Slack Connect Now allows you to mark anyone. So long, work-life balance

“When someone turns on their phone,” Frank said Protocol, “If they connect with their friends, they click on Facebook or WhatsApp. If you connect with someone you work with, no matter where that person works, you should click Slack. (Note the comparison with social media here.)

Slack users and experts often refer to the application as a tool for killing emails, and a feature like Slack Connect seems to be another nail in the email coffin. Probably not. I say this not because the email is good“I currently have more than 23,000 unread emails, and it’s not a humble compliment, it’s a cry for help – but because Slack chats and emails still have such fundamental differences.”

David Heinemeier Hansson, who created Ruby on Rails, co-founded the productivity software company Basecamp and rarely misses an opportunity to highlight the benefits of the e-mail product Basecamp, revealed some of these differentiators at WIRED: “Chat is in real time, staccato thinking. The email is asynchronous, considered thoughtful. Email is a protocol. Don’t lose your contact list because you change systems. Everyone has email. ”

Probably the worst thing about something like Slack chat is that it’s “yet another platform,” says Heinemeier Hansson. “The last thing the world needs is yet another proprietary protocol that will block a social chart for a single company.”

The structure of the e-mail can support a more careful experience (especially in a pandemic). But pants or text can also be considered. So the more important question may be whether Slack Connect is good for conversation, and what constitutes a good chat application in 2021. The first and perhaps most obvious feature of a good chat application is a privacy and security-tight approach. Slack does not provide end-to-end encryption; organizations currently cannot be verified as official companies on the platform, which seems more important now that people from other organizations can send messages; and, well, there is the initial snafu to allow people to send potentially harmful message attachments in DM requests. I’m also sorry, folks: Employers can read your Slack DMs, no matter how private they may seem.

The next consideration is what type of communication the chat actually allows. Slack’s real-time update cascade, threading features, programmable robots, even emoji smorgasbord and GIFs are part of the app’s appeal, as are the potential distractions. Microsoft Office applications are vegetables; Slack is candy. But candy, of course, isn’t necessarily good for you. Anne Helen Peterson, a former media researcher who now writes a Substack newsletter about Internet culture, noted in the past that Slack has become a way to LARP our jobs – this is the live-action role-playing game – and it’s one among the many applications it contributes to the “slip” between our professional life and personal life.