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In two companies where we had piloted Slack, I led successful campaigns to transition away from it. Combining your choice of Email / IM client (Gmail / Hangout

In two companies where we had piloted Slack, I led successful campaigns to transition away from it. Combining your choice of Email / IM client (Gmail / Hangouts or Outlook / Skype) satisfies 99% of use cases for Slack. Overall we were less stressed and didn't miss a beat. I'm sure there are industries / companies working in areas that it makes sense - but I don't think it just works for everyone by default in the same way that IM and Email do.

kerbalspacepro 8y ago
Skype is bad though? Like, I want a near-real time asynchronous messaging system that has all the features a messaging system should have... and you can't get that with Skype/Outlook. The two alone are a pain to use.
- lolsal 8y ago
  Sincere question: How is Skype not a near-real time async messaging system? What features is it missing that 'a messaging system should have'?
  - Kliment 8y ago
    Reliable message delivery, reliable history and history search.
    - charlietango92 8y ago
      can't you history search through outlook under the 'conversation history' folder? (or click the 'see more in outlook' hyperlink on skype.) Although yes, it's not built in to the skype app UI itself. And that would be nice.
      - lostmsu 8y ago
        That renaming Lync -> Skype is still very confusing.
      - isostatic 8y ago
        We have lync as the corporate rubbish system (all corporate systems are rubbish) From what I can see It's pot luck which machine a message will go on The ios client is terrible There's no channels There's no history half the time (if it pops up in webmail for example), if there is, it's client based not server based We also use irccloud and slack, they are actually useful - irccloud from a standards base, slack from an ease of use. I don't understand why people have so many problems with them.
RandallBrown 8y ago
What was stressing you out about slack? How does Email/IM (isn't slack just IM?) solve your problems without causing the same stress?
- s3r3nity 8y ago
  My theory is that the extra entropy / noise / cognitive load of booting up yet another tool when you turn on your computer didn't match the gain in utility (productivity, etc.) For both cases we used Slack, I agree with your assessment in that we used Slack JUST for IM. But if you already have Hangouts / Skype, what's the marginal gain from Slack? As OP points out, initially most people start using it for IM (as this is like muscle memory) but then channels grow, get out of hand, and someone needs to input effort to cut back the entropy. But given the effort that knowledge workers put into email management, calendars, file management, etc. that's already a lot of cognitive load on controlling information entropy on a _daily_ basis. God forbid you work in Sales or something where you're in CRMs all day, and then you need to manage clients / contacts, or a Project Manager ... shit gets heavy quick. And that's all from doing stuff _about_ work, and not really working. Another use case that's more microscopic to me: when searching for information in archives, it's easier / less stressful to have fewer places to search for files or conversations than more. Knowing that I only need to search my emails / IM/ files (or hell - if you use Google, it's ONE SEARCH BOX in Gmail for all of them!) is a tough hurdle to get over when you're trying to sell me Slack (unless you leverage their email add-in and send most of your emails / files to Slack, but that's a hard sell for any team.)
  - cecilpl2 8y ago
    In my company, Slack has replaced email and Skype, so that we have fewer tools to search rather than more. The marginal gain is lightweight group discussion, and the ability to pull people into a conversation that's already in progress. It actually lightens the cognitive load of which you speak by organizing information by topic.
    - s3r3nity 8y ago
      I think that's the best way it can work: it has to replace those other tools, and have buy-in from the group to almost exclusively use Slack.
e40 8y ago
I refuse to use Skype because of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype_security#Eavesdropping_by_design https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype_security#Eavesdropping_b... I also remember a ToS change that allowed MS to listen in for quality control purposes.
- dboreham 8y ago
  Also Skype doesn't really work these days.
- gsich 8y ago
  The same problem exists in Slack, there is no E2E-encryption. And you can't self host it.
  - e40 8y ago
    Agreed. Hopefully they will add this. I'm currently betting on the fact that Slack is small and it's less likely that the NSA has a direct backdoor into their systems. I would bet a lot of money that the NSA has a backdoor directly into MS Skype servers. I even hypothesized that they paid MS to purchase Skype from Ebay, because right after the sale MS changed from peer-to-peer to client-server. Didn't the Snowden leaks say that Skype had been used to track terrorists?
    - gsich 8y ago
      The official reason is that "search would not work", but I don't know if this argument holds. Others can do search too. There is no need to search serverside when you have all messages on the client too. By judging their client application, I doubt the serverside looks much better, so a direct backdoor might not even be needed.
cbron 8y ago
What replaces slack rooms where any user can jump in and out, or search history ? Not group chats or emails. Only IRC comes close.
paulie_a 8y ago
I hate email and according to the 3000+ messages in my inbox I don't bother to even read them anymore. I prefer slack instead of a hodgepodge of various software.
plehoux 8y ago
At Missive, we offer a hybrid approach that merges the silos of both external and internal communication back into one app. https://missiveapp.com/slack-vs-missive https://missiveapp.com/slack-vs-missive (detailed post, with meat) As foreign as chat is to email, mixing them unleashes unforeseen possibilities, like directly referencing customer emails in dev chat conversations discussing feature implementation. Making collaboration between email heavy teams (sales, support) and chat heavy teams (dev) easier. I personally think that using a threaded based UI is more efficient to use than the infinite channel Slack offers even for chat. e.g. Having your Github notifications grouped into different threads based on branches and pull requests all labeled with a Github label.
- s3r3nity 8y ago
  Cool stuff - I'll check it out!

kerbalspacepro 8y ago

Skype is bad though? Like, I want a near-real time asynchronous messaging system that has all the features a messaging system should have... and you can't get that with Skype/Outlook. The two alone are a pain to use.

lolsal 8y ago
Sincere question: How is Skype not a near-real time async messaging system? What features is it missing that 'a messaging system should have'?
- Kliment 8y ago
  Reliable message delivery, reliable history and history search.
  - charlietango92 8y ago
    can't you history search through outlook under the 'conversation history' folder? (or click the 'see more in outlook' hyperlink on skype.) Although yes, it's not built in to the skype app UI itself. And that would be nice.
    - lostmsu 8y ago
      That renaming Lync -> Skype is still very confusing.
    - isostatic 8y ago
      We have lync as the corporate rubbish system (all corporate systems are rubbish) From what I can see It's pot luck which machine a message will go on The ios client is terrible There's no channels There's no history half the time (if it pops up in webmail for example), if there is, it's client based not server based We also use irccloud and slack, they are actually useful - irccloud from a standards base, slack from an ease of use. I don't understand why people have so many problems with them.

RandallBrown 8y ago

What was stressing you out about slack? How does Email/IM (isn't slack just IM?) solve your problems without causing the same stress?

s3r3nity 8y ago
My theory is that the extra entropy / noise / cognitive load of booting up yet another tool when you turn on your computer didn't match the gain in utility (productivity, etc.) For both cases we used Slack, I agree with your assessment in that we used Slack JUST for IM. But if you already have Hangouts / Skype, what's the marginal gain from Slack? As OP points out, initially most people start using it for IM (as this is like muscle memory) but then channels grow, get out of hand, and someone needs to input effort to cut back the entropy. But given the effort that knowledge workers put into email management, calendars, file management, etc. that's already a lot of cognitive load on controlling information entropy on a _daily_ basis. God forbid you work in Sales or something where you're in CRMs all day, and then you need to manage clients / contacts, or a Project Manager ... shit gets heavy quick. And that's all from doing stuff _about_ work, and not really working. Another use case that's more microscopic to me: when searching for information in archives, it's easier / less stressful to have fewer places to search for files or conversations than more. Knowing that I only need to search my emails / IM/ files (or hell - if you use Google, it's ONE SEARCH BOX in Gmail for all of them!) is a tough hurdle to get over when you're trying to sell me Slack (unless you leverage their email add-in and send most of your emails / files to Slack, but that's a hard sell for any team.)
- cecilpl2 8y ago
  In my company, Slack has replaced email and Skype, so that we have fewer tools to search rather than more. The marginal gain is lightweight group discussion, and the ability to pull people into a conversation that's already in progress. It actually lightens the cognitive load of which you speak by organizing information by topic.
  - s3r3nity 8y ago
    I think that's the best way it can work: it has to replace those other tools, and have buy-in from the group to almost exclusively use Slack.

e40 8y ago

I refuse to use Skype because of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype_security#Eavesdropping_by_design https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype_security#Eavesdropping_b... I also remember a ToS change that allowed MS to listen in for quality control purposes.

dboreham 8y ago
Also Skype doesn't really work these days.
gsich 8y ago
The same problem exists in Slack, there is no E2E-encryption. And you can't self host it.
- e40 8y ago
  Agreed. Hopefully they will add this. I'm currently betting on the fact that Slack is small and it's less likely that the NSA has a direct backdoor into their systems. I would bet a lot of money that the NSA has a backdoor directly into MS Skype servers. I even hypothesized that they paid MS to purchase Skype from Ebay, because right after the sale MS changed from peer-to-peer to client-server. Didn't the Snowden leaks say that Skype had been used to track terrorists?
  - gsich 8y ago
    The official reason is that "search would not work", but I don't know if this argument holds. Others can do search too. There is no need to search serverside when you have all messages on the client too. By judging their client application, I doubt the serverside looks much better, so a direct backdoor might not even be needed.

cbron 8y ago

What replaces slack rooms where any user can jump in and out, or search history ? Not group chats or emails. Only IRC comes close.

paulie_a 8y ago

I hate email and according to the 3000+ messages in my inbox I don't bother to even read them anymore. I prefer slack instead of a hodgepodge of various software.

plehoux 8y ago

At Missive, we offer a hybrid approach that merges the silos of both external and internal communication back into one app. https://missiveapp.com/slack-vs-missive https://missiveapp.com/slack-vs-missive (detailed post, with meat) As foreign as chat is to email, mixing them unleashes unforeseen possibilities, like directly referencing customer emails in dev chat conversations discussing feature implementation. Making collaboration between email heavy teams (sales, support) and chat heavy teams (dev) easier. I personally think that using a threaded based UI is more efficient to use than the infinite channel Slack offers even for chat. e.g. Having your Github notifications grouped into different threads based on branches and pull requests all labeled with a Github label.

s3r3nity 8y ago
Cool stuff - I'll check it out!