SAN FRANCISCO, CA - Over the past several weeks, the AndNowUKnow staff has been using Slack, a new business app that bills itself as “team communication for the 21st century.” Slack has quickly become an integral part of our daily lives at work and has made correspondence between team members and other departments more productive than ever before. But what does that even mean, and why should the produce industry start using Slack too? Read on or check out this brief walkthrough video to find out…
Developed by Stewart Butterfield, the same co-founder behind photo sharing website Flickr, Slack is designed as a free instant messaging platform that can be used on-the-go via mobile devices or on desktop computers. After experimenting with it a bit and combing through its wide assortment of features, I’ve come up with three reasons why it has become such an essential part of our workflow.
Slack organizes your team’s communication
What’s great about Slack is that it keeps all of your company’s important messages in one convenient place, cutting down on the clutter of internal work emails. You can communicate with your team via Channels or Direct Messages.
Channels can be organized by department, by project, or by anything really, and they can be set to be either public or private so you can only invite relevant team members. Here, you can send messages to your team, drag-and-drop files to send and share, and lots more.
On the other hand, Direct Messages work like any other instant messaging platform. Click on someone’s name to send them an instant message or invite them to a group chat.
Plus, if you ever need to find an important file, website, or message a colleague sent you, you can use Slack’s super easy-to-use, filterable search function to find exactly what you’re looking for.
Integration with Google Drive, Dropbox, Twitter, MailChimp, and more
You can use other apps in tandem with Slack as well, and you would be surprised to see just how many are offered on the platform. There are plenty of productive tools you can find on Slack, and a ton of fun ones as well. Gif Keyboard or CatFacts, anyone?
Click here to see the full list of apps that are compatible with Slack.
Slack is mobile
Slack provides apps for iOS, Android, and Windows smartphones. Now you can get access to all of your company’s archived messages and files on-the-go.
Download the mobile app for your platform of choice by clicking one of the links below.
Download Slack for Windows Phone (Beta)
There you have it. But don’t just take our word for it. Since its launch two years ago, Slack has grown to over 2 million users a day.
Slack can be used either on your web browser, as a desktop application, or on your mobile device. Click the blue button below to be directed to the Slack website to learn more or sign up.
