eh. I disagree. I find that with Slack there's this expectation to reply right away. And if your boss Slacks you, sees you're online, and you don't reply, it's perceived as not doing your job. And even if it's not perceived that way, we've developed our own fears that we'll be judged as being unavailable/ un-responsive or simply not doing our jobs well enough. It may be cultural and not just app-based, but when millions of people are using a specific app, its hard not to draw conclusions...

IM is really useful lots of times, but I definitely think it's one of the main contributors to our 'workism' problem and what so many of u have issues disconnecting and eventually burning out. </rant>

that's the point that the writer made - Spike can work with anyone (unlike other apps like Slack, Teams, Skype, etc.) Spike works with your regular email, like Gsuite and turns your emails into a chat conversation. The other person doesn't know you're using Spike - they see a regular email. You can even create a channel and message with people not on Spike. That's pretty cool stuff IMO

That's exactly why we need to fix email - not replace it with another app with more notifications. I agree with Dvir - email's asynchronous nature is what makes the exact solution for business comms. It's instant, but not invasive, and doesn't expect an instant reply. Culturally, we need to also respect people's time. I'm sticking with email.

Most of the Slack channels I use are used async, and I only have notifications on for 2 out of ~15 channels. Good comms culture was much easier to develop with Slack + [Something for docs] for the teams I have worked with. But I very much understand that teams are different, and different cultures work optimally for different teams.

But then what's the point of using Slack? Your scenario describes you could just use email without downsides.

> without downsides

Hmm. Might be true for you.

Slack enabled "De-silo'ing". It became more efficient and convenient to ask a team, or knowledge group of something, instead of depending on specific persons. Easier to be flexible about which topics to follow or not. I.e. normally I don't interact much with the #ops channel, but Bill is on holiday, so I'm giving it attention this week.