Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Curing Our Slack Addiction

blog.agilebits.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 187 posts

Re: Curing Our Slack Addiction

#51

Post by shadowfiend »

cik2e wrote: post #28

Reading this article was honestly sickening. As I went on I got a growing sense of something horribly wrong with the author/culture of the company. And then these paragraphs all out confirmed my suspicions: > Slack forced me to evaluate things very fast and respond quickly, otherwise I would miss my opportunity to join a conversation before it moved onto something else. > Then there was the fact that we had so many c…

First off, the author acknowledges that it's not the tool's fault. The author specifically indicates that they were aware it was a cultural problem and tried to fix it. The author specifically says that they were hoping to reintegrate slack once they figured out how to do it in a more healthy fashion.

Your comment, on the other hand, passes quick, merciless judgement on a culture you have exactly one blog post's worth of insight into… Unaided by the benefit of a careful reading of that post's content.

> Reading this article was honestly sickening.

Judge not lest ye be judged, I would say.

Re: Curing Our Slack Addiction

#52

Post by mgpc »

EGreg wrote: post #34

I think the key takeaway is this: And even if we had been successful in changing people’s behaviour, the lack of threading made it very difficult to have meaningful, deep conversations about complex subjects anyway. Before you could even fully understand the problem being discussed (let alone find a solution), someone would invariably start a new conversation or reply to a previous discussion that happened earlier in…

What you're describing is called email. Seriously - it is exactly this, right?

Re: Curing Our Slack Addiction

#53

Post by dingo_bat »

tootie wrote: post #12

I love electronic communication and Slack in particular. For a distributed team, it's an absolute must that every important chat happen on Slack. Stuff spoken in person is imprecise, secretive and easily forgotten. Slack is clear, persistent, and public. Everyone is on the same page. I too feel the need to read every conversation, but compare that to having those conversations just happening without my knowledge. The…

>Stuff spoken in person is imprecise, secretive and easily forgotten. Slack is clear, persistent, and public.

I don't get how verbal stuff is imprecise but slack is clear. I find it to be the opposite. It's much better to have a face-to-face chat or a voice chat than converse in writing. It's more clear and you can get more feedback from the other person. Also, if you need to be more precise, you can just write stuff on a board/notepad/chat while talking.

Re: Curing Our Slack Addiction

#54

Post by Alex3917 »

ramoq wrote: post #38
cik2e wrote: post #28

Reading this article was honestly sickening. As I went on I got a growing sense of something horribly wrong with the author/culture of the company. And then these paragraphs all out confirmed my suspicions: > Slack forced me to evaluate things very fast and respond quickly, otherwise I would miss my opportunity to join a conversation before it moved onto something else. > Then there was the fact that we had so many c…

I think I'll stick with email from now on.

For what it's worth, last week I asked for help with user testing a couple new features on a startup in three different Slack groups I'm a member of, and also via around 150 cold emails. Response rates were 21x better to the same ask in a cold email versus a Slack message.

And this isn't just a one-off either, I've seen other people report the same thing consistently, where 'conversion' rates in response to even the most basic questions or asks are pretty much zero.

Re: Curing Our Slack Addiction

#55

Post by dingo_bat »

mgpc wrote: post #52
EGreg wrote: post #34

I think the key takeaway is this: And even if we had been successful in changing people’s behaviour, the lack of threading made it very difficult to have meaningful, deep conversations about complex subjects anyway. Before you could even fully understand the problem being discussed (let alone find a solution), someone would invariably start a new conversation or reply to a previous discussion that happened earlier in…

What you're describing is called email. Seriously - it is exactly this, right?

I've always wondered about the viability of an email client that behaves like a chat client. Instant send with the enter key, messages in bubbles, etc. You get all the fun of IM without additional infrastructure or services, and in a standard way too. No walled gardens of different apps.

Re: Curing Our Slack Addiction

#56

Post by cjcenizal »

cik2e wrote: post #28

Reading this article was honestly sickening. As I went on I got a growing sense of something horribly wrong with the author/culture of the company. And then these paragraphs all out confirmed my suspicions: > Slack forced me to evaluate things very fast and respond quickly, otherwise I would miss my opportunity to join a conversation before it moved onto something else. > Then there was the fact that we had so many c…

I agree. For me, the red flag was when the coworker asked him why he was so stressed. If things are working for other people, but not you, then something on your end probably needs to change. To me, it sounds like the author needs to trust his coworkers more. It's OK not to be involved in every decision. Sit back and let people own some things, and save your focus for the things you've decided to own. Everyone will be happier and more productive.

Re: Curing Our Slack Addiction

#57

Post by taytus »

cik2e wrote: post #28

Reading this article was honestly sickening. As I went on I got a growing sense of something horribly wrong with the author/culture of the company. And then these paragraphs all out confirmed my suspicions: > Slack forced me to evaluate things very fast and respond quickly, otherwise I would miss my opportunity to join a conversation before it moved onto something else. > Then there was the fact that we had so many c…

>Reading this article was honestly sickening

Really dude? Why you don't check your tolerance threshold?

Re: Curing Our Slack Addiction

#58

Post by cpeterso »

mr337 wrote: post #17
dorfsmay wrote: post #7

You have to think of slack channels as coworking place and meeting rooms. You need to live mainly in one channel (the equivalent of the physical open office), and go to the other channels when called in, or when you have a bit of down time to check what's going on there. Like the buildings where we used to work, you do not need to visit every room.

I guess the hard part is the self policing the author mentioned. At my employer we are having the same situation. Some ppl are at the point they check Slack 3 times a day, come in, lunch, before end of day.

Self policing doesn't help if other people are making decisions in Slack when you're not online.

Re: Curing Our Slack Addiction

#59

Post by chasb »

EGreg wrote: post #34

I think the key takeaway is this: And even if we had been successful in changing people’s behaviour, the lack of threading made it very difficult to have meaningful, deep conversations about complex subjects anyway. Before you could even fully understand the problem being discussed (let alone find a solution), someone would invariably start a new conversation or reply to a previous discussion that happened earlier in…

Slack plans on introducing threads this year, according to their marketing folks.

Re: Curing Our Slack Addiction

#60

Post by edoceo »

Alex3917 wrote: post #54
ramoq wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I'll stick with email from now on.

For what it's worth, last week I asked for help with user testing a couple new features on a startup in three different Slack groups I'm a member of, and also via around 150 cold emails. Response rates were 21x better to the same ask in a cold email versus a Slack message. And this isn't just a one-off either, I've seen other people report the same thing consistently, where 'conversion' rates in response to even the…

Like IRC vs email. #shocker
Post reply on HN