we did Here’s our current Connect page: The Connect page didn’t always look like this, however. Just a few months ago several of these
Heads up! This is an older post and we’ve since retired the Buffer bootcamp . Feel free to see the latest information here , including all the reasons why we made this change! We’re Retiring The ‘Buffer Bootcamp’ Period For New Teammates – Here’s Why Some call it a trial. Some call it a probationary period. We call it the Buffer Bootcamp. Our intro period fo
One of my favorite “happiness hacks” has been to attempt to remove the word “actually” from my vocabulary. This has been remarkably hard to do, and I still have to struggle not to let it past my lips or fingers. At Buffer , we have found that there is a small band of words that takes away from your message, and “actually” is their leader. It almost doesn’t matter how good the news is; if it comes after “actually,” I feel like I was somehow wrong about something. Con
In August I was given the amazing opportunity to join Buffer as a front-end developer. At that time I was living in Taipei teaching English. Buffer is a distributed company so while I coded for them I was able to continue teaching. At the end of October, I left my teaching job because I just couldn’t do both jobs for much longer. It left me exhausted with no time for side-projects.
Hi there! This is an older post that we’ve kept around for transparency but that means that sometimes the information is no longer accurate. Head to our homepage to view our most recent posts. For me, one of the most exciting parts of the culture we’ve developed at Buffer is our international retreats. Three times a year (for now) we gather the whole company together. Previously, we took a team of 10 to Thailand and we’ve just returned fr
