Wow really surprised to hear they broke up with Slack. It seemed like a very good long explanation of the problem, basically no mention of any attempt to fix the problem, and then dropping the tool. We are deep into Slack and still liking it, but seeing some strain. This really rings true: "some of the most positive and uplifting individuals I know come off as curt and stressed and pissed off in Slack conversations."
tht makes no sense, every1 i kno is rlly good at xpressing their emotions in txt
For real though, it's amazing what core parts of human interaction people will try to replace with an app. People need to understand what they're really giving up with face-to-face or verbal communication.. thousands of years of highly developed body language, tone, etc.
It depends a lot on the person for me. Some people are very good at conveying (and understanding) nuanced emotion in text, especially if they're people you've conversed with a lot in text already. Others are better in person, in videochat, or even on the phone (though some, like me, are particularly bad at phone). A few people I know are significantly better to converse with in text chat than in person, because they're much more fluent, confident, and open in text, and comparatively not as good at expressing themselves in face-to-face chats, stumbling over words and being more stressed and self-conscious.
In personal life, I find the people I'm closest to are people I talk to quite a bit through both modalities. We have different types of conversation in text chat compared to irl chat, which end up being complementary in my opinion.
We are 100% remote company so face-to-face is not an option. However we do use video (gotomeeting). And I've been using and enjoying Slack's new "/call" feature. I'm eager to see how they implement video and screen sharing.
I think the solution is a mix. Slack + some video solution seems like it could work. The tools are there and it looks like Slack is quickly building a video tool. Right now, small teams can get by well with Slack and Hangouts.
