#SlackFrontiers: my personal recap of the first ever edition created by Slack
Before we start…
I’m telling you upfront: yes, I’m a Slack advocate. There, I said it!
But I’m gonna try not to focus too much on the app itself in this post, and more on what topics/principles/best practices were discussed, and what I’ve learned during the first edition of the 2-day event.
My goal is not to be exhaustive at all, but to emphasize certain parts of the conference that were meaningful, insightful and/or inspiring for me.
TL;DR.
“We think that by 2025, channels will replace email as the primary means of communication.” (by April Underwood, VP of Product at Slack)
Probably the the most impactful quote of Slack Frontiers!
This will definitely change the way teams/companies will work together, whether it will be with Slack (for instance through Shared Channels) or with other apps.
Most important concepts evoked throughout the whole conference
“Communication doesn’t flow through org chart lines anymore: today we need to learn how to manage networks, not hierarchies.” (by April Underwood, VP of Product at Slack)
“Communication is the limit to the organization”
Success is about connecting people to people. This is why it’s so important to thrive on reducing friction in order to get things done.
“Innovation comes from bringing people together.”
Density of population creates innovation and abundance of information to float around.
For instance, coffee shops in London during the 20th century were multi-disciplinary spaces where people used to meet, and collaborate on topics that built the innovations of their future.
The importance of diversity in a network
Diversity will bring serendipity to your teams: unexpected ideas coming from working with different backgrounds, domains of expertise, skills.
The importance of playing around with tech
A lot of innovations came from people who were just trying to mess around with something.
The best example of this is the personal computer: one of the first softwares developed on a computer was a game which was supposed to be just a test, and we all know what happened ever since.
2 biggest challenges with communication nowadays
- Information is siloed and shared without context
Have you ever been forwarded an email loop with 30 messages, where someone expects your opinion or point of view? I have. Several times. And it’s painful.
Channels help destroy these silos, by bringing people together (potentially from different teams/units/departments) and sharing context thanks to the history of messages. - More time is spent simply on managing information
It’s no news that information is the fuel of our industry. But it’s also very hard to cope with the large amount of information shared every day.
What to say, how, to whom and when has become a critical point of every organization. I personally wouldn’t be surprised to see new kinds of jobs specifically focused on “Information Management” in the future.
Meetings that don’t suck (by Ken Norton, Product Partner at GV)
Probably (one of) the most useful talk(s) of the conference: how to create, direct (and avoid!) meetings in any kind of business.
A couple of facts about meetings, according to Ken:
- There is no substitute for face-to-face!
Especially because of non-verbal cues, or physical presence. - However, the best meetings are the ones you avoid!
It means that the meeting wasn’t necessary in the first place, and could either be deleted, or replaced with a specific use of tools.
For instance, reporting of what has been done during the past week. - Busy calendar doesn’t make you important!
It could just mean that you blindly accept all the invitations you receive, and try to be in all the different conversations, even when you don’t have any input to add to the agenda. - Keep in mind that every meeting borrows time from your colleagues!
Ken gave an advice to managers: from time to time, try to think about what people in the room would be doing if they weren’t in this meeting, and then try and determine if this is still more worthy.
A couple of rules on how to organize a meeting, according to Ken:
- Every meeting has an owner, responsible for inviting (the right) people and for writing down and sharing the agenda ahead of time, which is very important because this way, perhaps some people will realize that they don’t need to be in this meeting in the end.
- Keep meetings as small as possible (3 to 7 people), and as short as possible (30 min if possible)
- Kick people out of the room and keep your schedule: this way, you’ll make sure to stick to the agenda, and be straight to the point during the meeting, without digressing, and you will have to be prepared before entering the room.
- Kill the status meeting. If the idea is just to report and share information with the team, then you should use tools instead. Otherwise, the meeting is worthy only for the manager, who gets a global overview at once, but wastes his colleagues’ time.
- Keep the one-to-one meetings with your manager: this is usually the moment where people open up about their problems, their fears, but also their ideas.
- Calendar shouldn’t postpone decisions.
About decision making:
- Can’t reach a decision? Escalate to your manager/CEO instead of talking about it for hours. They are here to take the tough decisions. Otherwise, the atmosphere will get poisonous, filled with passive-aggressiveness in the workplace, which obviously would be harmful for your business.
- This leads to another point: it is very important to always know who makes decisions in a team!
- Finally, when a decision is made: commit, and don’t undermine it.
How to implement all these principles?
- It must come from the top: the employees will more easily follow the board and leadership.
- Schedule a Calendar Destruction: once a year, delete all the recurrent invitations in everyone’s calendar. This way, it forces you to rethink the use of every meeting, possibly update the length or the participants, and will force people to ask themselves: do I still need this meeting?
- Implement days/half days without meetings. This way, people will be able to focus for a couple of hours, and avoid context switching.
- Feel free to decline! If you think you’re not required, or that you don’t know what the meeting is about (see next point), you have all the right to skip it.
- “Vote with your feet”: don’t go to a meeting if you don’t know what it is about and if people don’t follow the rules!
9 Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me… (by Molly Graham, VP, Operations at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative)
- Building companies is really f**king hard.
- Your only job is to learn as fast as you can.
- You can learn anything if you’re willing to sound like a complete moron.
- Be skeptical of words with more than one syllable
- Self-awareness is invaluable. It can trump almost everything else.
- The imposter syndrome is real. Don’t let it eat you alive.
- Collect people who can teach you and ones who keep you sane.
- It’s going to be ok.
- This is the opportunity of a lifetime.
Building Products that reflect the Nuances of Human Communications (by Christina Holsberry Janzer, Head of User Research at Slack)
Bring good aspects of consumer products to work products.
How? Here are the principles of the Slack User Research Team, led by Christina:
- Put people first. Understand what’s wrong, one level deeper.
- Bring humanity to product. Build human cues into product: emotional ones with emojis (reduce ambiguities), improve connectiveness/togetherness with water cooler talks.
- Delight matters (in day-to-day tasks). Create engaging products/experiences, say thanks, give kudos!
Leadership and Communication in the Military and in Business (by Deano Roberts, Director Global Facilities and Real Estate at Slack)
This talk was, according to me, the most emotional and intense moment of the conference. The way Deano shared with us his story(ies), what he endured during war, the importance of leadership over management, especially in times of crisis, was moving, insightful and very true.
He almost didn’t mention Slack during nearly an hour, but insisted on how important it is to trust (and a little bit) fear the leader, and to communicate in a perfectly synced manner.
In fact, he said that when crisis hits, the 2 things that are gonna be judged the most are:
- Quality of leadership: people will need to follow “orders” and make sure the leader has everything under control, a clear plan and instructions for everyone.
- Communication: everyone has to be on the exact same page, in order to coordinate (re)actions, no time to waste on overlapping actions or missing something.
Here are some of his most impactful quotes:
“Every one has a plan until a point where you can punch someone in the mouth.” (quoting Mike Tyson)
“Never miss the opportunity to shut up.”
“First casualty of war is plan.”
“Embrace the suck.”
“Never be late to need.”
He finished his talk by insisting on hiring veterans. Not because it would be a way to thank them for their service and what they gave to their country, but because of their nature, training and skills.
They are loyal, know how to comply, to follow order, to deal with pressure/stress, to prioritize urgency and be efficient.
And last, but not least: “they are comfortable in the uncomfortable”.
Final keynote of Day 1 (with Stewart Butterfield, CEO of Slack, and Andre Iguodala, professional basketball player from the Golden State Warriors)
You can read this article for a full report of this conversation, but I couldn’t not mention these 4 quotes from Andre Iguodala:
“People emulate the end result, but not the process and what it takes to get there.”
“Some days, we tell Draymond (Green) to shut up!”
“Fuck fun: it’s the end of the process.”
“Make them pay you what you’re worth. And you’re worth a lot” (quoting the advice Magic Johnson gave him)
Random quotes, heard throughout the conference
“Don’t worry about your title. Just be the most useful person in the room, and the rest will follow.” (by Molly Graham, VP, Operations at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative)
“3 key elements for communication: access, organize and synthesize information”
“You don’t have to be a superhero to have super powers.” (by Welby Altidor, Executive Creative Director)
Wrapping it up!
I was so glad and thankful for taking part in this first edition, and meeting with an outstanding community. I’m very enthusiastic for the future, and am sure there will be a lot of even more successful events led by the Slack Team!
By the way, it was my first post on Medium. I always greatly appreciate feedback, comments and criticism, so don’t hesitate!
Flo
