Slack, a team-messaging app, is said to bring death to email by providing instant and informal feedback, allowing business and communication efforts to become more productive and transparent.
Through careful and deliberate planning, the Tech Park has progressed from email as the primary method of interoffice communication to implementing Slack daily.
Implementation
When we began using Slack in January, email was the main communication method between staff; however, emails oftentimes responded too slowly or would only be the length of a sentence or subject line.
To first implement Slack, we categorized our usual emails sent out into Slack’s two main communication equivalents: open channels and direct messages.
Open channels allow anyone a part of the Technology Park team to read and facilitate conversation, replacing mass emails. Direct messaging between two members of the group allows for more focused conversations and replaced no text- subject email reminders.
How Slack makes us more productive
Slack’s ability to combine file sharing, app integration and search-ability makes it a “one stop shop” for whatever is happening with the team. It allows all members to see information without leaving the conversation. With file sharing, Tech Park members can drop files, images, PDFs, documents and spreadsheets directly into the conversation.
Slack’s app integration allows us to connect Slack to apps specific to the Tech Park’s communication and marketing department, such as Twitter, Salesforce and Mailchimp. These integrations allow us to receive notifications directly within Slack—no more switching between apps.
Every message, notification and file in Slack is archived. Basically, Slack indexes the content of every file, allowing members to search more specifically for content within PDFs, word documents, Google Docs, etc.