7 ms·

Unslack: Transform the way your business communicates (again)

55 points by hunvreus 6y ago

wefhi 6y ago
Is this a joke?
- bradwood 6y ago
  If "Synergistic Management Solutions" isn't taking the piss, I don't know what is...
  - qz2 6y ago
    Yeah that sets my bollocks detector off instantly
- dkarp 6y ago
  yes
- antonvs 6y ago
  Look at the businesses that use it: Theranos, WeWork, pets.com
- monsieurgaufre 6y ago
  Also, everyone knows that hexagons are the real bestagons.
mdonahoe 6y ago
Should have called it Tight
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
shusson 6y ago
Teams, teams, teams: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/microsoft-teams/group-chat-software https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/microsoft-team...
stared 6y ago
I hate endless chats. Not matter if it is work or my personal life. If I need to do focused work, I switch off Slack. At the same time, I love emails with long, detailed, well-thought points. So, for my team (after trying quite a few options, with Slack being a no-go), I went for Basecamp. To a large extend, it is email-like, with chat and to-do lists as features (so can be used when needed), not - the core. However - do you know some BC-like tools for community building (edu/gaming)? Discord is considered the go-to solution, but it lacks "posts" for more focused content.
- ajvs 6y ago
  Honestly forums are your best bet. Discourse-based ones are especially popular.
- rkda 6y ago
  Hello fellow Basecamp user Automatic check-ins are the killer feature for me. Nothing like getting the pulse of your team at regular intervals As for your question, my first thought was Discourse. It's a modern day forum. Posts, threads, the whole shebang. Has badges and leaderboards too. https://www.discourse.org/ https://www.discourse.org/ I've heard good things about Twist as well. Though I haven't used it yet. https://twist.com/ https://twist.com/
- yreg 6y ago
  I’m nothing like you. I hate emails, no matter if it is work or my personal life. I don’t like to check, manage and reply to them. I feel anxious when people send them to me. In a team setting I would also hate that the sender, not the recipient decides what they want to read. At the same time I love endless chats (within proper channels). They don’t distract me from my work. I don’t participate when I need to focus and other than that, well the communication is also my work, just as important as writing code. As to your community question, how about a subreddit?
  - stared 6y ago
    A subreddit is another thing I consider. Pro: discussion threads (actual threads, not only linear). Cons: no inline images, and for small/mid-sized communities it can be a ghost town.
kfk 6y ago
I am surprised GitHub project kanbans don’t get more attention. They are easy to setup, great for tracking activities and allow “threaded” discussions inside each issue. Why would you use Slack for your team if you have GitHub with this free option?
- ukz 6y ago
  Good luck convincing non-engineering folks in your org to sign up to GitHub.
  - theklr 6y ago
    ^this. It’s really hard to get non engineers on GitHub at all. designers are the exception
  - verdverm 6y ago
    Why? Make it a requirement and be done with it. People will always resist change but once they are there NBD.
- cvhashim 6y ago
  You can also integrate Zenhub for more features
- verdverm 6y ago
  GitHub discussions are coming out soon (eventually). Like issues, but for discussion
geofft 6y ago
I had some trouble figuring out what it is - it appears to be a Slack-style UI implemented in Google Sheets.
Hackbraten 6y ago
> NHS contract tracing (max 16,384 columns) I see what you did there.
thih9 6y ago
> Bring your team together in the sheets. (Wait, no, not like that) This joke looks unprofessional and inappropriate to me. I’m not sure why it’s on the landing page, especially when the product is about communication in a business context. Edit: ah, it’s a joke product.
- qmmmur 6y ago
  I can't imagine being this prudish. People have sex. It's okay to make jokes and its okay for them to be about real things that happen.
  - thih9 6y ago
    > It's okay to make jokes and its okay for them to be about real things that happen. Yes but not in a business context. Quote from a random law firm: “Sexual jokes are not merely inappropriate in the workplace — they can constitute sexual harassment.” Source: https://www.thearmstronglawfirm.com/sexual-harassment/sexual-harassment-sexual-jokes/ https://www.thearmstronglawfirm.com/sexual-harassment/sexual...
    - qmmmur 6y ago
      Yes except this is a totally indirect statement not directed at you and is not in the slightest sense vulgar, nor is it even real in the sense that a person is saying it to you. I do wonder how you get on with your life if you find yourself facing a potential sexual harassment case over a product you don't have to use.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - dismantlethesun 6y ago
        I don't know. If this were a real product and not a joke, the marketing team would suggest putting sex jokes on the homepage, and probably debate which sex joke would get the the most laughs, and why. They might even end up doing surveys to find out if our sex jokes are too raunchy, or just right. If I worked there, and had to listen to a bunch of guys laughing about sex jokes all day, I'd probably feel awkward and left out---even if none of those jokes were directed at me, and only were said in the context of making customers laugh. Disclaimer: I have worked at companies that sold sex toys, and no one made any sex jokes at work, or in our marketing material.
st1x7 6y ago
The list of company endorsements is a great touch.
st1x7 6y ago
This thread is a great experiment in how seriously HN takes things and how long people think for before they comment.
- bovermyer 6y ago
  No kidding. My first "wait..." moment was when they said it was built on Google Sheets. But to be honest it wasn't confirmed that it was a joke for me until I saw the Blockbuster endorsement.
  - st1x7 6y ago
    Same here. I actually started writing a comment criticizing the branding before I had a good look at the page and realized what's happening.
mattigames 6y ago
The critique against the new Google icons is so spot on, I cant believe they made them so hard to distinguish, I bet some internal design department needed to justify their existence and some $200K designers their salary and creating new icons was the best way to do that.
skytreader 6y ago
In case people can't decide whether this is a joke or not (the businesses using it didn't tell you? didn't make you giggle?), check the creator/investor: https://badunicorn.vc/ https://badunicorn.vc/ :) Part of me was hoping this was actually implemented though rather than just a silly concept with a catchy landing page. Maybe a hack in the spirit of DIWhy. Just last year, me and my friends got into a discussion about the power of spreadsheets. There was a time when I'd think "I could write an app for that. A weekend of Python, two for Android...". Now I think first if I could do it in Google Sheets. Sheets is honestly damn powerful as a dev platform, especially now that it could do SQL-ish queries. It has native access to some nifty Google APIs too. Imagine your database, your backend, and your UI grid powered by the same SDK! My church's shared SchedReservation-2010-NEW.xls that was actually a remake of a file dating back to 2007, accidentally deleted when they upgraded to XP, would be So. Much. Better.
conformist 6y ago
Would love to see "unstagram". Or "unmazon".
JeanMarcS 6y ago
Got me until I saw the Blockbuster Video testimony
RONROC 6y ago
/rj It seems like Slack is massively overvalued. At my current organization which has a small team of around ~10 people, we simply could no longer justify the astronomical per-seat price tag, the needlessly convoluted admin UI, among a host of other trivial/annoying things like the syntax restriction on channel naming, and the constant whack-a-mole of maintaining user permissions/roles so that someone wouldn’t install some cheeky chat bot that asks everyone what they want for lunch. Im not naive enough to think that Slack isn’t aimed squarely at enterprise whale clients, but with the emergence of other workplace chat platforms like the ones built into GSuite and O365, and the ease of which you can spin up something open source like Rocket Chat or Discourse (IIRC Discourse has a self-hosted option), I really have a hard time understanding why this tech is so appealing. Pepper in Slack’s un-impressive growth during COVID-19, it seems pretty clear that the other shoe might drop—and even a death knell acquisition from Salesforce might start looking appealing. Someone smarter than me: what am I missing?
johnnujler 6y ago
Okay, that was a roller-coaster, from judging them based on their clientele to laughing out loud after reading about their past products. Bad Unicorn Indeed.

55 points by hunvreus 6y ago

wefhi 6y ago

Is this a joke?

bradwood 6y ago
If "Synergistic Management Solutions" isn't taking the piss, I don't know what is...
- qz2 6y ago
  Yeah that sets my bollocks detector off instantly
dkarp 6y ago
yes
antonvs 6y ago
Look at the businesses that use it: Theranos, WeWork, pets.com
monsieurgaufre 6y ago
Also, everyone knows that hexagons are the real bestagons.

mdonahoe 6y ago

Should have called it Tight

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

shusson 6y ago

Teams, teams, teams: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/microsoft-teams/group-chat-software https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/microsoft-team...

stared 6y ago

I hate endless chats. Not matter if it is work or my personal life. If I need to do focused work, I switch off Slack. At the same time, I love emails with long, detailed, well-thought points. So, for my team (after trying quite a few options, with Slack being a no-go), I went for Basecamp. To a large extend, it is email-like, with chat and to-do lists as features (so can be used when needed), not - the core. However - do you know some BC-like tools for community building (edu/gaming)? Discord is considered the go-to solution, but it lacks "posts" for more focused content.

ajvs 6y ago
Honestly forums are your best bet. Discourse-based ones are especially popular.
rkda 6y ago
Hello fellow Basecamp user Automatic check-ins are the killer feature for me. Nothing like getting the pulse of your team at regular intervals As for your question, my first thought was Discourse. It's a modern day forum. Posts, threads, the whole shebang. Has badges and leaderboards too. https://www.discourse.org/ https://www.discourse.org/ I've heard good things about Twist as well. Though I haven't used it yet. https://twist.com/ https://twist.com/
yreg 6y ago
I’m nothing like you. I hate emails, no matter if it is work or my personal life. I don’t like to check, manage and reply to them. I feel anxious when people send them to me. In a team setting I would also hate that the sender, not the recipient decides what they want to read. At the same time I love endless chats (within proper channels). They don’t distract me from my work. I don’t participate when I need to focus and other than that, well the communication is also my work, just as important as writing code. As to your community question, how about a subreddit?
- stared 6y ago
  A subreddit is another thing I consider. Pro: discussion threads (actual threads, not only linear). Cons: no inline images, and for small/mid-sized communities it can be a ghost town.

kfk 6y ago

I am surprised GitHub project kanbans don’t get more attention. They are easy to setup, great for tracking activities and allow “threaded” discussions inside each issue. Why would you use Slack for your team if you have GitHub with this free option?

ukz 6y ago
Good luck convincing non-engineering folks in your org to sign up to GitHub.
- theklr 6y ago
  ^this. It’s really hard to get non engineers on GitHub at all. designers are the exception
- verdverm 6y ago
  Why? Make it a requirement and be done with it. People will always resist change but once they are there NBD.
cvhashim 6y ago
You can also integrate Zenhub for more features
verdverm 6y ago
GitHub discussions are coming out soon (eventually). Like issues, but for discussion

geofft 6y ago

I had some trouble figuring out what it is - it appears to be a Slack-style UI implemented in Google Sheets.

Hackbraten 6y ago

> NHS contract tracing (max 16,384 columns) I see what you did there.

thih9 6y ago

> Bring your team together in the sheets. (Wait, no, not like that) This joke looks unprofessional and inappropriate to me. I’m not sure why it’s on the landing page, especially when the product is about communication in a business context. Edit: ah, it’s a joke product.

qmmmur 6y ago
I can't imagine being this prudish. People have sex. It's okay to make jokes and its okay for them to be about real things that happen.
- thih9 6y ago
  > It's okay to make jokes and its okay for them to be about real things that happen. Yes but not in a business context. Quote from a random law firm: “Sexual jokes are not merely inappropriate in the workplace — they can constitute sexual harassment.” Source: https://www.thearmstronglawfirm.com/sexual-harassment/sexual-harassment-sexual-jokes/ https://www.thearmstronglawfirm.com/sexual-harassment/sexual...
  - qmmmur 6y ago
    Yes except this is a totally indirect statement not directed at you and is not in the slightest sense vulgar, nor is it even real in the sense that a person is saying it to you. I do wonder how you get on with your life if you find yourself facing a potential sexual harassment case over a product you don't have to use.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - dismantlethesun 6y ago
      I don't know. If this were a real product and not a joke, the marketing team would suggest putting sex jokes on the homepage, and probably debate which sex joke would get the the most laughs, and why. They might even end up doing surveys to find out if our sex jokes are too raunchy, or just right. If I worked there, and had to listen to a bunch of guys laughing about sex jokes all day, I'd probably feel awkward and left out---even if none of those jokes were directed at me, and only were said in the context of making customers laugh. Disclaimer: I have worked at companies that sold sex toys, and no one made any sex jokes at work, or in our marketing material.

st1x7 6y ago

The list of company endorsements is a great touch.

st1x7 6y ago

This thread is a great experiment in how seriously HN takes things and how long people think for before they comment.

bovermyer 6y ago
No kidding. My first "wait..." moment was when they said it was built on Google Sheets. But to be honest it wasn't confirmed that it was a joke for me until I saw the Blockbuster endorsement.
- st1x7 6y ago
  Same here. I actually started writing a comment criticizing the branding before I had a good look at the page and realized what's happening.

mattigames 6y ago

The critique against the new Google icons is so spot on, I cant believe they made them so hard to distinguish, I bet some internal design department needed to justify their existence and some $200K designers their salary and creating new icons was the best way to do that.

skytreader 6y ago

In case people can't decide whether this is a joke or not (the businesses using it didn't tell you? didn't make you giggle?), check the creator/investor: https://badunicorn.vc/ https://badunicorn.vc/ :) Part of me was hoping this was actually implemented though rather than just a silly concept with a catchy landing page. Maybe a hack in the spirit of DIWhy. Just last year, me and my friends got into a discussion about the power of spreadsheets. There was a time when I'd think "I could write an app for that. A weekend of Python, two for Android...". Now I think first if I could do it in Google Sheets. Sheets is honestly damn powerful as a dev platform, especially now that it could do SQL-ish queries. It has native access to some nifty Google APIs too. Imagine your database, your backend, and your UI grid powered by the same SDK! My church's shared SchedReservation-2010-NEW.xls that was actually a remake of a file dating back to 2007, accidentally deleted when they upgraded to XP, would be So. Much. Better.

conformist 6y ago

Would love to see "unstagram". Or "unmazon".

JeanMarcS 6y ago

Got me until I saw the Blockbuster Video testimony

RONROC 6y ago

/rj It seems like Slack is massively overvalued. At my current organization which has a small team of around ~10 people, we simply could no longer justify the astronomical per-seat price tag, the needlessly convoluted admin UI, among a host of other trivial/annoying things like the syntax restriction on channel naming, and the constant whack-a-mole of maintaining user permissions/roles so that someone wouldn’t install some cheeky chat bot that asks everyone what they want for lunch. Im not naive enough to think that Slack isn’t aimed squarely at enterprise whale clients, but with the emergence of other workplace chat platforms like the ones built into GSuite and O365, and the ease of which you can spin up something open source like Rocket Chat or Discourse (IIRC Discourse has a self-hosted option), I really have a hard time understanding why this tech is so appealing. Pepper in Slack’s un-impressive growth during COVID-19, it seems pretty clear that the other shoe might drop—and even a death knell acquisition from Salesforce might start looking appealing. Someone smarter than me: what am I missing?

johnnujler 6y ago

Okay, that was a roller-coaster, from judging them based on their clientele to laughing out loud after reading about their past products. Bad Unicorn Indeed.