Cheers to 10 Years of Increased Productivity with Slack
Reflect on our favorite Slack features and productivity boosters from the last decade, as well as how they can add value to your workday.
Happy 10th birthday, Slack!
Today — February 12, 2024 — marks 10 years of Slack making our work lives simpler, more pleasant, and more productive. According to a Slack legend (and by that, I mean the one and only Johnny Rodgers), Slack made about $5K in paid seats on launch day. Slack, the product, has changed so much in these past 10 years along with how it is positioned in the market. It has evolved from a pitch to be less busy to a messaging app for teams to being described as where work happens and a collaboration hub/platform.
From a digital HQ to a productivity platform
It was March 2020 and I had only been on Slack for a few months when the San Francisco office shuttered and Slack — both the product and the company — turned into our new digital HQ.
I’ve spoken about it before, but it’s worth emphasizing again, I never felt more connected, more myself, and more productive than working in Slack at Slack during the pandemic. While most folks were feeling isolated and disconnected, I was thriving professionally while simultaneously forging relationships and friendships with colleagues and customers that were 100% enabled by Slack. When Slack was repositioned later in the year as the digital HQ for companies, I got it, but I think it was harder for others to grasp. I understood what the new messaging meant because it was my digital HQ.
But before Slack, I was old-school — email and in-office were the only way to get work done. To shift my mindset, I had to do that really hard thing — cast aside the way I had been working for 20 years, be vulnerable, and start “slacking.” The early days of using Slack hurt my brain — you mean, everything is done in Slack? Should I thread in a 1:1 DM? Do I not? Is this question okay for a very public and very large channel? Did I search for the answer long enough? OMG, our CEO is a member of my account channel.
I didn’t sugarcoat my growing pains during new hire orientations. I confessed that months after joining I was still questioning my decision to join Slack because I just didn’t get it. What is this thing? Why is everyone using emojis? Why oh why are there so many channels?
But here’s the deal, once I got over those hurdles, I’ve never been more productive than I am in Slack. Channels became my curated newsfeed and knowledge base, emojis my language enhancer, Slack my headquarters. All of it, my productivity booster. Leaving Slack the company didn’t change it — I still am as productive in Slack as I ever was.
As 2023 began and we were almost fully emerged from our pandemic caves and as companies rolled out return-to-work mandates, Slack — the digital HQ transformed once again into a company’s productivity platform.
The building blocks of a productivity platform
Even though the branding has changed, the platform has been consistent in enhancing productivity. To celebrate a platform that is making working lives even more productive, here’s a roundup of Slack features both big and small from the past 10 years that you most definitely should be using:
2014 — Quick Switcher
What a marvelous little keyboard shortcut that I can’t live without. The name may have fallen by the wayside, but if you’re not using CMD+K or even CMD+G every day in Slack to jump to conversations or to conduct a search — start today!
2015 — App Directory
When it launched in December 2015, there were 160 third-party apps available. Fast-forward to 2024 and there are now 2,600+ apps in the directory. The power of Slack is truly in its platform — you can integrate nearly all the tools you use today in Slack. This means less context switching and more time to focus on the work that matters! Start by integrating your calendar, video calling, and file-sharing apps. Chances are, the apps you want to use have already been installed and approved for use. Take a look at your approved apps by going to the More View>Automations>Apps. If it’s not yet approved, find the app you need in the directory and request it.
2016 — Slack Calls
What would later be known as the precursor to Slack Huddles, Slack Calls allowed users to make and receive audio calls directly in Slack … because sometimes hashing it out via audio is still the quickest way to solve an issue. While you can still make audio calls via Slack Huddles, the best part is the ability to screen share. You can continue the conversation in channel (or in the huddle) while screen sharing — no audio required (unless you want to).
2017 — Message Threads
Clean, organized, structured conversations? Yes, please. Not using this feature is akin to changing the subject line of an email chain. You just don’t do it. Keeping conversations tidy enables you and your colleagues to get caught up to speed fast, and with Slack’s new (almost released) native AI-powered Threads Summary feature, you’ll get the TL;DR in no time later this year!
2018 — Actions
By 2018, Slack had eight million users and 1,600 apps in its App Directory. Slash commands were used (and still can be) to trigger an app, but they are a little tricky and not very intuitive for nontechnical users. The introduction of actions allowed users to take action within an application like create a task in Asana by hovering over a message in Slack. It’s an easy-to-overlook feature, but I’d encourage you to check it out and see what actions you can take in your Slack instance so you can save time and keep work moving forward in Slack.
2019 — Workflow Builder and Shared Channels
It was a big year so, 2019 must share the spotlight with two wonderful productivity enhancers in Slack.
Anyone who has been following me for a while knows that Workflow Builder is my favorite feature in Slack. It has saved me countless hours by spending a few minutes to create scheduled date and time workflows (e.g., status report due today, happy workiversary, happy birthday, timesheets due today, submit a request for x, y, z forms). I was hired a month after the launch of Workflow Builder, so in a lot of ways, we grew up in Slack together. I was keen to figure out this new feature early and experimented with how far I could push it. The best part is — you don’t need to be a developer to use it. If you have repeatable tasks or need information provided to you in a consistent manner or as soon as it happens (like alerts), use Workflow Builder!
With its evolution over the past several years, you can also connect apps to your flows too! Now, you’re probably thinking — why do I need Workflow to send a scheduled post in channel or DM if scheduled send (released in 2021) exists? Good question. The key differentiator with Workflow Builder is the message comes from whatever you name it (e.g., Birthday Bot, Status Report Reminder) and with whatever image you choose. If you don’t know where to get started, check out these pre-built by Slack templates. Final request — please take a moment to find a unique image for your workflow. While I love the default, seeing too many of these in Slack is an eyesore, and you run the risk of having your workflow message get glossed over.
Although the Shared Channels feature (now Slack Connect) was in beta in 2018, it officially went generally available (GA) in 2019. I’ve never used Slack before they existed, and I can’t imagine not having the ability to quickly engage in a conversation with my clients and customers in a Slack Connect channel or direct message. It used to be the case that you could connect with one external party, but in 2020 it was raised to 20, and now you can have 250 unique organizations in a single channel.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, Slack is an internal and external relationship builder, and Slack Connect fosters that connectedness. Slack Connect was what Stewart Butterfield (Slack co-founder and former CEO) was most excited about in 2019, and for good reason. Slack Connect yields a 60% faster response time than antiquated modes of communication. Simply put, stop emailing, texting, WhatsApping, snapping, faxing, calling, and start connecting in Slack Connect channels; they’re the only way you should be communicating with your partners, vendors, and customers who use Slack. Even if they don’t have Slack but your company is on Enterprise Grid, enable the ability to connect with teams on free plans — no need for your parters to upgrade anymore!
2020 — Sections
There was a time when all your channels were housed either under a channels section or starred section (if you used this feature). If channel-naming conventions weren’t followed, you could be scrolling up and down a long list of channels to find the one you’re looking for. Custom sections enabled users to create a personalized view of channels in their workspace organized in a way that works for them. What’s better? You can drag DMs to sections too! What’s even better? You can show and sort the content of your custom sections. Maybe you just want to see unreads or order them by newest activity first. Take a moment to organize your own Slack channels into custom sections, and be sure to drag sections up and down the sidebar in order of importance too!
2021 — Bulleted List
While Slack Huddles launched in 2021, I already paid my respects in 2016, so I must reserve this year for bulleted lists. Why, you ask? Imagine a world where you can’t use bullet points and had to get creative with emojis to format a message in Slack. Yes, this world existed. Bulleted lists allow users to format attention-grabbing posts in Slack in an orderly and familiar way. It goes without saying that you should be using bulleted lists — no one wants to read a paragraph of text to get the key points … so says the author of this blog containing only paragraphs of text. If you’ve made it this far without bullets, thank you!
2022 — Add People to DM
You know what’s terrible? The game of telephone. You know what’s even more terrible? Trying to get someone looped into a conversation that happened in a direct message. The work-around was screenshotting the conversation, starting a new DM with the new party, and then having to remember to use the new DM where you added the new person. (Just describing the chaos is maddening.)
With this new feature, you can now just drop the new member into the conversation. It’s on them to scroll up (to the point where you’ve given them access) to get caught up to speed. You may already know this, but you can also convert a DM to a private channel too (released in 2016), so when the conversation is getting to a point where others may benefit or a small convo about a potential opportunity turns into a real one, convert the DM into a pursuit or project channel.
2023 — Sales Elevate
First there was Troops, and then there was Sales Elevate. The ability to see what’s happening in Sales Cloud right in Slack? Priceless. The benefit to Sales Elevate compared to others in the market like Centro and Rattle is that Sales Elevate is embedded in Slack. It has its own real estate in the platform — the Sales View. This was the first big step in integrating Salesforce with Slack, and I look forward to seeing the additional enhancements of this feature in the coming year.
Looking into 2024 and beyond
There’s a lot to be excited about, but what I’m most looking forward to is:
- The further integration of Salesforce’s suite of products with Slack. I envision a future where you’re navigating to a Service View in Slack to access Service Cloud or an Analytics View to access Tableau.
- The ability to search and take action on Salesforce records in Slack
- The ability to record and schedule Slack Huddles
- A native AI feature that enables organizations to easily connect to internal data sources outside of Slack
- The upcoming release of native AI search in Slack
- The playfulness and continual focus on end user experience and productivity that makes Slack the most lovable platform in the market
Are there any features I missed that you consider the biggest productivity enhancers in your Slack workspace? Drop them in the comments below!
Slalom is a next-generation professional services company creating value at the intersection of business, technology, and humanity. Ready to start unifying Slack? Get in touch with a Slalom Slack expert.
