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> I think the problem is that when tools like Slack are engineered in such a way as to make people dependent on their product It's a chat client. It's an addic

by icc97 9y ago

> I think the problem is that when tools like Slack are engineered in such a way as to make people dependent on their product It's a chat client. It's an addictive medium. It sounds to me like you're shooting the messenger. Skype, Hangouts, or any IM client wants your attention. Slack is just a better version of all the other IM clients I've used (for work). If you don't want to be disturbed you close Slack. I suspect that if you've got problems with Slack, it means that there's a problem in the culture of where you work. Where I work, individual @ mentions are barely used, maybe 0-5 per day. But there's nothing that's written in stone, or ever been discussed, it's just that colleagues respect each other's focus. Then the rest is less important that all can be ignored unless you're not concentrating on something.

arbie 9y ago
> Where I work, individual @ mentions are barely used, maybe 0-5 per day Does that strike you as low, or about the normal expected amount?
acranox 9y ago
It can be a little of both. > I suspect that if you've got problems with Slack, it means that there's a problem in the culture of where you work. One can work somewhere that has a problem in the culture, and Slack can make that worse. It's been interesting to me to observe when my company changed from hipchat to slack, my productivity went down until I recognized how slack was messing me up (because of the default UI patterns it came with) and I've had to unwind that by changing a bunch of settings and patterns. It's been a similar change when I moved from a company that used email and tickets for team communication, to one that uses chat. Yes, the culture if the heart of the problems, but the tools can amplify those problems. It's like if you can't cut a piece of wood effectively with a handsaw, but I give you a power saw, you may soon have much bigger problems on your hands. (or hand, if you really mess it up)

by icc97 9y ago

arbie 9y ago

> Where I work, individual @ mentions are barely used, maybe 0-5 per day Does that strike you as low, or about the normal expected amount?

acranox 9y ago

It can be a little of both. > I suspect that if you've got problems with Slack, it means that there's a problem in the culture of where you work. One can work somewhere that has a problem in the culture, and Slack can make that worse. It's been interesting to me to observe when my company changed from hipchat to slack, my productivity went down until I recognized how slack was messing me up (because of the default UI patterns it came with) and I've had to unwind that by changing a bunch of settings and patterns. It's been a similar change when I moved from a company that used email and tickets for team communication, to one that uses chat. Yes, the culture if the heart of the problems, but the tools can amplify those problems. It's like if you can't cut a piece of wood effectively with a handsaw, but I give you a power saw, you may soon have much bigger problems on your hands. (or hand, if you really mess it up)