Slacking off
After using the team messaging service since we started Minutemailer, here’s why we love Slack (almost as much as we adore email).
‘Under a Stone’ is what sits at the top of your postal address if you’ve not been made aware of Slack, the team messaging app that’s swept through tech land like wildfire.
Boasting well over a million users pinging clipped messages to members of their team or groups, the service is currently valued at 2.8 billion dollars — more than double its worth six months ago. Essentially Slack is a chatroom. Quick messages, the occasional attachment, temporary feeds for specific tasks. It’s this facet that makes Slack feel so familiar — most of us have been there before. But through its intuitive UX design, cute welcome notes and logic functionality its place in your desktop or browser seems secure once you’ve used it.
As fans of functional design and natural interfaces that don’t jar the eye, we thought we’d dip our toe collectively into this week’s blog post and look at why we think Slack is the best form of digital communication for a team.
Oskar — Founder & CEO
“At Minutemailer we started out by using emails (naturally) and Trello to organize our work. We also used Skype to communicate, as we work as a distributed team. But Skype can get a bit chaotic and as we went from two to four team members we needed something better. We tried Slack and I really think it does a great job. At first it looked like any chat program but, as usual, its all in the details. By creating channels for different groups and topics we can have simultaneous but separate discussions which is really valuable. I can chat with Tobias on one channel while at the same time talking to Tobias, Richard and Carlos on the general channel. So the discussions more easily stay on topic. Its almost like they (Slack) have figured out how the mind works.
“We also recently added automatic channels that show important events from our app, Minutemailer which is also very valuable. Everyone in the team now gets updates on new users and other activities from the Slack robot. And, as Slack has a mobile app, its easy to keep track on our progress and quickly react to a surge in usage or other things happening.”
Richard — CMO
“I’ll begin by establishing that I am technically inept; a personal attribute that definitely enhances any tech startup. Joining Minutemailer eight months ago I was simply told that we were using Slack for messaging and Trello for organization. There were no other options, which I like — given that another manager I worked for spent a month (including several two-hour meetings) just talking about which task management systems we could use. I like my tech decisions to just be made for me by people who know what they’re up to.
“So Slack was fine. I was given the logins and then pleasantly surprised to find out that you only really need them once given that Slack is relatively password-less. A good start then. Given that I I can make a calculator crash, the way you can just hop in and start without much in the way of instruction is also a winner. I’ve not managed to break anything either. Although I try.
“It’s likely that other members of Team Minutemailer use shortcuts but I’ve not dived so deep yet. Yet it’s clear that the system does fit the organic working processes we’ve developed as a team and enabled us to function fully despite none of us working from the same office. As such, the fact that its functionality remains fluid even when mobile only enhances and encourages team discussion.
“Something I’ve had problems with in the past is feeling like a disparate entity in a team, even small startups. With decisions being made without their potential impact being communicated down through a team. Slack has bought out a very open platform for these small, quick (trivial perhaps) decisions that actively foster a genuine feeling of togetherness. And that’s important in a startup that’s demanding lots of work, lots of trust, lots of motivation as we work towards our goals.
“I would say that Slack does need to state clearly somewhere that it’s got a desktop app, as I was using the browser version for months before Oskar, our founder, pointed this fact out. As I said, I’m the analogue man in the digital world.
“Many have raised the notion that Slack might well be the email killer. I’m not so sure. We love email of course at Minutemailer. But I’d not use Slack the same way as I’d use email. Email is more permanent, Slack is more fleeting. They’ll coexist quite nicely together I think. Like the printed newspaper and its digital counterpart.”
Tobias — CTO
“Before I started my own business as a freelancer I worked four years at a small, skilled front-end agency. I remember that we tried several different ways to communicate as a group. Share links, discuss tech stuff and everything else. We ended up using Facebook and for private messages we used Google Talk or email. At the time it seemed like a good solution.
“When I went out on my own it didn’t take long until I met Oskar who had recently started a new project called Minutemailer. We worked together for a while and stayed connected mainly through Skype and email. As the work got more intense he introduced me to Slack, which almost instantly became the only communication channel for us.
“We were only two people in the team and was mainly used as a chat. Slack really shined when our team grew as we naturally started to use channels. Channels is a great way to communicate with multiple people in a specific topic. You can decide for your self if a specific topic is for you or not. Non-teach people doesn’t have to scroll through a big list of links to cool javascript libraries for example. There’s usually different kinds of people at a company and everything is not interesting for everyone. This wasn’t possible when I used to use Facebook for sharing and discussions.
“One would think it couldn’t get better than this. Well, that’s wrong. Slack also has an amazing API. Minutemailer’s own PHP wizard, Carlos, used it very recently to post certain activity from our users to specific channels in Slack. Like new registrations, email activity and payments. I’m still exploring the API, but so far it gets five paper planes. And that’s pretty awesome.
“To sum it up I love that I can communicate with everyone from the same place and in different ways. Direct messages, channels and private groups. It’s really user friendly with handy shortcuts (⌘+K), slash commands, app integration, custom emojis and so on. Also great for storing and commenting on files.”
Carlos — Developer
“I really like working with Slack. It’s nice to have all communication-related stuff together in one place. I like that Slack is so simple and intuitive, (almost) no learning is required and you can get straight to work! Or in some cases, you can avoid all work-related communication and start sending youtube videos to each other.
“My favourite Slack-feature (nerdy as it sounds) is document sharing. Sharing a document is as easy as dragging and dropping a file to the Slack tab. The document gets its own comment section, making it easier to keep track of the different opinions that may arise. All the files (either uploaded by or shared with you) can be easily accessed without having to go to the specific conversation.
“It is very rare that a phone application keeps the same quality and features as its web equivalent, but Slack manages to get it right. The same division between the channels and private conversations, and easy-to-use interface makes it feel like a more professional WhatsApp, WhatsApp for work so to say. The only thing I’m missing is the simple access to all my shared files. At least in the Android application, files can only be accessed through the specific conversation in which they were uploaded.
“We at Minutemailer have recently started using the Slack API, in order to post messages directly to certain channels when specific events happen on the Minutemailer site. This is a great way to gain control over for example user registration. It is also a good way to find out if something is not working correctly. If there aren’t any posts to the more frequently-used channels, we take it as a signal that something may not be entirely correct, and we can keep an eye open.
“Using the Slack API is as almost as simple as using the rest of the page, and it didn’t take more than a few minutes to set it up.”
Something to Slack on
Staying informed as a team is an integral part any business startup or established, with nothing causing more problems that lack of communication. While the chatroom could be said to be dead in terms of social use, it’s interesting to see how applicable and suitable it is for the working environment. Slack’s identified exactly this use as its core focus, enabling a relaxed, immediate channel that alleviates miscommunication in a non-invasive, very usable manner. Right now there’s nothing that beats it. (Apart from email of course. We love email more.)
