Over the past couple of years, group chat apps like Slack have become an absolute must-have for today’s modern teams. It’s not very difficult to see why, after all, modest teams rely on swift decision taking; real-time communication simply supports that in a much better way than email ever could.
These ‘one-line-at-a-time conversations’ are extremely useful in emergency situations, to brainstorm ideas, or to even truly bond as a team with inside jokes, occasional cat GIFS and post-weekend-chit-chat. However, as soon as a team gradually starts to grow, this kind of communication may start to be doing more harm than good.
So how’s that exactly? This usually happens when your team grows bigger, brings in people from different time zones, or starts dealing with other parties. So how do you know when your team starts to outgrow apps like Slack? You know it’s the case when you start experiencing challenges like these:
- Keeping track of the original context of full conversations starts to become a real challenge. Team-members reply back and forth to previous discussions; creating conversations, within conversations, within those conversations – disarray.
- As you’re probably dealing with different departments, office locations and external parties who are not using Slack, you still find yourself using a lot of email.
- Important information such as ‘why’ certain decisions had been made is buried within hours. It becomes a real pain to navigate back to decisions – even with the search tool.
- The nature of real-time messaging is that it requires an immediate response. Team-members who happen to be offline are likely to be excluded from the discussion.
- There’s a constant fear of missing out on something important. You don’t want to be excluded or read back a hundred missed messages, while at the same time, you don’t want to be constantly distracted either.
- All that time you were actually supposed to ‘save’ from ‘not using’ email, is actually just being reinvested in a different medium – keeping up with the constant flow of messages.
The next logical step
The true problem with real-time messaging apps like Slack is that you end up with a bunch of intersecting dialogs without any real context. People get left out, important information gets lost, things fall through the cracks, and email is still being used in terms of internal communication.
An ‘Enterprise Social Network’ or ‘Digital workplace’ like talkspirit is different; it’s the next step to shift from team -, to enterprise level. Instead of an app that’s ‘team’ centred, – excluding anyone outside the team from important information – an Enter throws the entire organisation in the loop. Multiple teams, departments and office locations suddenly become connected in one central space; opening-up everyone’s collective knowledge and making it available for anyone who might need it, whenever needed.
The Enterprise Social Network adds the fundamental ingredients in the mix that real-time messaging apps like Slack are currently missing. Discussions in Talkspirit are clearly organised in topic-focused threads. These thread dialogs happen in ‘groups’; a shared and searchable workspace that neatly displays all discussions from beginning to end. Anyone can easily get up to speed with the entire context – allowing for tight collaboration with clients too.
But there’s more…
Just like Slack, your favourite apps, tools and services can be connected in the group(s) of your choosing. Although, the big difference here is that new activities becomes threads as well – preserving the original context.
An Enterprise Social Network provides the bigger picture of what’s really going on; as it comes with its very own personalised newsfeed. Every member decides what groups to follow, and what groups to display on one’s feed. The result: a personalized information hub that exclusively shows new activities and information that are most relevant to you. It helps you to really get things done, as it eliminates the need to constantly keep up with the never-ending communication stream – never miss out on new developments, and opt-in on your own phase.
What about real-time messaging though?
No worries, real-time messaging is still there, after all, it’s too important to exclude. The difference however is that whenever a situation arises that requires an immediate response, you’re not limited to ‘just the team. Instead, the entire organisation is connected, which opens-up conversations with virtually anyone. As everyone has his or her own user profile, the right person to get the job done can be found within a matter of seconds.
Work Chat functions exactly the same as you’re used to with Slack and any other real-time messaging app. Send documents, GIFS, use bots & emoticons, open video chats, share your screen, talk one-on-one, or with a group of people, and everything is searchable.
The bigger picture
It’s not just about the team itself, it’s about the entire organisation performing as one collective entity – working to success together. It’s about the ability to see the bigger picture of what’s really going on, whilst preserving context throughout the process. It’s about:
- Threaded discussions to preserve context, ensuring anyone can easily catch up on what happened from beginning to end.
- The possibility to collaborate with external parties; clients can quickly grab what’s going by just checking-in every once in a while – simplifying collaboration & participation.
- New activities from integrated apps, tools and services that are neatly organised into threads, searchable and transparent.
- Being able to consult an accurate news overview only comprising the latest developments that matter most to you.
- Being able to focus on getting things done, without the constant fear of missing out on important information.
- Being aware what happens inside and outside company walls; enabling you to take action on initiatives from other teams, departments or office locations.
- Using email for external purposes only; done right, Talkspirit can completely replace the need for email in terms of internal usage.
- Shaping an infinite central source of knowledge that builds itself – talkspirit has no restrictions on file storage.
- Actually enjoying effective communication & collaboration for a reasonable price – talkspirit is priced at €4 per/user/per/month & €3 per/user/per/year.
