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0 pointsNikolaNovak2y ago0 comments

Interesting; I think this is a demonstration of how much what seems like a "Tool" is actually "organization", because my current experience is completely opposite:

* In MS teams, I can create conversations, group chats, organic meetings, and add people (and include history) as I want and desire. I prefer it for quick discussions with my colleagues and to get a rapid problem solving or critical incident conversation where I don't immediately know who I need / what it's about, and it'll scale as I add people. I push a button and talk to people, push a button to add people, push a button to video chat, all seamless.

* Slack is structured and formal and based around enterprise-created channels and workgroups, with way too much noise in each massive channel and way too little content that's even remotely relevant to me. Outside of channels, conversations are horribly gimped: A) I can only have one conversation with each set of people, I cannot simply rename a chat and have three different chats with same people around different topics B) If I add people to an existing conversation, it will create a new chat without history (this may have improved recently as I know we sent a TON of feedback to Slack admins). Basically, to get anything done you have to create channels, which is great for "top down, I know ahead of time what I need / want to enforce" structure, but awful for "this started as a one-on-one and is now a massive discussion with 17 people"

I'm looking at some of the other comments, and it seems they have some weird gimped version of MS Teams. E.g.:

>>"Allow “create a meeting for this Teams channel” that puts any meeting chat directly in the channel."

This... is how it works for me. I start a conversation with some people, then I add people, then I click "Call", then we all video call together, then we are done and keep typing in it, repeat as needed.

Weird!

0 comments

TJSomething2y ago

> Basically, to get anything done you have to create channels, which is great for "top down, I know ahead of time what I need / want to enforce" structure, but awful for "this started as a one-on-one and is now a massive discussion with 17 people"

In Slack, you can turn a group DM into a private channel and keep the history.

https://slack.com/help/articles/217555437-Convert-a-group-di...

Tagbert2y ago

That sounds like you have a very top-down organization and they have setup Slack to mirror that dynamic. Slack by itself does not have those restrictions.

Individuals can create Slack Channels (often too many channels). You can setup adhoc groups through DM and can add people to that group . You have the choice when adding people to a chat to block the history or give them full access to the history. At any point you can convert a adhoc group into a Channel and decide if it will be private or public. You can click to start a call or to start a zoom with those present in the group or channel. it's pretty seamless, too.

It sounds like the difference is your organization.

NikolaNovakOP2y ago

Yes. That is the very first sentence in my post :).

A lot of our presumed perspective and experience with tools is actually our experience with organizations and policies.

Conversely, majority of issues I've read here with Ms Teams, are not part of my own experience - Teams I use is way easier and more flexible and user friendly than the slack I use.

Is it the case that more startups used slack vs more enterprises used teams and that sealed in some stereotype?

ClimaxGravely2y ago

I wonder about that too. I've used both and personally I consider neither vastly superior to the other or even that much different.

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