Power Tools: Pick Up the Slack

Company offers mobile and desktop app alternative to email

Slack
Slack

Since the dawn of the Internet, there's been email. But now, there's an application that's causing some companies to do away with email entirely, and communicate with each other in a new way.

Users of Slack, a mobile and desktop app, claim that it is far superior to email. Instead of sending emails directly to people, users can post messages to "channels," which are discussions organized by topic. There's still an option to send direct messages to individuals or groups, just like email. But with Slack, huge piles of unorganized emails are nonexistent. And it's easy to search through old messages, users say.

"Slack works really well for us because we have a remote team," says TJ Weigel, co-founder and COO at FanJam.

FanJam a start-up at Lamp Post Group that makes a fantasy sports app. There are FanJam employees in Spain, India, Florida, Michigan and Chattanooga. With a team that spread out, it has been particularly important to have an efficient way to communicate online. At FanJam, there is a channel just for the back-end developers, as well as a channel where people can share their favorite music. Weigel also likes that Slack integrates with other apps, like Github, which allows software developers to share code as they update it, and Twitter.

"Any time we push code, that stuff pops up in our slack chat," Weigel says.

But it's not just tech start-ups that are using and loving Slack. The team at Public Markets, which runs the Chattanooga Market, uses Slack instead of email.

"It just feels easier," says Savannah Thomas, a market assistant on the team. "It's all right there, it's searchable."

Thomas said that her team takes advantage of Slack's mobile app, so communicating feels more like texting. But unlike texting, conversations are archived by topic.

"It's so much better than having a thousand emails," Thomas says.

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