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It seems every "how to do Slack right" post emphasizes that you shouldn't use Slack as a chat service. Well that's what it is. Why not use email for the beefier

It seems every "how to do Slack right" post emphasizes that you shouldn't use Slack as a chat service. Well that's what it is. Why not use email for the beefier conversations that don't need to take place right away, and use chat for what it was intended? Chat is great for the occasional situation where you want to have a conversation about something, you'll have a bunch of short messages back and forth, and you want to keep a record of the conversation. Putting other stuff in there just clutters things up. Slack is a great replacement for Reply All with 20 email addresses. It's not so good as a replacement for other things.

jasode 8y ago
>It seems every "how to do Slack right" post emphasizes that you shouldn't use Slack as a chat service. Maybe other posts devolve to that but this post is different. The common repeating pattern he's pointing out is others misusing it for low-quality communication and suggesting some settings to get some sanity back. It's similar to previous advice about old technologies that others misuse where you had to counteract it with tactics to gain productivty. E.g. Phones - turn off ringer and manage voice mail. Email - set automatic category/priority/junk filters.
- bachmeier 8y ago
  The author says: "It’s very easy to overuse DMs and see Slack as a real-time chat." "We encourage people to be mindful about notifications. No DM is so important that it can’t wait half an hour. In fact, I see this still underused. Slack has a Do Not Disturb feature and Atlassian’s HipChat successor, Stride, made this one of its cornerstones, which they refer to a “Focus Mode.” If something is really urgent, people will call you on your phone. Everything else can wait a bit. Uninterrupted time is important — don’t let Slack take that away from you because someone is bored and asks you how your day is." To be clear, the author does say that you should sometimes consider sending an email. My point is that the emphasis is on using Slack as something other than chat, but that's really its main use case.
  - jasode 8y ago
    >My point is that the emphasis is on using Slack as something other than chat, but that's really its main use case. I see what you mean. I think of 2 styles of "chat" ... (1) a vacuous AOL AIM or Facebook Messenger style chat or (2) a business-related channel chat. The (1) is replicated in Slack by abuse of DMs. However, the author didn't seem to be discouraging (2). (Author wrote at the top, "but ultimately, we decided we want to keep using Slack.") What happens is many workers bring a casual "Facebook chat" etiquette to Slack which negates how meaningful business chat can work. That's why I didn't think the author wrote contradictory advice. (Similar to how the advice to turn off the phone ringer is not contradictory to the power of voice calls -- because sometimes one needs uninterrupted time.)
jorams 8y ago
> It seems every "how to do Slack right" post emphasizes that you shouldn't use Slack as a chat service. I think these posts tend to emphasize that you should use Slack more like IRC. IRC is generally treated as asynchronous. Channels have tens, hundreds or thousands of people idling in them, and you can talk to those people, but you don't know when they'll talk back. Those messages may turn into real time conversations very easily, but they don't have to. That's also why channels are so important. You can ask a bunch of people with knowledge on the topic a question, and someone will probably respond somewhat soon. And if they take a while, you should be right there idling to receive answers even while you aren't available.

jasode 8y ago

>It seems every "how to do Slack right" post emphasizes that you shouldn't use Slack as a chat service. Maybe other posts devolve to that but this post is different. The common repeating pattern he's pointing out is others misusing it for low-quality communication and suggesting some settings to get some sanity back. It's similar to previous advice about old technologies that others misuse where you had to counteract it with tactics to gain productivty. E.g. Phones - turn off ringer and manage voice mail. Email - set automatic category/priority/junk filters.

bachmeier 8y ago
The author says: "It’s very easy to overuse DMs and see Slack as a real-time chat." "We encourage people to be mindful about notifications. No DM is so important that it can’t wait half an hour. In fact, I see this still underused. Slack has a Do Not Disturb feature and Atlassian’s HipChat successor, Stride, made this one of its cornerstones, which they refer to a “Focus Mode.” If something is really urgent, people will call you on your phone. Everything else can wait a bit. Uninterrupted time is important — don’t let Slack take that away from you because someone is bored and asks you how your day is." To be clear, the author does say that you should sometimes consider sending an email. My point is that the emphasis is on using Slack as something other than chat, but that's really its main use case.
- jasode 8y ago
  >My point is that the emphasis is on using Slack as something other than chat, but that's really its main use case. I see what you mean. I think of 2 styles of "chat" ... (1) a vacuous AOL AIM or Facebook Messenger style chat or (2) a business-related channel chat. The (1) is replicated in Slack by abuse of DMs. However, the author didn't seem to be discouraging (2). (Author wrote at the top, "but ultimately, we decided we want to keep using Slack.") What happens is many workers bring a casual "Facebook chat" etiquette to Slack which negates how meaningful business chat can work. That's why I didn't think the author wrote contradictory advice. (Similar to how the advice to turn off the phone ringer is not contradictory to the power of voice calls -- because sometimes one needs uninterrupted time.)

jorams 8y ago

> It seems every "how to do Slack right" post emphasizes that you shouldn't use Slack as a chat service. I think these posts tend to emphasize that you should use Slack more like IRC. IRC is generally treated as asynchronous. Channels have tens, hundreds or thousands of people idling in them, and you can talk to those people, but you don't know when they'll talk back. Those messages may turn into real time conversations very easily, but they don't have to. That's also why channels are so important. You can ask a bunch of people with knowledge on the topic a question, and someone will probably respond somewhat soon. And if they take a while, you should be right there idling to receive answers even while you aren't available.