4 ms·

Email is crap for many types of workflows that Slack excels in.

toomuchtodo 8y ago
It’s too bad most of those workflows don’t apply to business use cases. Is it a chat client? A knowledge base? A conference call? A command line? Who knows!
- tomnipotent 8y ago
  > It’s too bad most of those workflows don’t apply to business use cases. Which is totally why Slack isn't popular with businesses. /s Just because you personally haven't found it useful, doesn't mean hundreds of thousands of other business users haven't.
  - emodendroket 8y ago
    Businesses pay for a lot of stuff that doesn't work. Simply saying everyone else is doing it is not necessarily convincing.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
prlambert 8y ago
I'm curious as to how that breaks down? Which kind of workflows are best in email, which in Slack?
- sequoia 8y ago
  _This_ is the 64 thousand dollar question that no one seems to have a clear answer to, and leaves people frustrated with both email and slack. I tried emailing longer form things at my current job and rapidly hit a cultural wall: people _do not like_ getting long emails, or emails with more than 1 or 2 replies. Slack people apparently have no problem with because it's "lighter weight", but I struggle to see how always-on disruption is lighter weight than check-it-a-couple-times-per-day email. I think a deeper problem is lack of delineation of responsibility and adequate planning. Slack & other "always on" communication systems make it easy to say "why plan? I can _just ask_ when I need to know something" or "we'll have a conversation" rather than specifying & recording or relying on a more rigid interface like a ticketing system. tl;dr: get off my lawn you dang kids!!
- dasil003 8y ago
  Featured specifications work better in email, live debugging/forensics work better in Slack.
  - kasey_junk 8y ago
    Featured specifications work better in source control...
    - u801e 8y ago
      You can have both with git format-patch/git send-email and git am :)
worldsayshi 8y ago
Email is crap because there is no agreed on way to structure old and new content, quotes, references and links, everyone insists on bloating with html signatures and crap that isn't part of the discussion. Additionally, all this bloat and lack of structure makes it hard to search the text for both humans and machines. Not saying that Slack is better, it addresses some of the structuring and some bloat problems, but adds distraction and encourage discussion bloat instead.

It’s too bad most of those workflows don’t apply to business use cases. Is it a chat client? A knowledge base? A conference call? A command line? Who knows!

tomnipotent 8y ago
> It’s too bad most of those workflows don’t apply to business use cases. Which is totally why Slack isn't popular with businesses. /s Just because you personally haven't found it useful, doesn't mean hundreds of thousands of other business users haven't.
- emodendroket 8y ago
  Businesses pay for a lot of stuff that doesn't work. Simply saying everyone else is doing it is not necessarily convincing.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]

prlambert 8y ago

I'm curious as to how that breaks down? Which kind of workflows are best in email, which in Slack?

sequoia 8y ago
_This_ is the 64 thousand dollar question that no one seems to have a clear answer to, and leaves people frustrated with both email and slack. I tried emailing longer form things at my current job and rapidly hit a cultural wall: people _do not like_ getting long emails, or emails with more than 1 or 2 replies. Slack people apparently have no problem with because it's "lighter weight", but I struggle to see how always-on disruption is lighter weight than check-it-a-couple-times-per-day email. I think a deeper problem is lack of delineation of responsibility and adequate planning. Slack & other "always on" communication systems make it easy to say "why plan? I can _just ask_ when I need to know something" or "we'll have a conversation" rather than specifying & recording or relying on a more rigid interface like a ticketing system. tl;dr: get off my lawn you dang kids!!
dasil003 8y ago
Featured specifications work better in email, live debugging/forensics work better in Slack.
- kasey_junk 8y ago
  Featured specifications work better in source control...
  - u801e 8y ago
    You can have both with git format-patch/git send-email and git am :)

worldsayshi 8y ago

Email is crap because there is no agreed on way to structure old and new content, quotes, references and links, everyone insists on bloating with html signatures and crap that isn't part of the discussion. Additionally, all this bloat and lack of structure makes it hard to search the text for both humans and machines. Not saying that Slack is better, it addresses some of the structuring and some bloat problems, but adds distraction and encourage discussion bloat instead.