What is Slack and Why You Should Care? Collaboration…Optimized

What is Slack and Why You Should Care? Collaboration…Optimized

Technology

Is there anything more frustrating than sending an email to a team member and then waiting for them to get back to you? How often do you find yourself doing “busy” work until that crucial bit of information finds its way through the email servers and back to your desk? Remember that email exchange you had with a colleague a few months ago that outlines something useful for your current work? Well, good luck finding it.

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” – George Bernard Shaw

With email, we’re constantly assuming we got our point across but how often have you reread something you sent only to circle back and realize you didn’t ask the whole question?

Enter Slack

I know what you’re thinking…do I really want to learn another online platform? Let me assure you, if you can handle email, Facebook or old school messenger apps like AIM or Trillian…you can handle Slack.

Slack is a super easy way to keep teams in the know with minimal fuss and bother. Here are my favorite features and some suggestions on how to utilize them:

Ps: Slack has awesome help files so I won’t recreate the wheel here. Keep an eye out for helpful links!

Slack is a huge leap forward in collaboration! Everything is in ONE place.

    • Connect Your Team – Once everyone is signed up, you can easily see who is online and who is away. Give your team permission to be “away”! No one can get any work done if they’re constantly interrupted, so make some time for focus and deep work. Direct messages are a quick way to directly chat with someone but channels are where the magic happens.
    • Choose Your Channels – Channels are like topics or themes. You start off with #general and #random but can easily add more to suite your needs and designate who has permission to access them. For example, you might want a channel for each project, team, financials, recognition, suggestions, and more. I’d advise that you keep it simple and slowly let it evolve as your team gets moving. Every time you feel like you’re performing an action one too many times…it’s likely a good idea to think about how you can move that information more efficiently.
      • The Magic – The beauty of channels is that everyone can see what’s being discussed. This is a huge leap forward in collaboration. Wondering how best to manage your projects? Think about all of your texts, emails, PMs, DMs, memos, forms, to-do lists, support tickets, calendar events, faxes (yes, they do still exist), post-it notes and more…all in one place. So often, we feel like we’re working in an isolated state but think how much more effective we can be if our questions, notes, insights, and ideas are spoken about openly and with multiple perspectives? Suddenly, new insights are pouring in and a new perspective might just change the way you are thinking about your project.
    •  Access Important Files – Slack integrates with Google Drive and much more, but you can also pin those files within slack so they’re within easy reach. If you’re working on a project and constantly reaching for the same few files, pin them to the applicable channel and they’re good to go. No more emailing the files to new team members or sifting through massive amounts of emails for those documents you’re sure someone sent you. It’s also super simple to share directly within Slack and create checklists, bullet points, outlines and code snippets (if you’re into that).
      • Search and you shall find – Not only does Slack store all this great stuff, it’s super easy to search and find whatever you are looking for. You can also filter the search so if you’re a bit hazy on the details, chances are you can still get to the information you need.
    • Notifications  – Don’t be afraid to CUSTOMIZE! Everyone has different thresholds for the white noise. Set a few ground rules so that direct @mentions shouldn’t get ignored, but in general, you can likely let your team create their own notifications. There are some easy ways to alert everyone and we’ll get into that next.
    • There’s a Bot for That – Firstly, get to know Slackbot. You can set it up to answer many common questions (wifi password, who do you send expense reports to, when is my timecard due, when is quittin’ time). Make them fun and specific to your team or just keep them simple. Beyond Slackbot, the sky’s the limit. Need a bot to take coffee orders? How about a quick office poll? Want to track your todo list? There are tons of integrations with other software like Trello, Jira, Mailchimp, Analytics and so much more.
    • Integrations – Not only is Slack an awesome tool for the reasons mentioned above, but you can also bring integrations into play and really up your game. Whether you want to streamline invoicing and accounting or schedule social media there are tons of ways to meet your needs. Slack allows you to bring all the information you need to run your business to ONE place. Think about that for a second. That’s HUGE! As someone who values having everything at her fingertips,everything you need to run your business in ONE place.

Like with any good tool, you need to think about how Slack can be used effectively. Write down your top few hurdles and start with those. Get some team members to give suggestions and input. If the ideas seem sound, TRY IT OUT. What have you got to lose?

Make a plan and don’t be afraid to adapt as you go.

Create a quick, easy to use guide with your organization’s current Slack practices pinned to one of your main channels (and prompt Slackbot on where to find it too!). That way, all users have an easy way to see what’s new, what’s working and what ideas have become defunct. Encourage new ideas by offering a small reward for ideas that are implemented and successful for your team. Don’t worry, there’s a bot for that too.

Want to figure out how Slack can help your business?

Online tools are amazing, but I totally get that it can seem hugely time consuming and overwhelming to get them set up. Let me help walk you through it and figure out how to harness the tools to work FOR you, rather than creating more busy work.

Let's chat!
Conquer your Email Inbox – delete, archive and say goodbye to email chaos

Conquer your Email Inbox – delete, archive and say goodbye to email chaos

Efficiency, Technology

Parenting frustration is real and it’s here to stay. We can only work on how we cope with it. How many times have you gotten crazy frustrated with your kids lately? Have they asked the same question incessantly? Have they pushed your buttons one too many times? Are they poking and prodding endlessly about the same topic? Do you wonder how they forgot your instructions from 30 seconds before?

It’s a common story and a huge point of frustration in parenting, especially of small children. You are not alone! We love our kids, even at their most annoying. We are incredibly busy with work and home lives and just trying to get through the day unscathed can seem like a monumental task.

Putting all that aside for a moment, take a little journey with me. I’d say “close your eyes” but that would be problematic. Imagine for a few minutes, that you’re on vacation in a totally unfamiliar country where you don’t speak the language. You somehow got separated from the people you’re traveling with and find yourself in a part of the city you’ve never been before. It is amazing and beautiful and you are completely enamored. Walking onward, you try to keep your eyes open for something familiar as you explore, hoping to spot a restaurant or store where you could ask for a phone. Everything from the customs, the food, the clothing, the buildings are completely unfamiliar and you don’t even know where to begin. Hunger begins to make itself known as you walk onward, night is falling. Do you have that anxious feeling creeping into your belly? A stranger approaches and starts speaking rapidly to you, seemingly alarmed and anxious, gesticulating in an incomprehensible fashion. Looking around for assistance, you see only disapproving and unfriendly stares. You attempt to speak calmly and mime that you are lost and need help. But your every effort is met with more disapproval and confusion. You attempt all familiar ways to communicate but are rebuffed at every turn. Clearly, your efforts to be appeasing are only adding to the stranger’s negative view of you. That anxious feeling is quickly mounting into panic as the stranger begins to get angry and moves toward you. How do you feel now? Are you thinking clearly?

“If I could wish for one thing for my children, it’s patience.”

Ok, I get that this is an extreme example but is it so different from how young children see the world? They are bombarded from all sides with new information, rules, experiences, and sensations that they are attempting to process. Even when they begin to find understanding, inevitably, the circumstances change or a new element forces them back to the beginning. As they grow and learn, we are imposing new layers of rules and expectations upon them. We are by nature, contrary and inconsistent. It stands to reason that we don’t always correct, encourage or guide our children in the exact same way every time. There are also hugely varied circumstances that can affect our interactions with our children, yet we often expect them to read between the lines or understand us to an exacting degree. The cues and expressions we rely upon as adults to assess a situation are completely foreign to our children. They haven’t yet built up their knowledge bank of clues that they can draw upon.

Can you think of a time when you were in unfamiliar territory and suddenly grasped something that made sense? What was your first instinct? Most likely, it was to repeat that action over and over and over again until something new clicked. Then we repeat the next action ad nauseum until we find something else that works. This should some incredibly familiar if you think about it in relation to your children’s actions.

There is no miracle method or proven strategy for moving this process along and creating better listeners who don’t annoy us so often. What we are witnessing is a miracle of self discovery and self worth. We are instrumental in shaping their view of this world and while completely overwhelming, that’s an awesome responsibility. I mean awesome in its true sense, not the overused off-hand way we usually apply it. These kids are getting up every day with a huge sense of optimism, hope, love and energy that they are just aching to send into the world. They fail thousands of times, every day. With barely a blink, they get back up ready to try another thousand times. Their capacity for learning is incredible and they are using every second of their existence to make an impression on their surrounding and the people around them.

“Children fail thousands of times, every day. With barely a blink, they get back up ready to try another thousand times.” 

So while parents are frustrated and exhausted by the world in all its mundanity, I challenge you to try to walk a minute in your child’s shoes. Take even a few seconds to look at the world in wonder and awe. Remember that they’re still developing their bearings on EVERYTHING and while they are certainly learning to manipulate us, it doesn’t often come from a place of deliberate disobedience. More often than not, they’re simply looking for love, reassurance and structure. They want to know the rules to this game we’re all playing and they want to excel at it! I realize this is an idealistic expectation, but even if we can put this in action once in a day that’s a huge accomplishment! More often than not, we’ll still find ourselves in that place of frustration but it is worth the effort to invest in ourselves and in our children.

If I could wish for one thing for my children, it’s patience. Modern life has this way of pushing us along at a furious pace and our gut reaction is to race along without question. But what are we rushing toward? I see people all around me from various walks of life, varying ages and backgrounds. Is any one group happier than the next? Does any one person have all the answers? The more I learn and understand, the more I am certain that what matters most is today. THIS moment in time. THIS experience. I have friends of all income brackets with the exact same insecurities everyone else has. I see baby boomers FINALLY getting to retire and then wondering, what now? Their health isn’t the best or they’re so stuck in “work” mode that they can’t or won’t relearn how to just live and enjoy being present.

This is nothing new or revolutionary. Many others have explained this more eloquently and more powerfully than I can. Yet, I think it too important to not repeat from my own perspective in hopes that it might strike a chord with someone. Even one person. Our children are embracing this very concept even as they race ahead into the school years, the teen years and soon adulthood. If we can’t enjoy life as much as possible in the now, then what’s the point?

“Find joy in the details.”

Life is made to be lived, in all its mundane and boring detail. Find joy in the details.