11–20 of 162 posts
I still have Slack, mainly because I like the #github channel that has all the GitHub activity, and the #industrynews channel, which has a bunch of RSS feeds of industry specific news. But those could be easily replaced with google groups/basecamp too.
Maybe I will just shut down the Slack...
I guess it's not suitable for every team though.
When I was at a fully local company, slack was good for conversations where a few people might be actively discussing an issue and then I could come in hours later and skim the history, if it was a channel I felt relevant to be aware of. But slack was also super easy to use wrongly and drain so much time into. It really helped to declare slack a lossy source of comms. You shall not expect people to read it and you sh…
It drives me crazy when people send mass company emails with, for example, new policy or forms attached, and don't post them elsewhere. New hires only see them if someone remembers they exist and forwards them, plus it's impossible to figure out current state without spending a bunch of time playing email archeologist.
Slack makes this very difficult and at least for me, is a primary cause of anxiety and fear of missing out I unironically wonder how widespread this problem is among the specific group of people who blame their lack of productivity on Slack, or failing that, how many people would admit their FOMO is enhanced by chat apps. So many of the "productivity killing" problems I hear people griping about with Slack aren't rea…
They're not specific to Slack, but they are specific to the existence of an official real time chat app. The boss expects you to read the chat, and if you just ignore it, you'll get in trouble and be deemed "irresponsible" if you aren't acting on it and participating in it.
Personally, I really like Slack. It's just really useful as a centralized communication place, especially since it integrates with almost every SaaS platform under the sun. I guess it's not suitable for every team though.
- Dozens of people in every room having multiple conversations, and any comment you make is quickly lost in the flow of other discussions.
- Ghost town.
I can understand the frustration with Slack but the comment about large companies using it doesn’t have much ground. I’m at a 3000+ employee company and slack works great for us. I think that one thing that has helped many people is to remember that you never have to reply immediately. Also, if you’re a stakeholder on something, then a final decision should not be made without your input. I’m sure that if you limit y…
Yeah, but you have to check immediately, unless you have immense willpower. And so the distraction is already made, the focus is lost, and the time spent switching contexts can't be recovered.
Good luck finding out about free food in the office without Slack.
When I was at a fully local company, slack was good for conversations where a few people might be actively discussing an issue and then I could come in hours later and skim the history, if it was a channel I felt relevant to be aware of. But slack was also super easy to use wrongly and drain so much time into. It really helped to declare slack a lossy source of comms. You shall not expect people to read it and you sh…
Almost agree, but email should also be treated as lossy. It drives me crazy when people send mass company emails with, for example, new policy or forms attached, and don't post them elsewhere. New hires only see them if someone remembers they exist and forwards them, plus it's impossible to figure out current state without spending a bunch of time playing email archeologist.
I have no affiliation with the company/team, but love the product so much that I want to share it here!
The whole idea behind Twist is to be a team communication that doesn't have the productivity issues Slack does. I think it's a very well positioned and timed product.
We've been using it for months at our startup, Canny. Threads are a useful level of organization, such that it's always easy to find what I'm looking for. However, I don't feel like I need to check it constantly.
Personally, I really like Slack. It's just really useful as a centralized communication place, especially since it integrates with almost every SaaS platform under the sun. I guess it's not suitable for every team though.
This is the key probably. I can understand it doesn't work the way the author used it but personally I'm fairly happy with it (not to say it's the best, it's just one of the chat apps which mostly just works) and don't use all bells and whistles.
We use slack for 2 main things, 1 is chatty stuff which doesn't go to the issue tracker which has the important stuff which still needs to be there in a year (seems the OP had like everything in Slack, probably a source of problems mentioned) and due to me being a freelancer at that company it's perfectly normal I don't answer in a day or more. We learned to use it like that so no FOMO going on. The other use is as a 'dev/ci status channel' which is only viewed at passively: it gets all build info, PR/issue notifications etc which is a great overview, for us at least.