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At old job, I remember working with external orgs and my coworkers. Coworkers would pretty much talk over Slack. We would use email/zoom for communication with

At old job, I remember working with external orgs and my coworkers. Coworkers would pretty much talk over Slack. We would use email/zoom for communication with external orgs. At new job, we use Slack Connect and I think it replaces a lot o that external emailing.

mumblemumble 5y ago
As someone who has to interface as a client with companies that want us to use Slack Connect, I just hate it. It's one more information stream I have to monitor, by manually going and checking it. Even if work used Slack - we don't - I'd still have to manually navigate among teams to cycle through all my incoming communications. And bringing additional colleagues into the conversation on a purpose-specific, temporary basis is much higher friction than it is with email. Instead of just CCing them on an email, I have to get them invited to that company's Slack, and they have to go through the hassle of setting up an account. And then, since they didn't install the app, I still have to manually prompt them to sign in whenever I see that they aren't remembering to include that Slack in their manual rounds. Which they aren't, because Slack Connect is oftentimes their first experience with having to do manual rounds to purpose-specific locations in order to communicate with people like that. I've never really got their "move out of siloed email communication" sales pitch. It's like, out of the silo and into a different silo that's deeper and also on fire.
- anonytrary 5y ago
  Also it's moving from a more decentralized silo to a completely centralized one. Email continues to be a groundbreaking communication technology. I feel like one company being able to pull the plug on that might be really scary. I guess email is pretty centralized, but if you get banned by Gmail for whatever reason, you can always go run your own email and continue to work within the larger ecosystem.
  - mumblemumble 5y ago
    There are some other interesting implications from centralizing it like that, too. For example, clients who communicate using Slack Connect are unlikely to be retaining their own independent records of the communication. This potentially puts them at a disadvantage in the event of a contract dispute. They may be unable to obtain a record of past communication without resorting to a legal discovery process, and you need to lawyer up and file a lawsuit before you can do that. With email, on the other hand, retaining one's own copy of the communication is baked into how the mechanism works.

mumblemumble 5y ago

As someone who has to interface as a client with companies that want us to use Slack Connect, I just hate it. It's one more information stream I have to monitor, by manually going and checking it. Even if work used Slack - we don't - I'd still have to manually navigate among teams to cycle through all my incoming communications. And bringing additional colleagues into the conversation on a purpose-specific, temporary basis is much higher friction than it is with email. Instead of just CCing them on an email, I have to get them invited to that company's Slack, and they have to go through the hassle of setting up an account. And then, since they didn't install the app, I still have to manually prompt them to sign in whenever I see that they aren't remembering to include that Slack in their manual rounds. Which they aren't, because Slack Connect is oftentimes their first experience with having to do manual rounds to purpose-specific locations in order to communicate with people like that. I've never really got their "move out of siloed email communication" sales pitch. It's like, out of the silo and into a different silo that's deeper and also on fire.

anonytrary 5y ago
Also it's moving from a more decentralized silo to a completely centralized one. Email continues to be a groundbreaking communication technology. I feel like one company being able to pull the plug on that might be really scary. I guess email is pretty centralized, but if you get banned by Gmail for whatever reason, you can always go run your own email and continue to work within the larger ecosystem.
- mumblemumble 5y ago
  There are some other interesting implications from centralizing it like that, too. For example, clients who communicate using Slack Connect are unlikely to be retaining their own independent records of the communication. This potentially puts them at a disadvantage in the event of a contract dispute. They may be unable to obtain a record of past communication without resorting to a legal discovery process, and you need to lawyer up and file a lawsuit before you can do that. With email, on the other hand, retaining one's own copy of the communication is baked into how the mechanism works.