[lifeisstillgood]

I only know the Oakland As after watching Moneyball (recommend it for post midnight slumping), but yes I have a couple of rules for mixed culture teams

1. Writing is best first. Skype is great but really unless English your first language communication with words is easier, because you can take your time and point to code

2. Polite is vital

3. Encourage the weakest communicators This is generally true anyway, but the isolation that can accrue from not being able to make yourself understood a thousand miles away can become crippling to a otherwise useful team member

4. Kiss - keep it simple - everything needs to be simple

5. Pair up - no not pair programming although that's useful but have a "liason" for each remote person at the head office. This way there is a good link for catching misunderstandings etc

6. Be wary of jokes

7. On simplicity - this usually gets difficult when the requirements are not clear - if it's hard to feet a good programmer with bad English to understand what you want the fault is probably in the requirements not the programmer

to be fair that last rule has never failed me with any developer who has enough English to hold a conversation about their favourite sports team. Which is not much really.