come nerd with me

http://ift.tt/1cLvc0f

We love podcasts. We love them a lot. Our team’s #podcast channel buzzes with recommendations and discussions, and anyone who loves the same podcasts we do might have noticed we’ve been sponsoring some recently, like 99% Invisible, StartUp and Roderick on the Line.

In fact, we love podcasts so much that we decided to make one.

The Slack Variety Pack is a mix of original stories, funny office culture sketches, and journalism focused on innovation, modern culture, and people who have found their purpose. There’s a little bit about Slack in there, but much more about things around us. It’s about work, life, and everything in-between.

We’ve teamed up with the brilliant podcasting professionals at Pacific Content, who love telling great audio stories in creative ways.

And there are many ways you can find it:

Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, or 

Follow the show on SoundCloud, where you will also find each individual story to make it easier for sharing, but you could also 

Check out the series page at http://ift.tt/1cLvc0j, where you’ll find full details of all the stories, and a full catalogue of the episodes (though right now it’s a catalogue of one).

And you can give your feedback, ideas, or suggestions for future podcast stories on Twitter at @slackhq.

We’re very excited about this. We really, as we may have mentioned before, love podcasts.

http://ift.tt/16z47v1

http://ift.tt/1ygiaMD

Channels are busy places. People talking, bots reporting, files uploading, the gentle hum of general productivity. It’s occasionally important to know that everyone in a particular channel can hear you. That’s why when you add @channel to a message, everyone in that channel gets a notification.

A security announcement, something you need everyone to respond to — there are some very important, legitimate uses for @channel. And then there are some not-so-legitimate uses. This is why we’ve added an optional new alert to give people a gentle nudge before sending an @channel message. And it’s now enabled for all teams. Woo!

Owners and admins will find this option under team settings, and when enabled, it applies to the entire team (once they’ve reloaded). It can be set to alert people who submit @channel messages:

Always (before sending any message containing @channel, @everyone, or @group)

The first time each day (for each team member)

Just once (to let team members know what it will do the first time they use it)

Never. If you like using the function without an alert, just turn it off!

In a small team, where not many people use it, it’s often not a problem at all: just a good way of getting the job done. But in a bigger team, using @channel too much can be disruptive to the point where people totally ignore it — which is pretty counterproductive.

This new feature doesn’t stop people from using @channel (though if that’s what you want, owners can restrict who can use it, or make the #general channel read-only.)

It’s just a little reminder that can help people avoid setting off the dings of a hundred laptops and a dozen phones. It’s been working for our team, and hopefully, it will work for others. And if not, at least it’s got an adorable rooster on it.

http://ift.tt/1KlGKEn