Slack Resource Pages: Overview | Getting Started | Getting Fancy | You, Us, and Slack
Amazing moments happen on Slack. Slack is a tool for team communication (in the 21st century). Since the Slack seedling was planting at IISC in March 2015, it has increased productivity, connectivity, and flow on teams. It has also reduced the need for meetings and reduced internal emails!
This page is a quick intro to Slack and will help you get settled into the tool. It’s not comprehensive, but it should be enough to get your hands dirty and find ways to get connected to more support if it’s needed.
Intro Video
The Slack intro video is about three minutes long and very worth the time. If you’re new to Slack, check it out!
Table of Contents
Trying to find your way around all this info? Hopefully this will help!
- Slack Overview
- Getting started with Slack
- Getting familiar with the layout
- Teams, Channels, & Direct Messages
- Notifications & settings
- Getting fancy
- Everything else
- You, Us, and Slack
- IISC Slack Team Norms (proposed)
- FYIs
- Transparency
- Tool Structure
- Notes and Reflections
FAQs
I’m drowning in notifications!
This is a completely normal initial reaction and it’s almost always because of the default notification settings in Slack. Thankfully, Slack gives each user a high level of control over the notification settings! Check out more here (or
How do I keep track of what matters to me?
You keep track of what matters to you on Slack by managing your notifications and by adding stars to channels.
What do I need to respond to?
Each team should have agreements about this. Generally, if somebody is looking for your specific feedback they will tag you in a post. You can also check out a proposed list of IISC Team norms here.
Where did this come from at IISC?
Lawrence started this experiment on the Communications Team. It spread to Go Boston 2030. Once Ceasar started using it, he decided it was an excellent tool for our whole organization to operate virtually and with transparency.
Why Slack?
Slack is rising to the top of the charts because it is simple to use, free (to a point), and able to integrate the various different technologies teams across an organization need to use.
Who is the champion and support?
Lawrence is the champion point person for support, backed-up by Danielle. Other power-users with experience on the system are: Maureen, Ivy, Andrea, Tiffany, Curtis, and the Leadership Strategy Team.
Is this replacing Chatter?
Slack is not intended to replace Chatter at this time (though it does have the capacity to do so). There is no organizational agreement for Slack to replace Chatter at this moment.