Everyone has their preferred method of communication, which they tend to overuse at the cost of other methods. At MySQL AB, email was preferred in many situations where picking up the phone would have saved loads of work, frustration and distractions. SkySQL Ab as a company is equally distributed across continents and time zones. Not surprisingly, we have inherited some of MySQL's bad habits, and created a set of new habits, good and bad. The purpose of this write-up is to take a step back and reflect upon which tool fits which purpose, focusing on a virtual company with colleagues spanning many time zones.

The matter of how to collaborate and communicate has more aspects to it than merely thinking about alternatives to