How a Remote Project Manager Revolutionized Team Communication by Embracing Risk

OK, um, I recently started working at an agency, uh, that is, the culture is these guys have known each other for a really long time. They have an, uh, in-person office culture where they just sort of like, go and knock on each other's doors and talk about things, um, and I am joining their company remotely, and it's been a little difficult for me to, uh, Have these more nuanced conversations with them or discuss marketing in general, as opposed to specifically with like a particular client or a task related to client needs. Um, and so anyways, I, uh, suggested that we try using Slack or Discord or some kind of, uh, technology like this for being able to have more robust, uh, conversations remotely and, um, The leader of this company was pretty hesitant, uh, to switch and try something new. He really felt quite pleased with to

Right, so, yeah, so they have the in-person interactions, and they also he also uses a Google Chat Hangouts. So we're doing like individual chats, like one on one, which is super useful for knocking out tasks and just quick questions and things like this, but it's not great for kind of like topical um information. And so, I, yeah, so I suggested that we try Slack or something similar. And he was, yeah, a little hesitant, um, and also just didn't really have the time. So, Slack is free. So, I basically just signed up for our company to have an account and he hadn't used it before, so I set it up the way in which I'm familiar with using. It, I set up an email marketing topic, a Shopify topic, uh, a random topic for just talking about, like, fun, uh, things together, uh, topics for each of our clients, um, and I just presented it to him. It was, like, fully finished, and I was able to walk him through exactly how it might work, and he really liked it. And so, um, He, we've, we've slowly begun integrating it into um our communication tools stack, and for me, it's been a huge benefit, uh, to be able to get just more well-rounded, robust conversations going. It's been a lot more fulfilling for me. Do you feel like you made the right decision? Yes, yeah. I feel like it's had a really positive impact, um, on sharing, sharing information and ideas and just making things a little easier, uh, to find. Um, we would use the Google chat, and, uh, Adrian would, for instance, shoot me a message about, like, a specific, uh, number, for instance, and then I would have to try to, like, scroll back to find it, and it was just not an efficient use of time. Uh, so I'm finding it a lot easier to get access to information that I need, uh, from previous discussions.

Uh, they, uh, people have been slowly adapting it. The developer and I have been the primary proponents for using it, as well as the CEO. He's been really taking this on as a challenge. He realizes that it's something that a lot of other companies are using and wanted to get more familiarity himself. Um, and then there are a lot of, there, well, not. A lot. I mean, this is a really small company. There are about 4 other guys in the company who kind of dip in and out. They're, they're more responding to questions or tasks or things that may come through Slack, but they aren't necessarily proactively, um, starting conversations, or, uh, using it to such a degree that maybe I would be even more fulfilling for me. OK.