Culture people actually show up for
A weekly question, a calendar of moments worth marking, and one rule that shapes all of it. Never treat one country as the default.
- Role
- Designer and host
- Tools
- Slack, Claude Project, Google Sheets
- Scope
- Canada, Mexico, Latin America
- Reading time
- 2 minutes
Engagement posts in a distributed company tend to go one of two ways. Nobody answers, or the same five people do.
And when one country’s habits quietly become the default, everyone else ends up a guest at their own company. In a team split roughly evenly between Canada and Mexico, that isn’t a small risk. It’s the main one.
A question every Tuesday
I run a Question of the Day in Slack every Tuesday morning. Instead of writing questions from scratch each week, I went back through the posts that had worked before and pulled out the patterns that made them work. Those became a small set of repeatable mechanics, and a bank of questions planned a full quarter ahead, ready to copy and paste.
What's a dish from home you'd make for a new teammate on their first visit?
Replies in English or Spanish, always welcome.- Host
Starting us off: pancakes from scratch, with far too much syrup. Non-negotiable on a first visit.
- Daniela
Chilaquiles verdes, sin duda. Desayuno perfecto para conocer a alguien.
- Chris
Butter tarts. I will not be taking questions about raisins.
- Valeria
Arepas! I’d teach them to make their own.
A few rules make the difference:
- The host replies first. Nobody wants to be first into an empty thread. The rule is written for the role, not for me, so someone else can cover.
- Seed answers go in the thread, not the post. The question stays short. The example lives in the first reply.
- Callbacks are planned. A question in one month sets up a payoff a few weeks later, so the thread feels like a running conversation, not a series of one-offs.
- Spanish is always welcome. Said once, clearly, and then meant every week.
A calendar of moments worth marking
Recognition and cultural dates had quietly fallen away, so I built a calendar of the ones worth marking and a way to write each post well. Not every day deserves the same tone, so there are three kinds of post.
- Statement For solemn days
Mark the moment with care. No ask, no emoji pile-on.
- Participation For days worth celebrating together
One specific ask, and the host answers first.
- Curiosity For days people think they already understand
Reframe one thing, share two good resources, close warmly. No ask.
Go beyond a post. Bring in a speaker and make it a learning moment, then share two good resources and close warmly. No ask.
This month we are learning together, starting with an hour that will change how you think about history.
One specific ask, posted in English and Spanish, and the host answers first so nobody posts into an empty thread.
Hoy celebramos a las mujeres que hacen de Orium lo que es. Today we celebrate the women who make Orium what it is. Who has shaped your career?
Mark the moment with care and clarity. Point to support and resources. No ask, no emoji pile-on.
This month, and every month, everyone at Orium deserves to be fully themselves at work.
Let the people who celebrate it lead. Ask colleagues to share a tradition, rather than scripting their culture for them.
¿Cómo celebran en tu familia? How does your family celebrate? We would love to hear, in either language.
The biggest ones become more than a post. For Black History Month, we brought in a speaker and turned it into an hour of learning for the whole company. Posts are written in English and Spanish where it matters, and the cross-border rule applies here most of all. Never treat one region as the main audience with the other as an add-on, and ask people about their own traditions rather than scripting their culture into bullet points.
Treating it like an experiment
Every question is tracked in a simple sheet, including reply counts split by region, over a defined live test window. The point isn’t a vanity metric. It’s knowing which mechanics actually get both countries talking, before deciding how to run it next year.
People join in when the host goes first.