Notes from #WebSummit: The Future of Work: Enabling Human Connection

Stewart Butterfield’s “spirit emoji,” the importance of GIF’s, and the value of asynchronous communication.

Details
Date: November 8, 2017
Time: 14:00
Conference stream: Centre Stage

Speakers
Stewart Butterfield, Co-Founder & CEO, Slack, @stewart
Jemima Kiss, Technology journalist, The Guardian, @jemimakiss

Web Summit Summary
How do you make an employee-led workforce truly effective? What is the right balance between consultation and anarchy?

Main Theme

What makes Slack such an enjoyable product to use? How has it gone on to replace traditional e-mail threads? What are the company’s key goals? Stewart Butterfield’s candid articulations of Slack’s awesomeness helped explain why it’s become such a statement in our lives and communication channels.

The Key Quote

“ Slack creates a flexible set of constraints within which creativity can emerge.”
- Stewart Butterfield

Key Points

• Jemima: “Why is Slack better than email?”

Stewart: “It gives you the ability to create functional teams, for companies of 8, 80, and 800 people. Slack is software for users, by users. Have you ever treated someone you loved in a way that you later regretted? The result we hope for with our users is that they are able to clearly and enjoyably communicate on the platform.”

• Jemima: “How does Slack foster that sense of belonging?”

Stewart: “One of the first thing people mention to me once they’ve used Slack is that they love the abundance of GIF’s. They help people feel understood. Another sentiment I hear a lot is “I’m a little bit more introverted. With Slack, I feel more able to contribute to conversations.” Slack is a tool for people with a wide range of conversational tendencies and communication styles.

Transparency of origin: Radical transparency makes way for cultural change in companies. As a new employee, you can enter a simple search query to find the origin of an idea and understand the context around it.

Office politics in entertainment: Some companies use information hoarding as a means of harnessing power. If we think of shows like The Office, Dilbert, etc. we see trends like cynicism, power dynamics and lack of alignment emerge. Slack aims to create a more collaborative, egalitarian, community-driven digital environment that contradicts the mockery that has become of stereotypical office environments.

Product adoption strategies: Word of mouth fuels 90% of Slack’s adoption. 90%+ of companies that come on board follow a bottom-up sales cycle in which the service comes highly recommended from a boots-on-the-ground employee. Stewart mentioned that “our customer’s employees are often our best salespeople.”

• Jemima: “Three values seem to define Slack: collaboration, creativity and empathy. Thoughts?”

Stewart:“There’s a notion that creativity is defined by its’ constraints, like a Haiku in poetry. Over the course of the 20th century, we’ve seen many instances in which constraints fuelled a creative interplay. This brought about Abstract Impressionism and other art forms. Slack creates a flexible set of constraints within which creativity can emerge.”

On introverts: Slack is an opportunity to think about your ideas and communicate asynchronously. There’s an opportunity to contribute in a number of flexible, meaningful ways on this platform.

• Jemima: “Informal communications like channels for cooking, etc. abound in Slack. Thoughts?”

Stewart: “As a fellow employee, you can be much more forgiving with your colleagues when you can understand what their underlying motivations and aspirations are. These channels help to create community and connection.”

• Jemima: “What do you think is the biggest misnomer about Slack?”

Stewart: “That it’s just a chat channel. It’s something much more powerful than that. It’s a problem solving medium, too.” How? Slack has created “triage channels” to address bugs in their platform. Since everyone on the team had transparency into the feature’s success and maintenance needs, they were all able to respond accordingly, and build on new information as it became available. Stewart advised: “Spend some time on the channel structure of your organizations. It’ll be very worthwhile in the long run.”

• Jemima: What is your favourite emoji?

Stewart: “The poop emoji is my spirit animal.”

• Jemima: What is your favourite quote?

Stewart: “The role of the designer is that of a thoughtful host anticipating the needs of his guests.” — Charles Eames

• Jemima: What is Slack’s ultimate goal?

“Creating more space for humanity, and allowing the people using the platform to elevate each other to higher levels.”

Reflections

Stewart brought some of Slack’s longstanding value propositions to the forefront, while digging deep into the platform’s lesser known fringe benefits (like introvert-friendly communication).

As a tool that I have come to rely on personally and professionally, Slack brings great value to my life and allows me to strike a great balance between synchronous and asynchronous communication.

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