Comment by jasonpeacock
2 days ago
The bullet points for using Slack basically describe email (and distribution lists).
It’s funny how we get an instant messaging platform and derive best practices that try to emulate a previous technology.
Btw, email is pretty instant.
If you work in a team, email is limited to the people you cc: while a convo in a slack channel can have people you didn't think of jump in* with information.
See the other point in the article about discouraging one on one private messages and encouraging public discussion. That is the main reason.
* half a day later or days later if you do true async, but that's fine.
I am neutral in this particular topic, so don’t think I’m defending or attacking or anything.
But aren’t mailling lists and distribution groups pretty ubiquitous?
But - from the people you actually want to get to contribute - emails come with an expectation of a well thought out text. IMs ... less so.
I've been working across time zones via IM and email since ... ICQ.
I'm probably biased by that but I consider email the place for questions lists and long statuses with request for comments, and for info that I want retained somewhere. While IM is a transient medium where you throw a quickie question or statement or whine every couple hours - and check what everyone else is whining about.
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I get it, email accomplishes a lot. But it "feels" like a place these days for one-off group chats, especially for people from different organizations. Realtime chat has its places and can also step in to that email role within a team. All my opinion, none too strongly held.