Tools absolutely matter. Behavior is enabled by what the tool enables. The tyranny of the default means that an organization not prepared to rigidly apply cert

Tools absolutely matter. Behavior is enabled by what the tool enables. The tyranny of the default means that an organization not prepared to rigidly apply certain best practices will live and die based on those defaults. This may not be universally bad, but for some environments, it’s quite bad. Twist looks like it focuses on many of the Slack issues that bite bigger teams. It’s one thing for me to better manage my use of slack, create focused topic channels, snooze notifications, etc. But none of this matters when there are 100 other teams all using the product haphazardly. Better defaults won’t magically fix this, but there is a lot of value in defaults that encourage better habits. The focus on async communication also seems interesting. My biggest issue with Slack was that people expect immediate answers, and that it’s easy to lose track of things if you don’t stay on top of the pings as they come in. Again, this expectation doesn’t magically disappear with a new tool, but a new tool that focuses on this, and the introduction of which can be used as a catalyst for encouraging behavior change seems valuable. Better tools won’t solve the whole problem, but I’m glad they’re putting these ideas out into the market. If nothing else, I hope it leads to more interest in deep work, true async communications, and awareness of the toxic and attention-destroying nature of many Slack instances.