Slack is pretty sweet, I keep hearing about how great it is, was fun to see it in action.

These are notes from a talk by Lacy Paschal (@lacydev) titled “Slacking Off At Work” during the HighEdWeb 2015. Vanderbilt University.

Slack

  • Team that grew quickly from 2 to 12.
  • Communications and conversations were all happening, but in different applications or contexts.
  • Slack is a great platform for collaboration, communication, and centralization.
  • Everyone can see the conversations going on.
  • Large reduction in email.
  • Communication Methods:
    • Channels (public)
    • Groups are private
    • Direct Messages
  • Develop Channel Nomenclature, early on.
    • product-__ [omni, wordpress, machforms, helios, analytics]
    • project-__ [updates, management]
    • feed-__ [social, hashtags, campaigns]
    • help-__ [desk, responses]
    • x-__ [music, spoiler-zone, sports-center, food]
  • Groups
    • Help Desk Teams
    • Special Projects
    • Management Team
    • Special Interest Groups
    • Technical Discussions
    • Confidential
  • Awesomesauce stuff
    • /feed (takes in RSS feeds)
    • /remind (creates reminders)
    • code share / code highlighting
    • easy drag & drop file sharing
  • Integrations
    • incoming webhook (integrates with their helpdesk software and PM software, takes in JSON)
    • IFTTT
    • Giphy
  • We Slack where we want: Mobile, Desktop, Browser
  • Free or Paid?: 85% discount for higher ed. Start with Free

Peace
– KS
Web Developer at Benedictine University near Chicago