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Does slack really enable good collaboration? It seems to destroy productivity in every environment I've ever been in. It is the workplace equivalent of Facebook

by kobeya 9y ago

Does slack really enable good collaboration? It seems to destroy productivity in every environment I've ever been in. It is the workplace equivalent of Facebook shitposting. Also, IRC and XMPP servers are cheap.

jomkr 9y ago
IRC is by far and away my favorite method of communication. I'm only 25 so it's not because of a sense of nostalgia. IRC in general is such an under-used resource. Everyone automatically goes to SO, which is fine for trivial problems. They don't realise they could go on IRC and get an answer from the actual dev team of whatever they are having issues with.
mseebach 9y ago
Yes, used right it does. A lot. Sure, you can use it for goofing off, too, so you should have some etiquette in place for which channels are kept serious, which aren't (and can safely have notifications turned off), which announcements warrants @channel or @here or @person and which don't. A company where people who feels that it's OK to put a notification on 2000 devices to say "Good morning" or "Lunch, anyone?" can't be reprimanded is a sick company, with or without Slack. It's important to keep in mind that these etiquettes are the same (or at least very analogues to) the ones that are required for email and especially email lists. A company where everybody puts everybody in the To: line of every email will feel that email is a destructive force, but one that cultivates decent distribution list culture and caution about CC'ing the world or replying to all will feel that it is much more useful.
ehnto 9y ago
Small teams benefit the most I feel, and even then I tend to agree it is very distracting. At an agency with many clients I am in the channel for most of them and only ever working on one any given moment. Muting a channel doesn't work as I still get highlights for my very common name. The trouble is I very often do have insight or help to provide in most discussions as I have been here a while, but I still get assigned a full workload plus constantly helping in Slack. I have taken to closing it for the majority of the day. Honestly couldn't imagine Slack in a corporate environment.
mmahemoff 9y ago
I keep seeing complaints like this with Slack and I think it's because teams need to focus on setting up the right rooms and the right conventions to go with those rooms. Then relentlessly explaining, encouraging, and enforcing them to keep everyone in flow. As one example, to cut down on DMs, each of our team members has their own room where people can "drop in" messages asynchronously. This means there's no notification and no expectation of immediate response, but that's a good thing because we use an agile process where people should be able to focus on their daily goals without distraction anyway. DMs then become a rare & discouraged channel only for emergencies and sensitive conversations.
Akujin 9y ago
I'm using Slack every day in a major corporation of greater than 5000 users. Slack enables communication and discovery within such a large organization. Problem with your mac? Go to #osx-troubleshooting Got an IT problem? Check out #IT Want to discuss an architecture problem with dozens of the smartest people in the entire company? Hop onto #architecture Want to share the 5 extra pies of Pizza you had delivered for an undersized audience? Go to #freefood and watch it disappear. We also use bots to surface data into the chatroom automatically as we're doing something collaborative. It's really quite useful when you setup the correct rules.
danpalmer 9y ago
> Also, IRC and XMPP servers are cheap. This may be the case, but they have a cost to set up and maintain, and for companies that aren't almost all developers there's a significant overhead in terms of teaching people how to use IRC/XMPP. Client software for them is often not written with UX in mind, and with the lack of features like uploads/document embedding, using them can be more difficult.
briandear 9y ago
You have to pay someone to setup and run those servers. Is that the best use of their time? Can’t you also “shitpost” IRC?
IshKebab 9y ago
Come on... you can't even post pictures in IRC.

by kobeya 9y ago

jomkr 9y ago

IRC is by far and away my favorite method of communication. I'm only 25 so it's not because of a sense of nostalgia. IRC in general is such an under-used resource. Everyone automatically goes to SO, which is fine for trivial problems. They don't realise they could go on IRC and get an answer from the actual dev team of whatever they are having issues with.

mseebach 9y ago

Yes, used right it does. A lot. Sure, you can use it for goofing off, too, so you should have some etiquette in place for which channels are kept serious, which aren't (and can safely have notifications turned off), which announcements warrants @channel or @here or @person and which don't. A company where people who feels that it's OK to put a notification on 2000 devices to say "Good morning" or "Lunch, anyone?" can't be reprimanded is a sick company, with or without Slack. It's important to keep in mind that these etiquettes are the same (or at least very analogues to) the ones that are required for email and especially email lists. A company where everybody puts everybody in the To: line of every email will feel that email is a destructive force, but one that cultivates decent distribution list culture and caution about CC'ing the world or replying to all will feel that it is much more useful.

ehnto 9y ago

Small teams benefit the most I feel, and even then I tend to agree it is very distracting. At an agency with many clients I am in the channel for most of them and only ever working on one any given moment. Muting a channel doesn't work as I still get highlights for my very common name. The trouble is I very often do have insight or help to provide in most discussions as I have been here a while, but I still get assigned a full workload plus constantly helping in Slack. I have taken to closing it for the majority of the day. Honestly couldn't imagine Slack in a corporate environment.

mmahemoff 9y ago

I keep seeing complaints like this with Slack and I think it's because teams need to focus on setting up the right rooms and the right conventions to go with those rooms. Then relentlessly explaining, encouraging, and enforcing them to keep everyone in flow. As one example, to cut down on DMs, each of our team members has their own room where people can "drop in" messages asynchronously. This means there's no notification and no expectation of immediate response, but that's a good thing because we use an agile process where people should be able to focus on their daily goals without distraction anyway. DMs then become a rare & discouraged channel only for emergencies and sensitive conversations.

Akujin 9y ago

I'm using Slack every day in a major corporation of greater than 5000 users. Slack enables communication and discovery within such a large organization. Problem with your mac? Go to #osx-troubleshooting Got an IT problem? Check out #IT Want to discuss an architecture problem with dozens of the smartest people in the entire company? Hop onto #architecture Want to share the 5 extra pies of Pizza you had delivered for an undersized audience? Go to #freefood and watch it disappear. We also use bots to surface data into the chatroom automatically as we're doing something collaborative. It's really quite useful when you setup the correct rules.

danpalmer 9y ago

> Also, IRC and XMPP servers are cheap. This may be the case, but they have a cost to set up and maintain, and for companies that aren't almost all developers there's a significant overhead in terms of teaching people how to use IRC/XMPP. Client software for them is often not written with UX in mind, and with the lack of features like uploads/document embedding, using them can be more difficult.

briandear 9y ago

You have to pay someone to setup and run those servers. Is that the best use of their time? Can’t you also “shitpost” IRC?

IshKebab 9y ago

Come on... you can't even post pictures in IRC.