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Can Slack-mania be cured with systemized discipline?

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Re: Can Slack-mania be cured with systemized discipline?

#41

Post by munchbunny »

My main gripe with so much of the communication moving to Slack is that a lot of highly technical discussion moves into synchronous chat, and that removes the expectation which email often carried that the author spends time organizing their thoughts into clear linear writing.

Of course emails don't always come out coherently either, but my personal experience has been that moving into the streamed sentences model overall reduces the amount of effort put into organizing thoughts before communicating.

Re: Can Slack-mania be cured with systemized discipline?

#42

Post by xwdv »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #12

> For the next five years I operated in “Slack culture”, the communication paradigm that I suspect is in use by many companies these days. Email inboxes were more or less reserved for broadcasts from exec and HR along with JIRA spam. Everything else happens on Slack. This is the real problem, IMO. Slack shouldn't be replacing e-mail or meetings or phone calls. It's great for impromptu discussions with a lot of back-a…

> Slack shouldn't be replacing e-mail or meetings or phone calls.

Absolutely wrong. We use Slack messaging and huddles to replace these things and are a more efficient workplace because of it. Really this is the point of Slack.

I have no desire to go back to the throat clearing and careful writing that comes with composing emails or wasting time in unfocused real-time meetings and phone calls that could have just been handled through a few async messages on slack. If a co-worker sent me an email (which no one ever really does) I would ignore it until they message me on Slack about it.

On top of that, Slack apps really decrease cognitive load by putting useful information into conversations or providing good prompts to start discussions from webhook notifications.

Re: Can Slack-mania be cured with systemized discipline?

#43

Post by notreallyserio »

hackandtrip wrote: post #20

To me, it is incredible that Slack is used WITHOUT threads. There is no way that information and discussions can be effective without a threaded conversation - it would just be pure cause otherwise. Also, I find feature-specific channels to be such a pleasure. It's easy to have everyone focused on the same topic in a given channel, without any confusion or missing information between different channels or private mes…

> To me, it is incredible that Slack is used WITHOUT threads.

The first time information you need is sent in a thread that started a week ago and that you're not already on, you'll get why folks don't like Slack threads. They're an anti-feature, IMO.

If Slack offered a way to show all messages whether or not they're in a thread, as they come in, I'd be down. I wouldn't like 'em but at least I could work around their fundamental flaws.

Re: Can Slack-mania be cured with systemized discipline?

#44

Post by rtpg »

To everyone frustrated at this, I would highly recommend checking out Twist. It is "threads-only", and async-by-default. Interface is pretty nice too.

The biggest issue with email is that by default it only goes to the people in the To/CC/BCC list, so information is silod. But so much else about it is _very good_, and I think that Twist gets to most of that.

The main issue with Twist preventing professional adoption for me is lack of custom emoji support. Especially in full-remote land, custom emojis help with building a fun internal corp. culture, and serve as a way to ad-hoc workflows as well. Twist, add custom emoji you cowards!

https://twist.com/slack-alternative

(EDIT: to those who roll their eyes at "fun corp culture", not talking about dancing parrots, just like stuff like our own corp logo or little stamps to say something is done and the like)

Re: Can Slack-mania be cured with systemized discipline?

#46

Post by rootusrootus »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #12

> For the next five years I operated in “Slack culture”, the communication paradigm that I suspect is in use by many companies these days. Email inboxes were more or less reserved for broadcasts from exec and HR along with JIRA spam. Everything else happens on Slack. This is the real problem, IMO. Slack shouldn't be replacing e-mail or meetings or phone calls. It's great for impromptu discussions with a lot of back-a…

> Don't be afraid to schedule a synchronous communication session in whatever flavor you prefer.

That is its own separate problem. Constant distraction in Slack, followed closely by Zoom call hell because you didn't respond fast enough in Slack and wouldn't it just be faster if we all got on a call?

If we're going to leverage the power of remote work, part of that is re-learning how to do effective asynchronous communication and not succumbing to interruptions just because it's so easy to inflict them.

Re: Can Slack-mania be cured with systemized discipline?

#47

Post by philip1209 »

I'm tired of constant chatting.

Slack encourages quick, stream-of-consciousness, short responses. Plus, it's hard to find past discussion, and it's hard to jump in after being gone for a few days (or, even a few hours).

Threads are absolutely the answer. But, the defaults matter - Slack isn't encouraging threaded, long-form messages. Instead, it makes all messages feel urgent - and it makes the cost of sending a message way too cheap.

I'm on a mission to bring back forums, where threading is the default. Inspired by YC's Bookface software, I'm working on a project to make forums as slick as Slack or Notion [1]. I think that long-form discussions and slow notifications are the key to bringing sanity back to discussions. And, I think the key is one amazing email summary per day - and few (if any) other notifications.

If you're interested in this problem - please reach out!

[1] https://booklet.group

Re: Can Slack-mania be cured with systemized discipline?

#48

Post by kibwen »

> A practice that was already in place was one of diligent threading – not only was threading encouraged, but by strong convention, every topic goes into one. We thread like our lives depend on it.

This is describing Zulip. And indeed, Zulip is excellent. The only downside is that the mandatory-thread paradigm makes it difficult to find the appropriate place to deliberately fuck around, which is also a valid mode of human socialization. But if you want to get work done, use Zulip, not Slack.

Re: Can Slack-mania be cured with systemized discipline?

#49

Post by edgyquant »

philip1209 wrote: post #47

I'm tired of constant chatting. Slack encourages quick, stream-of-consciousness, short responses. Plus, it's hard to find past discussion, and it's hard to jump in after being gone for a few days (or, even a few hours). Threads are absolutely the answer. But, the defaults matter - Slack isn't encouraging threaded, long-form messages. Instead, it makes all messages feel urgent - and it makes the cost of sending a mess…

I’m interested in your idea, bringing what we’ve mastered in chat to the forum, but I don’t want to give my phone number or spin up a forum just to see. Is there an example forum?

Re: Can Slack-mania be cured with systemized discipline?

#50

Post by [deleted] »

philip1209 wrote: post #47

I'm tired of constant chatting. Slack encourages quick, stream-of-consciousness, short responses. Plus, it's hard to find past discussion, and it's hard to jump in after being gone for a few days (or, even a few hours). Threads are absolutely the answer. But, the defaults matter - Slack isn't encouraging threaded, long-form messages. Instead, it makes all messages feel urgent - and it makes the cost of sending a mess…

[deleted]
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