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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020
You get so much more done when you Slack! Ever wondered what it would be like to be less overwhelmed, more efficient, and much more engaged at work? A way you can make all that happen is, of course, to Slack. Actually, it's to use Slack, the business communications platform that's revolutionized how groups work together. This comprehensive guide shows how--as well as why--there are now millions of users of this flexible, fun, and intuitive workspace tool. Presented in a clear, easy-to-follow style, Slack For Dummies takes you from the basics of getting started with the service all the way through how to get your teams Slacking together for all they're worth. You'll also find case studies showing how Slack increases productivity and how to replicate that in your organization, as well as tips on getting buy-in from the boss. * Introduce Slack to your workflo * wUnderstand roles and feature * sAnalyze user dat * aKeep your Slacking secure So, take a peek inside and discover how you can cut the slack using Slack--and clue your teams in on how there is actually a way to Slack off for improved results!
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Slack™ For Dummies®
Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com
Copyright © 2020 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey
Published simultaneously in Canada
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of the Publisher. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.
Trademarks: Wiley, For Dummies, the Dummies Man logo, Dummies.com, Making Everything Easier, and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and may not be used without written permission. Slack is a trademark of Slack Technologies, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2020937263
ISBN 978-1-119-66950-0 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-66952-4 (ePDF); ISBN 978-1-119-66951-7 (epub)
Slack™ For Dummies®
To view this book's Cheat Sheet, simply go to www.dummies.com and search for “Slack For Dummies Cheat Sheet” in the Search box.
Table of Contents
Cover
Foreword
Introduction
About This Book
Foolish Assumptions
Icons Used in This Book
Beyond the Book
Where to Go from Here
Part 1: Working Smarter and Better with Slack
Chapter 1: Why Slack Exists
Introducing Slack
Meeting Slack’s Users and Customers
Understanding Why Slack Exists
What Slack Specifically Does
Chapter 2: Getting Started with Slack
Reviewing Slack’s Different Versions
Beginning Your Slack Journey with the Workspace
Summarizing Slack’s Different Roles and Permissions
Starting Your New Workspace Off on the Right Foot
Part 2: Communicating Without Chaos
Chapter 3: Targeting Your Communication with Slack Channels
Introducing Slack Channels
Exploring the Different Types of Slack Channels
Creating Public and Private Channels
Performing Channel Actions
Adding Members to Existing Channels
Exploring Existing Public Channels
Communicating via Slack Channels
Chapter 4: The Wonderful World of Slack Messages
Understanding Slack Messages
Sharing in Slack
Comparing Email and Slack
Forwarding Email to Slack
Communicating Outside of Slack
Chapter 5: Staying Informed with Notifications, Statuses, and Feeds
Getting Your Arms around Notifications
Letting Others Know Your Availability
Configuring Device-Specific Notifications
Finding Other Ways to Stay Current
Part 3: Becoming a Slack Power User
Chapter 6: Going Deeper into Slack’s Functionality
Making Calls in Slack
Sharing Your Screen in Slack
Saving Even More Time in Slack
Managing Your Life with Reminders
Saving Items
Creating User Groups
Chapter 7: Finding What You Need with Slack’s Powerful Search Techniques
Searching for Better Search Methods
Performing Searches in Slack
Getting the Most Out of Search in Slack
Chapter 8: Personalizing Slack
Getting to Know Your Slack Options
Customizing User Profiles
Organizing Your Sidebar
Chapter 9: Keeping It Safe: Reviewing Slack’s Security and Privacy Settings
Getting Acquainted with Slack Security
Security and Slack’s Evolution
Configuring Slack’s Access and Security Settings
Enhancing Security via Slack Enterprise Grid
Examining Privacy in Slack
Understanding Slack’s Tricky Regulatory Environment
Part 4: Extending Slack’s Native Functionality
Chapter 10: Making Slack Hum with Robust Third-Party Apps
Understanding How Slack Has Embraced Platform Thinking
Comparing Public and Private Apps
Enhancing Slack with Third-Party Apps
Introducing Some Popular Slack Apps
Finding and Installing Apps
Managing Apps and App Permissions
Using Workflow Builder
Chapter 11: Analyzing, Importing, Exporting, and Updating Slack User Data
Analyzing Workspace Data
Viewing Member Access Logs
Moving Data Around in Slack
Performing Mass Updates to User Data
Chapter 12: Integrating Slack with Popular Enterprise Systems
A Brief Primer on Enterprise Systems
Slack and Current Enterprise Systems
Part 5: Successfully Introducing Slack in the Workplace
Chapter 13: The Elements of Persuasion: Slack-Adoption Strategies
A Brief Primer on Network Effects
Reviewing the Different Slack-Adoption Approaches
Making Slack Stick at Work
Chapter 14: The Inherent Risks of Deploying Slack
Identifying the Risks of Using Slack
Listing Slack’s Environmental Challenges
Chapter 15: The Future of Slack: We’re Just Getting Started
Increased Use of Automation and Bots
Tighter Integration with Popular Enterprise Systems
Better Dashboards and Analytics
A More Powerful Slack Work Graph
Continued Borrowing of Popular Features from Other Apps
Key Acquisitions and Partnerships
Part 6: The Part of Tens
Chapter 16: Ten Great Slack Tips
Respond Promptly to New Users’ Requests, Questions, and Feedback
Regularly View Slack Analytics
Tread Lightly with New Hires
Establish Slack as the Default Medium for Internal Communication
Emphasize Slack’s Carrots More Than Its Sticks
Keep an Eye Out for New Slack Apps
Tell Overly Exuberant Slack Members to Tone It Down
Publicize Your Status and Availability
Try Before You Buy
Know When to Turn Slack Off
Chapter 17: Ten or So Common Slack Myths
Slack Is Just Email 2.0
Slack Decimates the Need for Email
All Organizations Configure Slack in a Uniform Way
Slack Obviates the Need for In-Person Communication
Slack Solves Every Conceivable Business-Communication Problem
Slack Is Too Expensive for Our Company
Our Company Has Built a Tool That’s Just as Good as Slack
Our Employees Don’t Need Slack
Our Company Uses Slack and Nothing Else for Collaboration
You Can’t Misuse Slack
Chapter 18: The Top Ten or So Slack Resources
Slack Online Support
Other Online Resources
In-Person Resources
Index
About the Author
Advertisement Page
Connect with Dummies
End User License Agreement
List of Tables
Chapter 3
TABLE 3-1 Reserved Slack Words as of April 1, 2020
TABLE 3-2 Slack Channel Icons and Descriptions
Chapter 4
TABLE 4-1 Referencing Channel Names in DMs
TABLE 4-2 Formatting Slack DMs via the WYSIWYG Editor
TABLE 4-3 Formatting Slack DMs via Keyboard Shortcuts
TABLE 4-4 Email versus Slack DMs
Chapter 5
TABLE 5-1 @-Symbol Notification Tricks
Chapter 6
TABLE 6-1 Slack Reminder Shortcuts
Chapter 10
TABLE 10-1 Cool IFTTT Applets
Chapter 11
TABLE 11-1 Slack Import Options for Third-Party Tools
Chapter 13
TABLE 13-1 Pre-Slack IM and Collaboration Tools
Chapter 14
TABLE 14-1 Pre-Slack Collaboration Tools
List of Illustrations
Chapter 1
FIGURE 1-1: Slack workspace of a college professor.
Chapter 2
FIGURE 2-1: Slackbot upgrade confirmation message.
FIGURE 2-2: Slack workspace email invitation.
FIGURE 2-3: Slack Start with a workspace page.
FIGURE 2-4: Slack browser email-confirmation message.
FIGURE 2-5: Slackbot introductory message with tips.
FIGURE 2-6: High-level diagram of the UI of a Slack workspace.
FIGURE 2-7: Sample Slack workspace with People view selected in sidebar.
FIGURE 2-8: Deactivated accounts in the People view.
FIGURE 2-9: Slack guest-account options.
FIGURE 2-10: My Slack profile.
Chapter 3
FIGURE 3-1: The basic Slack workspace communication structure.
FIGURE 3-2: Workplace with channels.
FIGURE 3-3: Slack prompt for creating a new channel.
FIGURE 3-4: Slack prompt for adding members to a new channel.
FIGURE 3-5: Channel icons and containers.
FIGURE 3-6: Starred
#faq
channel.
FIGURE 3-7: Setting default Slack channels for workspace members.
FIGURE 3-8: Viewing existing channels in a Slack workspace.
FIGURE 3-9: Browsing a filtered list of public Slack channels to which I don’t ...
FIGURE 3-10: Simple Slack channel message with response.
Chapter 4
FIGURE 4-1: Composing a simple DM to send to a colleague.
FIGURE 4-2: Selecting recipients for a group DM.
FIGURE 4-3: Example of a group DM.
FIGURE 4-4: Example of DM sent to yourself.
FIGURE 4-5: Slack Drafts view.
FIGURE 4-6: Example of DM referencing a public channel.
FIGURE 4-7: Slack’s People view.
FIGURE 4-8: Slack saved a DM.
FIGURE 4-9: Viewing pinned DMs in a conversation.
FIGURE 4-10: Sample post options.
FIGURE 4-11: Sample Slack rich-text post.
FIGURE 4-12: Sample Slack code snippet.
FIGURE 4-13: Slack Files view.
FIGURE 4-14: Slack message forbidding a user from sharing a private DM.
Chapter 5
FIGURE 5-1: Slack workspace with badges and unread activity.
FIGURE 5-2: Slack badge indicator from another workspace.
FIGURE 5-3: Slack workspace notification panel.
FIGURE 5-4: Example of muted Slack channels.
FIGURE 5-5: Example of customized channel notifications.
FIGURE 5-6: Slack composite view of channel notifications.
FIGURE 5-7: Slack workspace keyword alert setting for
quarterly meeting
.
FIGURE 5-8: Slack unread DMs.
FIGURE 5-9: Simple Slack reminder notification.
FIGURE 5-10: Slack notification of new activity in thread.
FIGURE 5-11: Slack default statuses.
FIGURE 5-12: Slack status with red stop-sign emoji.
FIGURE 5-13: Slack prompt when returning from away status.
FIGURE 5-14: Slack DM options showing member DND icon.
FIGURE 5-15: Overriding the DND status to send an urgent message.
FIGURE 5-16: A Slack email to an inactive member summarizing missed activity.
FIGURE 5-17: Slack Mentions & reactions on right-hand side.
FIGURE 5-18: Slack full-screen view of Mentions & reactions.
Chapter 6
FIGURE 6-1: Slack sample video call with icons.
FIGURE 6-2: Accepting a Slack call on an iPhone.
FIGURE 6-3: Slack
#general
channel call without participants.
FIGURE 6-4: Slack notification in
#general
channel of new call.
FIGURE 6-5: Slack message in
#general
channel that call has ended.
FIGURE 6-6: Viewing Slack preferences via keyboard shortcut from computer app.
FIGURE 6-7: My current Slack status.
FIGURE 6-8: Slackbot reminder confirmation.
FIGURE 6-9: Slackbot reminder.
FIGURE 6-10: Slack Saved view.
FIGURE 6-11: Slack user group initial prompt.
Chapter 7
FIGURE 7-1: Slack search results on the word “icon.”
FIGURE 7-2: Slack search results on the word “icon” restricted by member name.
FIGURE 7-3: Slack search results on the word “icon” restricted by member name a...
FIGURE 7-4: Slack search results using a regular and negative keyword.
FIGURE 7-5: Slack search results from multiple workspace members.
FIGURE 7-6: Slack search results containing multi-keyword phrase.
FIGURE 7-7: Slack search results containing a reversed multi-keyword phrase.
FIGURE 7-8: Slack search results containing multiple keywords without quotes.
FIGURE 7-9: Slack search results from just my channels and omitting bots.
FIGURE 7-10: Slack search results for messages with emojis.
FIGURE 7-11: Slack search results with wildcard following a text string.
FIGURE 7-12: Slack search results with wildcard preceding text string.
FIGURE 7-13: Slack fuzzy search results on “meetng.”
Chapter 8
FIGURE 8-1: Slack member preference window.
FIGURE 8-2: Slack sidebar options.
FIGURE 8-3: Slack custom emoji.
FIGURE 8-4: Slackbot setup for automated response.
FIGURE 8-5: Slackbot automated response in action.
FIGURE 8-6: Slack profile of a man with a brooding intensity and custom fields.
FIGURE 8-7: Slack custom fields in a user profile.
FIGURE 8-8: Slack custom section named Important.
FIGURE 8-9: Slack notification of activity in channel collapses Important secti...
Chapter 9
FIGURE 9-1: Slack email confirmation.
FIGURE 9-2: Example of a simple Slack access log.
FIGURE 9-3: Slack email confirming individual 2FA activation.
FIGURE 9-4: Slack workspace icon indicating that member needs to sign in again ...
Chapter 10
FIGURE 10-1: The Slack App Directory.
FIGURE 10-2: Example of a Simple Poll on student reaction to how I use PowerPoi...
FIGURE 10-3: IFTTT mobile-app notification.
FIGURE 10-4: Slackbot in-app confirmation message for the poll application Poll...
FIGURE 10-5: Slack email confirming installation of the Smartsheet app.
FIGURE 10-6: Slackbot message indicating expiration of trial period of Slack
Me
...
FIGURE 10-7: Slack App Management Settings.
FIGURE 10-8: Slack app rejection message for Marlo, a meeting-feedback app.
FIGURE 10-9: Slack Apps view.
FIGURE 10-10: Slack message when member attempts to install the Outlook Calenda...
FIGURE 10-11: Slackbot message notifying Workspace Admin of member app-installa...
FIGURE 10-12: Slack message indicating that user is not authorized to install t...
FIGURE 10-13: Disabling the Giphy Slack app.
FIGURE 10-14: Slack log for app-related workspace activity.
FIGURE 10-15: Workflow Builder example.
FIGURE 10-16: Workflow Builder message welcoming new member to
#slack_tips
.
FIGURE 10-17: Workflow Builder shortcut to IT-support form.
Chapter 11
FIGURE 11-1: Slack analytics dashboard.
FIGURE 11-2: Slack chart showing active members (Standard plan).
FIGURE 11-3: Messages read: Breakdown by date.
FIGURE 11-4: Breakdown of messages sent by date.
FIGURE 11-5: Total workspace messages sent by date.
FIGURE 11-6: Workspace files uploaded by date.
FIGURE 11-7: Slack channel analytics (Free plan).
FIGURE 11-8: Slack channel analytics (premium plans).
FIGURE 11-9: Slack member analytics (premium plans).
FIGURE 11-10: Slack daily access log.
FIGURE 11-11: Slack Export Data options.
FIGURE 11-12: Slackbot DM with data export download link.
FIGURE 11-13: Slack past exports.
FIGURE 11-14: Unzipped files from Slack Standard Export.
FIGURE 11-15: JSON data from a Slack Standard Export file.
Guide
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Foreword
My cofounders and I never could have imagined that our internal collaboration tool would eventually revolutionize workplace communications and change how people work. At that time, email was the default coordinating point for communications and information, but inside our company — which was split between New York City, San Francisco, and Vancouver — it was simply too slow. We wanted a better, quicker solution than email for working together and across great distances. So, like any group of engineers would, we set out to build one.
Designed to bring the tools you use and the people you work with every day into one place, Slack, we believe, is a better way of working together than email. Meaningful teamwork and engagement on Slack happens in channels, which you can read more about in Chapter 3. Channels and shared channels (between multiple organizations) represent a more efficient mechanism for workplace communication and are organized by team or projects, which helps facilitate relevant exchanges and productivity.
These channels quickly become rich, dense, searchable archives of information, giving users quick access to all the information they need in one centralized location. (You can find out more on the power of search in Slack in Chapter 7.) Slack is made even more powerful by integrating third-party apps to accomplish a range of tasks spanning all major categories of work, including project management, finance, design, customer support, and more. As you can read in Chapter 10, Slack has thousands of apps in its directory — all designed to make your workday more productive.
Even in its earliest iterations, we viewed Slack as more than a simple messaging tool. When we talk about Slack as a collaboration hub, we don’t just mean people sending messages to one another, but more broadly, the work that is enabled across teams on a single platform. Slack started as a tool we built to answer our small company’s needs, and it turns out those needs were pretty universal, from coffee roasters to healthcare offices to some of the world’s largest financial services companies. If you’re reading this book, it’s likely you’re in a similar situation.
I hope Slack For Dummies gives you strong foundational knowledge about what Slack can do to improve your workplace communications, and by reading it, you’re able to pick up a few tips and tricks along the way. In the end, every business is made up of teams who are looking for a better way to work together. We’re happy and grateful to be a part of your journey.
— Cal Henderson, cofounder and Chief Technology Officer, Slack Technologies, Inc.
Introduction
Not that long ago, the world’s most successful organizations relied upon typewriters, landlines, inter-office memos, and secretaries. Email and even fax machines didn’t exist. Back then, employees took actual vacations.
Don’t believe me? Watch a few episodes of AMC’s Mad Men. Odds are that you probably won’t recognize the 1960s’ world of work. Although it predates me by a few years, it’s an authentic portrayal of office life back then.
The modern-day workplace is a far cry from those quaint days. Employees today are bombarded with a constant barrage of often pointless emails, text messages, meeting requests, phone calls, and information. The era of Big Data is here, and far too often multi-tasking reigns supreme. The idea of working without interruptions is foreign to many employees. Thanks to smartphones, we’re almost always reachable, even when we are supposed to be on vacation.
If you’re stressed while on the clock, at least take solace in the fact that you’re not alone. According to a 2018 Korn Ferry survey, “Nearly two-thirds of professionals say their stress levels at work are higher than they were five years ago.” (Read the study at https://tinyurl.com/y2jxeatr.)
Enter Slack, a tool that makes work more manageable and less overwhelming. Slack’s cohesive set of powerful features allows employees to regain control of their professional lives in a number of simple yet effective ways. In addition, Slack allows you to communicate and collaborate well with your colleagues, managers, clients, partners, and vendors.
No, Slack doesn’t solve every conceivable workplace problem. No software program can. Still, when used properly, Slack helps employers build valuable organizational knowledge bases, increase productivity and transparency, and often maintain an edge over their competition. Employees benefit as well in the form of less chaotic work environments, fewer emails, being able to more easily find key information, and much more.
About This Book
Slack For Dummies is the most extensive guide on how to use this powerful, flexible, affordable, and user-friendly collaboration tool. It provides an in-depth overview of Slack’s most valuable features — some of which even experienced users may have overlooked since adopting it. This text goes beyond merely showing you how to install, configure, and customize Slack. It also offers practical tips on how individual users, groups, and even entire firms can get the most out of it. In short, this is the book that I wish I had when I taught myself Slack years ago.
As with all titles in the For Dummies series, you’ll find the book’s organization and flow straightforward and intuitive. The tone is conversational. Ideally, you’ll have fun while concurrently learning how to use an increasingly important, popular, and useful application. I certainly had fun writing it.
Foolish Assumptions
I wrote Slack For Dummies with a number of different cohorts in mind:
People who are frustrated from wasting time at work mired in their inboxes and have finally had enough.
People who generally want to know more about how Slack works.
Organization decision makers who (correctly) believe that their employees can collaborate and communicate better and be more productive.
Employees at organizations that have already experimented with or purchased Slack and want to do more with it.
People in different social or professional groups who need an easy way to communicate with fellow members, coordinate events, and the like.
Slack For Dummies is geared toward everyday users, not application developers. To be sure, I mention a few resources for people who want to know more about building new apps. Make no mistake, though: This book is for normal users. If you are a proper developer and you’re looking for a text on how to build Slack apps and access its application programming interfaces, unfortunately you’ll have to go elsewhere.
Slack For Dummies presumes zero prior use or even knowledge of the application. Nada. If you’re not exactly tech-savvy, then fret not. Perhaps you’re merely curious about what this “Slack thing” can do and how you’d do it. Congratulations: You’ve found the right text.
I do, however, assume the following:
You are curious about how Slack can make your work life less chaotic.
You receive plenty of internal emails and sometimes struggle managing your inbox.
You know how to use a proper computer, whether it’s a Mac or PC.
You can navigate mobile devices, such as smartphones or tablets.
At some point in your life, you’ve accessed the World Wide Web with an Internet browser.
I’m a firm believer in truth in advertising. By way of background, my editor and I wanted to keep this book at a reasonable length and cost. To do so, we made a few conscious decisions about its content, and I want you to know about them from the get-go.
First, the book that you’re holding isn’t nearly as long as War and Peace, but it certainly isn’t slim. Please understand going in that Slack For Dummies does not include step-by-step directions on how to configure and tweak each and every setting or feature in any single Slack plan, never mind all four of them. Such a task is simply impractical. Even if it were, Slack adds new features on a regular basis and sometimes changes existing ones. All software companies do today. The fleas come with the dog.
Just about every other author of a contemporary book of a robust application has had to confront the same inherent tradeoff. I’m not special. Consider Greg Harvey’s Excel 2019 For Dummies (Wiley Publishing, Inc.), a 432-page tome on Microsoft’s iconic spreadsheet program. As comprehensive as that text is, it does not contain detailed examples of all Excel functions and features because it can’t. Nor can it cover all of the subtle distinctions between the Excel Mac and PC versions. The same limitation applies to the equally lengthy WordPress For Dummies (Wiley) by Lisa Sabin-Wilson and countless others in this series.
I’ve deliberately chosen my battles here. Slack For Dummies highlights:
What I believe are Slack’s essential and frequently used features
Obscure features that members
should
use — or at the very least know about — and how to intelligently use them
In some cases, I describe a feature without spending valuable space on how to actually do it because Slack makes it self-explanatory.
Second and in a similar vein, I have intentionally written all the instructions in this book to be as device-agnostic as possible. In other words, I demonstrate how to do things in Slack by using its desktop application. In some necessary cases, I do the same by accessing Slack via a browser. Put differently, I almost always demonstrate Slack’s functionality using a proper computer, whether that’s a PC or a Mac.
No, I’m not living in the 1970s and 1980s. (Well, maybe with my taste in music, but that’s a different discussion.) I know full well that mobile devices arrived in earnest a long time ago. At times, I’ll mention how you can perform a specific Slack action on a smartphone or tablet. Largely due to space considerations, however, I simply cannot replicate how to execute each Slack task on all iOS and Android versions and devices. Minor differences persist. Even if I somehow managed to pull that off in the following pages, you’d probably find half of my directions irrelevant to you. I have met very few people who use both types of devices. People typically pick one side or the other. Brass tacks: To borrow a line from Greek philosophy, in this book the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
Fear not, young Jedi. The vast majority of users find Slack to be remarkably intuitive. You’ll soon be able to naturally perform most of Slack’s key functions on the mobile device of your choice. In the event that you’re flummoxed about how to accomplish something on your phone or tablet, Slack’s website contains detailed instructions on how to do whatever you want on just about whatever device you want.
Icons Used in This Book
Throughout the margins of this book are small pictures that highlight key information:
This icon highlights shortcuts that should save you some time.
Be careful whenever you see this icon.
This icon highlights technical information that may or may not interest you. If not, then feel free to skip it.
You’ll want to keep key points in mind as you work in Slack. This icon highlights those points.
Beyond the Book
In addition to what you’re reading right now, this product also comes with a free access-anywhere Cheat Sheet that gives you a Slack-term glossary and a list of keyboard shortcuts. To get this Cheat Sheet, simply go to www.dummies.com and type Slack For Dummies Cheat Sheet in the Search box.
Where to Go from Here
You need not start this book on page one and continue to the end; Slack For Dummies isn’t a novel. If you’ve already dabbled with this powerful collaboration tool, then you can jump around to the sections that pique your interest. I’ve written it in that vein.
If you’re only considering hopping on the Slack train or have only heard about it, then you should start with the first two chapters. From there, you’ll want to read the book in a relatively linear manner.
Regardless of where you ultimately start reading, you’ll find it helpful to create a new, free Slack workspace or log into an existing one. I also recommend downloading the Slack app for your computer and at least one mobile device. I have taught myself how to use plenty of new programming languages, applications, and technologies over the years. Throughout my career, I have found that getting my hands dirty and doing the exercises myself to be invaluable.
The journey begins now.
THANK YOU
Thank you for buying Slack For Dummies. I hope that you find it useful, informative, and even a little entertaining. Throughout this book, I have emphasized the many potential benefits of Slack and how to take advantage of them.
I qualified the previous statement because Slack has never been an elixir to all corporate ills and sources of dysfunction. It never will be — nor will any technology or app, for that matter. Employees who revert to email and use Slack intermittently will fail to recognize its considerable advantages. As with any new tool, Slack’s ultimate success hinges upon many factors. At the top of my list are opening your mind and setting realistic expectations for what it can and can’t do.
I wish you the best of luck on your journey to communicate and collaborate better with your colleagues. Let me know if I can help.
Slack on,
Phil Simon | www.philsimon.com
April 28, 2020
Part 1
Working Smarter and Better with Slack
IN THIS PART
Meet Slack
Discover the problems that Slack solves
Navigate your way around Slack
Examine Slack’s different versions and roles
Create a Slack profile
Chapter 1
Why Slack Exists
IN THIS CHAPTER
Identifying the reasons that so many employers and employees embrace Slack
Uncovering Slack’s advantages over email
Understanding the many business problems that Slack solves
What is Slack anyway? Where did it come from? Was it the result of long-term planning, a eureka moment, or a happy accident? And what business problems can it solve, anyway?
This chapter answers these questions in spades. Further, it provides some background information about Slack.
Introducing Slack
Slack stands for Searchable Log of All Conversation and Knowledge. This is what many in the business world call a backronym: a contrived acronym. To be sure, I’ve seen plenty of backronyms — especially in my HR days. In this case, though, the term happens to be entirely fitting.
Slack is “where work happens.” This is the pithy answer — and the one that adorns the company’s website. The company’s lofty mission is “to make work life simpler, more pleasant, and more productive.”
I’ll cut to the chase: Mission accomplished.
At a high level, Slack is a relatively new and powerful application that allows people to work, communicate, and collaborate better — one that has become increasingly popular since its launch way back in August 2013. At its core, Slack brings people together to accomplish goals through what it now calls a workspace. (Slack used to call this a team.) Figure 1-1 shows what one looks like.
FIGURE 1-1: Slack workspace of a college professor.
If you’re chomping at the bit and can’t wait any longer, take an online tour of Slack by visiting https://slack.com/features.
Slack’s popularity has exploded since its early days. As such, you may think that the idea behind Slack required years of meticulous planning and deliberation. And you’d be wrong. If you’re curious about Slack’s origins, check out the nearby sidebar “A happy accident: Slack’s background and history.” To listen to a longer version of the Slack story from the mouth of CEO and co-founder Stewart Butterfield himself, go to bit.ly/sl-podc.
In effect, Slack accidentally popularized — and some would argue even created — a new and colossal product category. This is no easy feat. International Data Corp labels this category the team collaborative applications market. The research firm estimates that worldwide spending on collaboration software is currently $16.5 billion and will reach more than $26.6 billion by 2023.
Slack is a nicely packaged set of integrated collaboration tools. In the interest of full disclosure and as Chapter 14 covers, though, other software vendors previously released somewhat comparable products.
Chapter 7 covers Slack’s search functionality in depth.
A HAPPY ACCIDENT: SLACK’S BACKGROUND AND HISTORY
In 2009, Stewart Butterfield, Eric Costello, Cal Henderson, and Serguei Mourachov started a company called Tiny Speck based out of Vancouver, British Columbia. The company was building a massively multiplayer online game called Glitch.
After a few years of toiling away, the Tiny Speck founders realized that Glitch was never going to reach critical mass. Most startup founders have a hard time killing their darlings, but Butterfield and his cofounders could no longer ignore the obvious: It was time to abandon ship.
Don’t mistake this story, though, as another example of an irresponsible startup depleting its funds. By way of background, Butterfield and his team were experienced entrepreneurs. (Butterfield’s previous company, Ludicorp, had sold its photo-sharing service Flickr to Yahoo! in 2005 for roughly $25 million.) Tiny Speck managed its money well and still had plenty of runway, to use the parlance of Silicon Valley.
Tiny Speck’s founders offered to return all their remaining funding to their investors, but the entrepreneurs first wanted to float an idea. While building Glitch, the team had cobbled together a valuable internal collaboration tool. The entrepreneurs enjoyed working with one another, and they were curious about where this new tool could go. Tiny Speck’s investors agreed and let them pivot.
Slack launched the beta version of its product in August 2013. Roughly 8,000 people immediately signed up. Slack grew quickly and organically, largely thanks to marketing’s holy grail: word-of-mouth.
Growth has exploded since then. With Butterfield as CEO, Slack Technologies, Inc. started trading on June 20, 2019, on the New York Stock Exchange under the apropos symbol $WORK. Its value exceeded $14 billion on February 11, 2020, after it closed a massive deal with IBM. Here are some fascinating Slack statistics:
As of January 2020, more than 12 million people use Slack. Collectively, they send more than a billion messages every day.Every week and on average, an astonishing five billion actions take place on Slack. I’m talking about reading and writing messages, uploading files, commenting on them, searching for content, automating tasks, and interacting with third-party apps.Approximately half of Slack’s daily active users live and work outside of the United States.You can find Slack users in more than 150 countries in the world.More than 600,000 organizations use Slack — more than 100,000 of which pay for it. Customers include Pinterest, Airbnb, CNN, Target, and Zappos.At least 65 percent of Fortune 100 companies pay for Slack.As of this writing and according to LinkedIn, 42 percent of Slack’s more than 2,000 employees in its 18 offices previously worked at a top-80 tech company. By comparison, at Google that number is 58 percent.Nearly 22 percent of Slack employees graduated from a top-30 university. This number is second to Google’s 22.3 percent.The accounting firm Kruze Consulting found that 60 percent of funded startups not only use Slack, but they pay for the privilege of doing so.For more interesting Slack facts, go to bit.ly/sl-facts.
UNDER THE HOOD
Slack uses an impressive array of powerful, contemporary technologies, programming languages, and frameworks to work its magic. That is, it does not attempt to cram everything into a single language or framework because one size does not fit all.
According to chief technology officer Cal Henderson (and author of this book’s foreword):
Slack’s web client/desktop app runs on a mix of JavaScript, ECMAScript 6 (ES6), and React.Slack’s Android client is written in a mix of Java and Kotlin.Slack’s iOS app relies upon both Objective C and Swift.As for hosting, Slack engages Amazon Web Services (AWS), the world’s most popular provider of cloud computing. Visit bit.ly/slackstack for more on the specific technologies that Slack uses.
Meeting Slack’s Users and Customers
Thanks to its flexibility, Slack appeals to the smallest of startups, the largest of conglomerates, and organizations of every size in between. Firms old and new have jumped on the bandwagon.
Next, using Slack is not a binary. As you can see in Chapter 2, organizations can test its waters without making long-term financial commitments. (In this case, you can get a little bit pregnant.) Beyond that, individuals, groups, and departments can benefit from using Slack even if it hasn’t spread throughout the entire organization — yet. To be fair, though, putting less into Slack means that employers will get less out of it.
The industries that use Slack run the gamut: technology, media, music, higher education, retail, hair salons, and restaurants. I’m hard-pressed to think of an area that Slack hasn’t touched. Beyond scrappy upstarts and for-profit organizations, government agencies such as the U.S. Census Bureau and the State Department also call themselves Slack customers. Tech-savvy and tieless ex-Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang used it to quickly bring his new campaign volunteers up to speed. I could keep going but you catch my drift.
As for age, Slack users run the gamut. If you think that it’s a tool exclusively for millennial hipsters, think again. I’m anything but a 20-something, and people far older than I use it on a daily basis.
Most fascinating to me, an increasing number of informal groups creatively use Slack to assign tasks, plan events, and communicate. I’m talking here about book clubs, hiking groups, sports leagues, and others. Then there are families. Yes, families. (Read more at bit.ly/sl-fam3.)
Bottom line: Slack appeals to diverse types, sizes, and compositions of formal organizations and informal groups. Every day, Slack allows millions of people to eschew outdated and ineffective communication methods. The biggest culprit: the mass email thread. Slack’s ability to significantly curtail internal email represents a major reason that so many enlightened souls have embraced it.
To read detailed case studies on how different organizations and industries use Slack in creative ways, go to bit.ly/slackwow.
HOW I BECAME A SLACK FANBOY
In August 2016, I began my new career as a full-time college professor. I started teaching technology- and data-related subjects at ASU’s W. P. Carey School of Business.
During my first year, my plate was beyond full. In no particular order, I had to familiarize myself with material for three different 400-level classes. Beyond preparing lectures, I felt compelled to overhaul most of my predecessors’ opaque syllabi, assignment rubrics, and presentation slides.
Oh, I’m nowhere close to finished describing my to-do list.
I also needed to complete a number of obligatory school-specific training courses, figure out how academe works, meet with students, grade papers, design exercises to promote active learning, record videos, and become proficient at the school’s learning-management system or LMS at the time (Blackboard). Oh, and I wrote a book for my analytics class.
No, I wasn’t bored.
On the collaboration and communications side, like many of my colleagues, I immediately found Blackboard wanting. Given my other responsibilities, though, I wasn't about to rock the boat from the get-go. (Even if I had loved Blackboard, using another tool would have benefited my students. After all, the vast majority of my students certainly wouldn’t be using an LMS after graduating.)
During my first two semesters, I experimented with some different in-class communication tools, such as Google Forms and WordPress. Ultimately, nothing really struck my fancy. Yes, those tchotchkes were useful, but they just weren’t integrated. I didn’t want to confuse my students. What’s more, those standalone tools didn’t encourage targeted communications with them.
With a year of teaching under my belt, in fall 2017, I decided to give Slack a whirl.
In a nutshell, Slack changed everything. I have proudly used it every semester since for all my classes. I have even convinced some of my hidebound colleagues to give it a shot. Not a day goes by that I don’t use Slack. For the most part, my students love it.
Understanding Why Slack Exists
In hindsight, the birth of Slack was serendipitous. Lest you dismiss it, though, the problems that Slack solves are anything but trivial.
Let me start by asking you a few questions:
How would you characterize communication and collaboration between and among people in your group, department, and company?
How often do you experience communication-related issues?
Do you sometimes feel overwhelmed and/or disengaged while at work?
Does locating key documents or conversations take longer than it should?
Have you ever wondered if there was fundamentally a better way to work?
Be honest.
If you answered no to all those questions, then feel free to skip the rest of this chapter. I’m guessing, though, that you responded yes to at least a few of them.
I don’t know your current situation, but let me go out on a limb: Some or even most of your work-related anxiety stems from the sources I describe in the following sections. As you read them, at least take some solace in two facts:
You’re not alone in feeling this way.
There’s a light at the end of the tunnel, and its name is Slack.
Email: The blessing and all-too-frequent curse
Much of the time wasted at work stems from email or, more precisely, our misuse of email. Don’t take me at my word. though.
In July 2012, the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) released a report titled “The social economy: Unlocking value and productivity through social technologies.” (Read the study at mck.co/mgislack.)
MGI discovered that knowledge workers spend roughly 28 percent of their work time dealing with email. The math here is downright scary: For example, if you work 50 hours per week, then you’ll spend 14 of them in your inbox. (If you only clock 40 hours every week, then expect to spend about 11.2 of them in email hell.)
Alternatively, think about it this way: Thirty years ago, professionals spent zero hours sending and reading emails every week. Today, those two tasks make up nearly one-third of their workday. McKinsey urges employees to use more collaborative tools in lieu of email. The report suggests that this change would let us recapture seven to nine percent of our workweeks.
Here are the two things to remember from this report:
Slack is one of these tools.
In the eight years since the publication of the McKinsey report, I strongly suspect that, in most organizations, the employee email headache has only exacerbated.
Nay on the vacay
At least there’s vacation, right? Imagine the thought of unplugging on a one-week sojourn in Paris or chasing golf balls in verdant Myrtle Beach.
Hmm, maybe not. Most people are unable to escape email’s menacing wrath even when taking hard-earned time off.
A 2019 LinkedIn survey revealed that nearly three in five of employees on vacation admitted to checking in with their bosses or coworkers every day. Nearly one-quarter checked in three or more times per day. Employees who truly do go off the grid return with inboxes overflowing with new messages.
If you’re going to be working — or just thinking about work — anyway, then why even bother taking time off? Plenty of Americans share this sentiment. In August 2019, the consumer financial services company Bankrate reported that a mere 28 percent of U.S. citizens planned to use all their allotted vacation time. In 2017, Project: Time Off found that Americans squandered 212 million days off annually.
Constant connectivity
I could keep going, but you get my point: Thanks in large part to email and constant connectivity, for many people, work has become the very definition of a no-win situation.
Trapped institutional knowledge
The near-universal use — and overuse — of email has confined a great deal of valuable organizational knowledge in the inboxes of individual employees. When employees leave a company, IT typically deactivates or deletes their email accounts. No matter the method, the result is the same: Those employees’ essential files, important conversations, decisions, and institutional wisdom effectively dies.
IT’S COMPLICATED. OUR LOVE-HATE RELATIONSHIP WITH EMAIL.
Many people are critical of email as a communications medium. I’ll unapologetically put myself in this camp. My 2015 book Message Not Received: Why Business Communication Is Broken and How to Fix It (Wiley) is in part a screed against its overuse.
But think about the utility of email for a moment. People of a certain age remember the inefficiency of life before email. I’m talking about the 1980s and early 1990s. In college, I used to photocopy letters and mail them to my friends because it was the easiest way to stay in touch with them. Business correspondence back then was hardly fast, even with the advent of fax machines. Thanks to email, those days are long gone.
More than 25 years since its widespread adoption in the corporate world, email remains remarkably powerful because of its ubiquity. When was the last time that you saw a business card without an email address? Anyone can email you about anything and vice versa — inside and outside of your company. With rare exception these days, those messages arrive both securely and instantly. Oh, and did I mention that email is essentially free?
When it comes to responses, email applications let you reply to individuals and groups without restriction — often too frequently. Everyone has done it before and recognizes the following subject line:
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: [insert name of topic]
No, email isn’t perfect. No technology is. To deal with its limitations, people block certain senders, unsubscribe from newsletters, create filters and rules, and flag messages as spam.
Perhaps you’ve reflected on this tried-and-true model of a single, overflowing inbox with an interminable stream of context-free messages. The idea of hundreds of unread emails is unsettling, although many people store messages in different folders and sub-folders. Brass tacks: For a long time, email was probably the best that employees could do.
Thanks to Slack, that is no longer the case.
Employees often can’t find what they want — quickly or even at all
At work, employees generate an enormous amount of content — much of which they can’t find easily or even at all. I’m talking about Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, contracts in Word, and other key documents. Workers often struggle to find key messages in their bloated inboxes. Case in point: The Findwise 2016 Enterprise Search & Findability survey found that a full one-third of responding organizations claimed that their employees experienced problems finding basic information. (Read it by visiting bit.ly/findwise-sl.)
A BLEAK PICTURE: AN OVERWORKED, DISENGAGED WORKFORCE
Employees suffering from email hell and information overload aren’t exactly happy campers. The 2017 Gallup State of the American Workplace report found that a full 70 percent of workers are “actively disengaged” while on the job. The situation is downright alarming. What’s the cost to U.S. companies? Oh, not much. Just anywhere from $500 to $600 billion dollars. Every year.
The problem is so acute that an entire category of software is dedicated to helping employees find key documents and information. In basic terms, enterprise search technology (ESR) — also known as enterprise search and retrieval — allows employees to more quickly locate content while on the clock. And this is no niche market. In late 2016, Grand View Research estimates that the ESR market will reach nearly $9 billion by 2024.
Think about the irony here: As of this writing, people routinely google more than 130 trillion webpages in less than a second. It’s an astonishing number, but they quickly find what they need and gleefully move on with their day. At the same time, untold millions of employees often can’t pinpoint simple conversations or Microsoft Word documents. The words crisis and opportunity come to mind.
For a much deeper look at this problem as well as some solutions, check out Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time (Picador) by Brigid Schulte.
What Slack Specifically Does
When used correctly, Slack helps individuals, groups, and even entire organizations solve these grave workplace problems. In other words, Slack offers a number of benefits to both employers and their employees.
Employer benefits
No doubt Slack’s customers realize significant benefits from using it. Fair enough, but what are those perks? The next section lists a bunch of the most important ones.
ADDRESSING THE SLACK SKEPTICS
Maybe you’re saying to yourself, “Hold the phone. You really seem to love this funky new collaboration tool. Fine, but there’s just one holdup: My colleagues and I already communicate well without this Slack thing for years. Why change?”
I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt here: Communication at your employer isn’t entirely dysfunctional. Odds are, though, that you can still reap massive rewards from using Slack.
Let me allay another concern that you may have about Slack right out of the gate: Using it requires zero technical sophistication. Nada. To use Slack, you don’t have to roll up your sleeves and code. If you know how to operate a computer or a mobile app, then you can use Slack just as well as I do.
There’s a world of difference between theory and practice. Sure, each of the benefits in the following sections is possible. That doesn’t mean, though, that any of them is guaranteed to occur — never mind all of them. (Chapter 13 provides recommendations on how to cross the chasm between what can happen and what will happen.)
Build a permanent, comprehensive, and searchable organizational knowledge repository
Consider the following questions:
How much rich institutional knowledge lives in your inbox?
How many messages detail key, job-related interactions and decisions?
How much information about organizational processes is in your head and not formally documented anywhere else?
Think about these questions for a moment. I’ll wait.
Now, consider what happens to those key insights if you left your company. At best, they’ll remain dormant. At worst, an IT administrator deletes them forever. And the knowledge that’s locked in your head? Gone forever.
Slack solves this problem far better than any email inbox does — only if employees use it, of course. Slack effectively retains an indefinite record of these valuable files, decisions, and conversations. Employees simply search Slack.
Enhance employee productivity
Slack allows employees to spend less time sending mass emails and trying to locate key documents. Where is that damn TPS report?
If you accept this premise, then it stands to reason that employees will waste less time and be more productive. I have yet to meet a single manager, company president, or CEO who didn’t want her employees to be more efficient and more effective while on the clock. Slack helps employees do this in spades.
Improve employee corporate communication and collaboration
Consider organizations that rely predominantly or — heaven forbid — exclusively on in-person meetings and email back-and-forth. With rare exception, they tend to do poorly in these regards. Along with Google Docs, Dropbox, Zoom, and others, Slack is part of a new breed of tools that obviates the need for many meetings, email messages, and other old-school ways of communicating that often fail.
Facilitate remote work
Remote work is growing in popularity with no end in sight, In October 2019, the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank found that the share of Americans who primarily work from home has risen in recent decades. A few numbers stand out:
In 1980, a mere 0.7 percent of full-time employees worked primarily from home. By 2017, that number had risen to 3 percent.
Seven percent of full-time workers telecommuted four days or more per month.
To read the research for yourself, see bit.ly/ps-wfh.
Of course, you need not be an economist to know that, over the last 20 years, the idea of working from home has gained significant traction. Few of us ever heard the term digital nomad in the 1990s. Then again, smartphones, powerful broadband connections, and contemporary cloud computing didn’t exist.
Increase employee job satisfaction
Slack lets employees work effectively from home. As a result, everyone concerned can reap its rewards. Consider a 2013 study by the University of Melbourne and the New Zealand Work Research Institute. The two organizations discovered that employees who work at home one to three days a week are more productive than employees who need to slog into the office every day. In 2013, Stanford professor Nicholas Bloom published a paper detailing his own findings. He found that working from home boosted employee output by 13 percent.
Beyond this study, there’s no shortage of other research that has correlated remote work with higher employee job satisfaction. For example, recently Owl Labs — a video-conferencing company — released its 2019 State of Remote Work report. It confirmed that remote workers are happier and stay in jobs longer. (Read the report at bit.ly/2oJNHOu.)
For years now, remote work has been growing in popularity. What’s more, it confers just about everyone benefits from it. Against this backdrop, you’d think that most organizations would be prepared for it. And you’d be spectacularly wrong. (If you’re wondering why, see the nearby sidebar “Not remotely prepared for remote work.”)
Maybe you’re furrowing your brow at this point. Allowing employees to work remotely does not necessitate using Slack. That’s true, but what about being able to effectively work outside of the office? Put differently, how can employees be productive if they lack the right tools?
Slack is particularly effective in this regard. Its powerful functionality facilitates distributed workplaces. I’m talking here about multi-user videoconferencing and screensharing, instant messaging, the ability to post meaningful status updates and availability windows, and real-time file collaboration. By providing these rich features, Slack makes it easy to accomplish things while outside of the office.
NOT REMOTELY PREPARED FOR REMOTE WORK
In 2019, Harvard Business School and Boston Consulting Group released a lengthy study called “Future Positive: How Companies Can Tap Into Employee Optimism to Navigate Tomorrow’s Workplace.” The two organizations surveyed 11,000 workers and 6,500 business leaders. (Read it at hbs.me/2uDQxbc.)
One of the study’s findings is particularly apropos here: Employees consistently voiced their preference for remote, autonomous work and work-life balance. Sadly, a mere 30 percent of those surveyed indicated that their businesses were prepared to even offer it.
It’s a sad state of affairs, but one that any organization can change by embracing Slack.
Allow employees to begin their jobs with less training
Slack functions in a similar way to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other popular social networks. (For example, if you use any of those social media sites, you’ll immediately grasp what the @ and # symbols do.) As such, employees won't require days or weeks of expensive, time-consuming training to get going. (Trust me: The learning curve isn’t steep. The one-day, on-site class that I offer to my clients gets the ball rolling.)
You don’t need to fear costly training outlays. Effectively using Slack does not require sending employees away for days at a time.
Increase organizational transparency
In recent years, many organizations have become more transparent with their workforces. The benefits in this vein can be significant.
Consider 2019 research from JUST Capital. The nonprofit reviewed data from nearly 900 publicly traded U.S. companies. JUST assessed transparency and return on equity (ROE) on nine worker issues. On all but one of them, being more transparent with employees resulted in ROE boosts of anywhere between 1.2 to 3 percent. (Read the study yourself at bit.ly/2U0j9n9.)
For legal, ethical, and business reasons, few employers to my knowledge have embraced radical transparency. Make no mistake, though: Just being a tad more forthright with employees often improves employee perceptions of their firms’ culture and their management. Sure, workers may not agree with a particular outcome or trend, but at least they’re more likely to understand it.
Slack helps organizations communicate more transparently with their workforces. Compared to mass email blasts, the application does a far better job of allowing management to share information with rank-and-file employees, gather responses, and gauge them. For their part, workers can easily discuss topics and make decisions out in the open. Just as critically, Slack can publicly or privately capture why people make decisions.
Organizations need not use Slack to be transparent with their workers. Using Slack just makes doing so really easy.
Help companies attract and retain top talent
Since its launch, Slack has developed a well-deserved reputation as a cool tool among many employees, especially those with hot skills. To this end, savvy recruiters sometimes play up the Slack angle when trying to lure candidates from white-hot fields, such as data science and software development.
