I don't know how many of you have heard of Slack. It's a platform designed for teams to work together on projects. I found out about Slack because they help sponsor a podcast I listen to. After about a month of hearing ads for it, I thought I would just check it out to see what it does. I made an account and now I'm using it as my own little personal version of Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/Reddit.
A few of examples of projects I've been working on via Slack:
1. Writing a novel. I'm currently at >5000 words and my goal is ~50,000 words before I'll be ready to edit, fine-tune, etc. Slack has been useful for organizing my thoughts, and my brother has left me valuable feedback on Slack too. It leaves the Google Doc clear of meta discussion clutter, focusing only on editorial suggestions and the story itself in Google.
2. Running goals. I've been using it to help me keep track of my run times and distances. It's really nice to have a space where I can post stuff like that, and I know that my wife will see it. And it keeps me accountable to my inner circle of friends and family.
3. My new fantasy football pick 'em league. Slack makes it really easy to survey people, on their own time, as well hold discussions on different topics, like college football.
I think that my favorite part of having a Slack (I actually have two now) is that I can post the things I want, without worrying about what people might think. There's no pressure to like anything, I don't have to add people I've met once as friends, and people are free to join or leave any channel or discussion they want. In this way, it's a lot like Reddit, except that I can control who gets to enter. I can keep out all the crass language and not have to deal with it. So, maybe it helps me be a dictator of my own little world.
Anyway, after testing out Slack for a few months, I think I'm ready to let more people into my own social media platform and join the discussion I'm currently having with myself. If you want an invite, please send me a message, tweet @gkthurston, or otherwise get a hold of me. Give me an email address and then check your spam folder, since the invites come directly from Slack (there isn't another way to do it) and might look spammy to your filter.
