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I will say that at least Notion is a decent enough Markdown editor. I recall I had some small gripes with how they use forward-slash for commands, and probably

I will say that at least Notion is a decent enough Markdown editor. I recall I had some small gripes with how they use forward-slash for commands, and probably some other stuff I've forgotten by now but it's certainly functional. It looks like it was designed to target the Google docs crowd of non-technical people in PM or other leadership roles where its minimalism combined with directory organization and file flexibility are desirable. In this sense I'm not _too_ surprised to see my technical friends ignore it, since there are so many tools in this niche already (Github wikis come to mind as an alternative for documenting various decisions, challenges, implementations, etc). I guess the real flaw with these sorts of products is that they're tools that are treated as solutions. There's no real need to add another tool to a org stack if what's working already isn't broken, and doing so obviously won't guarantee a massive increase in "productivity". You can document the shit out of blockers but at the end of the day someone with knowledge is still going to have to step in and help. This moreso goes for clickup and monday.com, though, which advertised the shit out of the Boston and NYC subways (clickup did a terrible job, I never really found out what they were until I googled it some months later and found it was yet another PM suite and I don't even recall what they're UI looks like). Also, it's kinda absurd to me that notion feels the need to have both a certification program as well as a list of "certified consultants" who are "productivity experts and solutions architects". David Graeber would probably feel vindicated/depressed.

Spivak 4y ago
> It looks like it was designed to target the Google docs crowd of non-technical people. This doesn't mirror my experience at all. I'm super technical and after evaluating all the options I landed on Notion because it's by far the most "get out of the way and just write." Notion: Go to documentation, see an area where you have something to add, click, type, done. "Pages": Go to documentation, see an area where you have something to add, context switch to your terminal, maybe clone it, create a new branch, go to the pages repo, go to the file, add your change, commit, push, open a PR, post a message to slack for someone to click approve, merge.
- jkelleyrtp 4y ago
  Agreed. I consider myself to be pretty technical and I explored Github Wikis, static site generators, local markdown, etc, and then Notion showed up one day. I could click to create a new markdown-ish document, collaborate on it with the other people on my team, embed images, write equations, and do way more than I could in any of the other solutions I sorta hodge-podged together. I don't have time to write notes app, and even if I did, I probably would've made something like notion, but worse. At this point, I do all of my technical writing in Notion. Equations, tables, nesting, publishing... I can even embed an interactive graphing calculator or videos of my work. A plain markdown file can't do that and neither can LaTeX.
jitl 4y ago
(Disclaimer: I work at Notion) > Also, it's kinda absurd to me that notion feels the need to have both a certification program as well as a list of "certified consultants" who are "productivity experts and solutions architects". David Graeber would probably feel vindicated/depressed. Surprisingly, this is largely due to market demand! A lot of customers ask us to help tailor workflow solutions to their needs, especially if their team is growing quickly. We don’t have bandwidth internally keep up with that for our small/medium business customers. So, those customers go looking for consultants, contractors, or eventually to hire for full-time Notion knowledge management positions. These programs help our customers find quality talent and build a trustworthy base we can refer people to. Equally important is the demand for more education, certification, and collaboration from those very experts/consultants. These people are building their livelihoods on their Notion expertise. Certification helps differentiate and validate them.
- thaeli 4y ago
  Notion seems to have perfectly nailed that "eager adoption by non-technical teams" spot that Slack did a few years ago in their niche. I've worked with several organizations that went all-in on Notion, and can think of two that would have hired consultants if they weren't in the "no money" segment of the nonprofit sector. So I'm happy to see you embracing the consultant ecosystem for your product.

Spivak 4y ago

> It looks like it was designed to target the Google docs crowd of non-technical people. This doesn't mirror my experience at all. I'm super technical and after evaluating all the options I landed on Notion because it's by far the most "get out of the way and just write." Notion: Go to documentation, see an area where you have something to add, click, type, done. "Pages": Go to documentation, see an area where you have something to add, context switch to your terminal, maybe clone it, create a new branch, go to the pages repo, go to the file, add your change, commit, push, open a PR, post a message to slack for someone to click approve, merge.

jkelleyrtp 4y ago
Agreed. I consider myself to be pretty technical and I explored Github Wikis, static site generators, local markdown, etc, and then Notion showed up one day. I could click to create a new markdown-ish document, collaborate on it with the other people on my team, embed images, write equations, and do way more than I could in any of the other solutions I sorta hodge-podged together. I don't have time to write notes app, and even if I did, I probably would've made something like notion, but worse. At this point, I do all of my technical writing in Notion. Equations, tables, nesting, publishing... I can even embed an interactive graphing calculator or videos of my work. A plain markdown file can't do that and neither can LaTeX.

jitl 4y ago

(Disclaimer: I work at Notion) > Also, it's kinda absurd to me that notion feels the need to have both a certification program as well as a list of "certified consultants" who are "productivity experts and solutions architects". David Graeber would probably feel vindicated/depressed. Surprisingly, this is largely due to market demand! A lot of customers ask us to help tailor workflow solutions to their needs, especially if their team is growing quickly. We don’t have bandwidth internally keep up with that for our small/medium business customers. So, those customers go looking for consultants, contractors, or eventually to hire for full-time Notion knowledge management positions. These programs help our customers find quality talent and build a trustworthy base we can refer people to. Equally important is the demand for more education, certification, and collaboration from those very experts/consultants. These people are building their livelihoods on their Notion expertise. Certification helps differentiate and validate them.

thaeli 4y ago
Notion seems to have perfectly nailed that "eager adoption by non-technical teams" spot that Slack did a few years ago in their niche. I've worked with several organizations that went all-in on Notion, and can think of two that would have hired consultants if they weren't in the "no money" segment of the nonprofit sector. So I'm happy to see you embracing the consultant ecosystem for your product.