Update rythms.md

src/content/handbook/culture/rythms.md

@@ -3,25 +3,53 @@ title: "Rhythms"
 sidebar:
   label: Rhythms
   order: 1
-updatedDate: Nov 13, 2025
+updatedDate: Dec 26, 2025
 authors: jacob
 meta:
-  title: "Datum Company Rhythms & Meeting Cadence"
+  title: "Datum Company Rhythms & Rituals"
   description: "The heartbeat of Datum. Discover the communication cycles and rituals that keep our distributed team aligned, from 1:1s to company-wide all-hands."
 ---
 
-Datum is an early stage startup, working to find its way to users, customers, and world-changing outcomes. While some people absolutely love the dynamic, iterative nature of “zero to one” companies, we recognize that it isn’t for everyone. This is an especially tricky balance in the infrastructure and network layers, where stability is part of the promise.
+Datum is an early stage startup, working to find its way to users, customers, and world-changing outcomes. While some people absolutely love the iterative nature of “zero to one” companies, we recognize that it isn’t for everyone. This is an especially tricky balance in the infrastructure and network layers, where stability is core to the product promise.
 
-In addition to understanding our small size and big ambitions, it’s important that everyone working at Datum understands our core values, goals, and strategy. This is the “why” that not only gets us out of bed on a rainy day, but helps us keep our compass pointed in the right direction when things get tough. 
+In addition to understanding our small size and big ambitions, it’s important that everyone working at Datum understands our [core values](https://www.datum.net/handbook/about/purpose/), goals, and [strategy](https://www.datum.net/handbook/about/strategy/). This is the “why” that not only gets us out of bed on a rainy day, but helps us keep our compass pointed in the right direction when things get tough. Here are some of our key rhythms that keep us grounded:
 
-Many of our operating norms (including this focus on values) are based on the [Entrepreneurial Operating System](https://www.eosworldwide.com/what-is-eos) framework created by Gino Wickman. This is especially true for our leadership team and how we set goals for the company. Here is a summary:
+<h3>Weekly</h3>
 
-* Annual - The most important part of the cycle is the annual planning cycle where we take two full days to dig deep into everything that drives our company forward. We start with a review of our values and 10-year target, and then work our way backwards into annual and Q1 goals. It’s an intense but critical few days.
+* **All Hands / Kickoff** - A Monday morning ritual to help kickstart the week that combines company-wide updates (e.g. scorecard, hiring, customer headlines) with tactical standup-style unblocking.
 
-* Quarterly - The 90 day cycle is our main goal setting process, and we use “Rocks” to track the key, critical things that we commit to doing at the expense of other things. This method of planning using the rocks, pebbles, sand concept.
+* **Lowkey Wed & Fri** - We limit internal and external meetings on Wednesday to allow for real, deep work. Due to the global nature of our team (US, UK, Indonesia) Fridays also tend to be meeting light.
 
-* Monthly - We are religious about using the end of each month to reflect on our performance via a written memo, including financial and key metrics that all employees can see. This process aligns with “closing the books” and communicating out to our investors and other stakeholders, and is a springboard for our monthly customer newsletter, monthly releases, and community huddles. 
+* **Leadership L10** - A formal 90 minute “Level 10” meeting in which the leadership team works on the business. Same time and agenda each week. [Check out the agenda](https://www.eosworldwide.com/blog/the-level-10-meeting), it’s really useful.
 
-* Weekly - We find that a Monday “kickoff” with the whole team helps set the tone and refocus folks after a weekend. This is a great time to review our forward-looking metrics (called a Scorecard) and celebrate wins. Friday “sendoffs” are done via email.
+<h3>Monthly</h3>
 
-Outside of the prescriptive framework of EOS at the leadership level, we encourage folks to organize in the way that is most productive and suited to their work. Ad hoc debates are always appreciated and encouraged, and hierarchy is discouraged.
+* **Releases** - We ship software all the time, but we bundle everything up into monthly releases that culminate on the last Friday of each month. This rhythm helps us plan, drives clarity across the team and allows for non-code work like documentation, demos, Q/A, and communications that are dependent on how the product evolves. Expect changelogs around this time!
+
+* **Close the Books** - This is a critical function in the business that largely takes place behind the scenes. We work to close the books within the first few days of the new month.
+
+* **Business Memo** - Alongside closing the books we take the time to write down our thoughts about the business. We recap the most important work by function (including progress on our quarterly rocks), highlight new or departing teammates, call out things that we’re struggling with or knocking out the park, and summarize key metrics and financials. This is shared with investors as well as all employees. It's also super useful down the road when you need to bring potential employees or investors into the journey.
+
+* **Email Newsletter** - By the 2nd week of the month we’re focused on being in touch with users, customers and partners. While content is released throughout the month, we see our monthly newsletter as a key moment to   
+
+* **Community Huddle** - Finally, we gather with our community for a virtual meetup that often includes guest speakers. The purpose of the session is to drive transparency while bringing key decisions, tech bets, or early demos into the public forum. 
+
+<h3>Quarterly</h3>
+
+* **Leadership Offsite** - We use these one day sessions to close out the previous quarter’s rocks, deep dive on key issues, and align on the next quarter’s rocks. 
+
+* **Investor & Advisor Check Ins** - After we’ve had a chance to socialize our new quarterly rocks and soak in feedback from the team, we gather with our investors and key advisors for a half day session. As we are fortunate to have a lot of investors, monthly syncs with each stakeholder aren’t really possible (although there are lots of WhatsApp, Slack, Signal and text threads).
+
+* **Board Meetings** - Our board is currently quite small, but it’s critical from a governance perspective to treat board meetings as part of the culture. From past experience, this is an especially critical forum that can involve socializing as well as tactical or strategic business. 
+
+<h3>Semi-Annual</h3>
+
+* **Momentum Events** - LIke many companies, we aim for both a Spring and a Fall moment where we can bundle up our biggest announcements and attract a bit more attention. It’s also a huge driver of our thorniest work, helping us “write the press release” early in the cycle and aim towards a specific date.   
+
+<h3>Annual</h3>
+
+* **EOS Annual** - One of the more important sessions of the year is our EOS Annual offsite. We gather in NYC (our HQ and home base) and spend two full days closing out both Q4 and the year, and charting the course for the year and Q1 ahead. This is also a moment to review each part of the EOS toolset, especially our V/TO.
+
+* **NYC Holiday Party** - For 15 years we’ve hosted a party in early December with local infrastructure friends and partners. At various times called the Voxel party, the Downtown NYC Infra Party, the Packet Party, or the Datum & Friends Party, it’s a great chance to reconnect with some of the people who have inspired and supported us over the long haul.
+
+* **December Shut Down** - Once the Christmas holiday rolls around, it’s time to take a break. While we can never stop running a 24/7 platform, we shut everything we can down until after the New Year.