Slack is used by many professionals worldwide. It is the preferred communication method of my internship supervisor and some of my professors in the past. Although I had been assigned to use Slack by my professors before, I never actually used it. I didn’t need to because, at that time, I was traveling often between school and my job. The frequency I was at college made using the app unnecessary and my classmates were not using the app either, rendering it completely ineffective. Basically, made an account, but never learned to use the app. That is until this past semester.
The pandemic changed things, as anyone will tell you. The need for online communication and sharing grew exponentially, so apps like Slack became useful to people who hadn’t needed to use it before.
But even then, I did not use it. I ended up using Discord more often because of its video chat feature. I would connect with classmates and friends, play games, screen share my work, and organize game nights. Eventually, I learned the app and became a moderator of a few servers I was active in or the creator of. I enjoyed using it and found it to be a useful tool.
Now back to this semester. My senior project advisor used slack to stay in touch and share files. My internship supervisor also used this app to communicate exclusively except by email.Ā After learning discord, Slack was ALOT easier to understand. I also found some benefits to it that I really prefer over discord as well. With discord, you have to pay to be able to share large files and documents. While with slack I can send large adobe product files for download to anyone I send them to. That was a breath of fresh air.
Slack has separate āworkspacesā for different professional companies, groups, or even friends. This is similar to discords āservers,ā but they can hose THOUSANDS of people sometimes. I don’t know if slack has that capability, but I don’t see a reason it would need this, even for a mega-corporation. The teams and departments would just get their own workspaces. It’s also easier to toggle between servers of discord with all the circle icons on the left. While with slack you need to click the title of the workspace you’re in and go down to a drop menu to switch workspaces. Kinda long and hard to find if you ask me.
Seeing the similarities and the upside to Slack, I see myself using this app more in the future. My experience on discord has helped me to understand the User Interface of slack and what to expect. Iām really glad I picked up slack again! I look forward to trying to learn how to moderate this application as well. I find it enjoyable and fun. Can’t wait to bring this, uhh… ‘hobby’ to the workplace.
