<aside> 👋 You’re visiting Spoke’s Public Handbook. It is a lighter version of our internal handbook and is designed to give you an insight into what life is like at Spoke.
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As a distributed company, time zones inevitably cause confusion and frustration, especially when working with colleagues in other parts of the world.
To minimize the pain, we only use UTC when internally communicating. Whether scheduling meetings, organizing a coffee break, or letting someone know what time you'll be starting that day, you should do so in UTC, regardless of whether the person you're communicating with is in the same timezone as you are.
Using only UTC means you only ever need to know your current UTC offset, not those of your colleagues, and reduces the number of changes throughout the year due to different daylight saving schedules in different regions.
More info on UTC can be found here.
Whilst on occasions it makes sense to have a meeting or a quick call, our default is to async wherever possible.
**Twist -** is a collaboration tool for remote teams, and our main communication tool. We use Twist instead of Slack because it’s designed for asynchronous companies; instead of fast-moving channels and constant chatter, which can create pressure to respond, it organizes conversations into clearly titled threads that stay structured and easy to revisit. This reduces notification fatigue, supports deep work, and creates a more permanent, searchable knowledge base.
**Loom -** Video recording tool that helps us get our message across through instantly shareable videos. We use Loom to stay as async as possible and avoid pointless meetings - using it for things like product updates, company updates, and for adding context to Twist messages to help communicate more nuanced or complex information.