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Easy to say Slack, JIRA, Trello suck, but what are the alternatives? I used IRC at two 1000 person companies. It was useful, but didn't replace email like slack
by edwong 9y ago
Easy to say Slack, JIRA, Trello suck, but what are the alternatives? I used IRC at two 1000 person companies. It was useful, but didn't replace email like slack does now. Likely due to lack of persistence, absence on phones and hard to setup integrations.
Echoing a lot of the comments, you can blame tools for altering the culture. Phones disrupted memos, email ended vacuum tube delivery, computers killed the file cabinet. Slack is a reflection of our short attention spans. No one wants to read long emails. People need an easy way to message and get notified on all screens. People pass screen shots across their devices. It solves problems. I've seen people who abuse @mentions and @here, but ultimately you develop filters and need to take responsibility for one's own workflow.
I do hear how Slack isn't good at making organizational events searchable and good at archiving in corporate memory. Problem space is: need to search, recall, store and archive better. Maybe tools to record this into some record or doc, (i.e. readthedocs). You can argue Facebook/Yammer style status posts is a better way to broadcast and save announcements. Slack can innovate on UX, but they seeme focused on growth and quality of service. They're not looking to solve small issues at this time.
- krick 9y agoThis isn't really about Slack, it's about the whole paradigm. Maybe it's even OPs fault that he phrases it this way, but anyhow, if it really would be about Slack it would imply that something like Facebook Workplace is any better, but in reality it's infinitely worse on about every possible aspect and beyond. Even by OPs own metrics. So it's more about how "emails would be better", and surely not about "how to replace them". Not sure if I agree or disagree though.
- sundvor 9y agoHad Workplace in my last job, just started a new one which uses Slack. I do not in any shape or form miss Workplace. It was sucking my attention dry, blocking meant I'd lose out on things that actually matter. With Slack it's super easy to set notifications to null except for eg mentions or important groups - and can even have different defaults for mobile vs desktop.
- krick 9y agoYes, it's horrible. I actually do set all notifications off, which is borderline rude and arrogant of me, but otherwise my "working hours" would be pretty much pointless. For me, actually, the worst part is the shittiest chat app I've ever seen bar none, especially on desktop. There's no decent app for Linux, browser app is slow, buggy and constantly leaks memory, the most basic features that, I'd think are mandatory for any modern chat-app are missing, UI just totally sucks. It's hard to imagine someone could make an IM-app so bad by chance.
- kesor 9y ago“If you can’t dance, don’t blame (it on) the (dance) floor”
- alphaalpha101 9y ago> Slack is a reflection of our short attention spans. No one wants to read long emails. Speak for yourself. I don't have a short attention span, at the job I just left everyone on my team was more than capable of reading and writing longer form communication. We also posted '@here nachos' in #what-is-for-lunch. That didn't stop us from getting work done, nor did it have anything to do with our attention spans.