Monday, December 21, 2015

Slack's Mission

"What if you could run your whole job from a messaging app? Imagine doing your expenses or requesting human resources forms through a simple chat interface, or using an instant message to respond to customer complaints or to start a conference call with your colleagues." [NYTimes] That is the future for Slack, the messaging app that was the penicillin of apps.

The NYT uses Slack in-house as a content tool.

"the company is also creating an $80 million fund to invest in apps that can be integrated with Slack." It already integrates with apps -- the plan is for Slack to be the single interface for work.

Slack Etiquette or a primer on how to use Slack from INC.

Hiring tip from Slack's CEO: "each potential hire at Slack have three characteristics, regardless of job function: empathy, curiosity, and diligence. He also wants to see employees who think of their roles in the context of creating a lasting business."

Slack's old-fashioned motto: 'Work hard and go home'. "working hard doesn't -- and shouldn't -- mean working endlessly."

Slack's goal is to eliminate work email. Many users claim that it does cut down on email. It presents another noise channel however. But they did just add a Do Not Disturn button! "The goal, according to Stewart Butterfield, Slack’s co-founder and chief executive, is to transform Slack from a messaging app into something even more central to people’s jobs — a chat-based control panel for the modern workplace." [NYT]

This was on Facebook about Slack from Crowd Companies:

That's what Slack is designed to do. I just hacked up Slack this weekend. Using middleware software Zapier, I used some easy-to-program and light syntax to integrate Slack to our CRM system, Newsletter software, Wordpress, Twitter, and Member management system at Crowd Companies.

A few business rules I implemented: New member (what's what we call customer) added, it triggers to slack. Also if we have a prospect accept a proposal to become a member, the CRM tools triggers a notification to Slack so the whole team can see. There's a few other rules I'm experimenting with.

It's not just about aggregating data, using Zapier we can publish content written on Slack to other systems. For example, I programmed a slack channel to update our CRM system with important member information.

We've grown a bit, and Angus Nelson was observant in finding ways to reduce email, and we'll experiment with slack as a tool to do this. Oh hey Stewart Butterfield I can see why you're worth pinky finger billions of dollars now, this is much more than just a chat tool, it's a light weight programming interface that aggregates and publishes data. I joked it was a "black hole sun" as it sucks everything in, then illuminates what's important. Can we reduce pesky emails? Maybe, just maybe.

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