How chat tools serve as the information hub in an editorial department. Presentation held at the Desk-Net Editorial Days 2017. Speaker: Marian Semm (Media Consultant)

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Presentation first held at Desk-Net Editorial Days on May 18th 2017 in Hamburg, Germany.

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Büro für Medieninnovation
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Slack in the NewsroomMay 2017
Marian Semm
The beauty and breadth of a quiet revolution...

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What is Slack?
 „Our new watercooler.“
 „Our office in the cloud.“
 „A swiss army knife for
communication.“
 „A silent revolution in the
newsroom.“
 „Where work happens.“
 „A chat service on
steroids.“Pic credit: Fotolia

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Slack is a pars pro toto...
Most significant chat tools:
 Atlassian Hipchat.
 And there‘s (brandnew)
Microsoft Teams.
 Yet there are dozens of other tools and services
competing in some way (Facebook Workplace,
Samepage, Semaphore, Narando, Sid, Hall, Asana,
SpiraTeam, Zoho Connect, Teamwire, Shalomi,
Stackfield, Riot, Skype, Mattermost, Glip,
Rocket.Chat, Matrix.org, Let‘s Chat, fluxday,
Oinker, gitter, HackChat, YakYak, Campfire, Flock,
Echoplexus, ...)
*Source: http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/Slack-statistics/

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...neither competitor shows a similar momentum.
Number of
slack users
2013–2016.
Exceeded 5M in
April 2017.
Source: venturebeat.com

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Slack facts.
The name according to
Merriam-Webster
suggests a sense
of laziness...
Well, au contraire...
 60.000 teams,
5 Million users,
 1,5 Million paid for (*)
 Started 2013, weekly growth 3-5% (*)
 €0 / €6,25 / €11,75 per user per month – translates
basically to limited / unlimited / with support.
*Source: http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/Slack-statistics/
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/
04/16/technology/slack-
employee-messaging-
workplace.html

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How does a ‚chat service on steroids‘ look like?
(7) Browser
or Fatclient,
mobile
device, tablet
(5) Search
(6)
Customizing
options (a lot)
(1) team
(2) channels and
direct messages
(4) Command line
(3) timeline
Graphics: Slack Website.

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Why using Slack in the first place?
„Our building dates from the
1960s. The floor plan does
not allow for a large
newsroom. We are
connecting smaller desks
with Slack instead.“
Pic credit: Fotolia

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The central use case of Slack besides chat
is to move the production along the workflow.
 Passing content from shift to
shift, from department to
department...
 ...is „the classic“ use case for
Slack in newsrooms.
To proofreading
To social media team
Screenshots courtesy of NZZ.
Emoji...
(more: slackmojis.com).

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Align epaper production in Aachen
helps avoiding mistakes in the future.
 Chat exchange about a production
issue today in the #epaper-Channel
– helps avoiding the same (though
in this case well intended) mistakes
in the future.
Remember the acronym?
„Searchable Log of All Conversation
and Knowledge“
Mitarbeiter 1
Mitarbeiter 2
Mitarbeiter 1
Screenshot courtesy of Aachener Zeitungsverlag.

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In Aachen the daily issue planning session
isn‘t a real team meeting any longer.
 Instead of meeting
in person the
people in charge
have their
conversation
around the same
time in their
#blattplanung-
channel.
 no need to meet in
person, no boring
attendants with
avocational 1:1-
discussions.
Screenshot courtesy of Aachener Zeitungsverlag.

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Koblenz based Rhein-Zeitung is using
hipchat instead of Slack for similar purposes
 Online journalists are using it
instead of emails and phone
calls.
 Twitter and facebook are
connected with hipchat. They are
thinking about connecting their
planning calendar, too.
 Remotely working journalists are
connected through a virtual
office.
 It‘s a great tool for agreements in
the daily business – less for far-
reaching decisions of conflics.
Screenshot courtesy of Mittelrhein-Verlag.

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Any chat tool connects people with people...
 It takes noise out of the newsroom, like with NZZ, Zurich.
 „Frees us from the burden of email.“
 „Turns work into an ongoing conversation.“
 „Helps to assess: Who is working today – and from where?“
 Makes decissions re-readable and helps catching up.
 Breaks down walls between departments, cultures, work modes,
language codes.
Notingfying the
colleague in
charge of social
media.
Screenshot courtesy of NZZ

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...yet some connect people with machines.
 It‘s a tool to gather information...
...from colleagues or from bots.
Did you notice?
@ploechinger is
not chatting with a
person.
Here he‘s inquiring
tomorrow‘s topics
of the travel
department.
He could add a
new topic and
assign an author
just by dropping a
line in Slack.
Screenshot courtesy of SZ

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...turning work into an ongoing conversation...
„What’s key here is that users are
interacting with software bots in
much the same way they chat
with colleagues, turning work
into an ongoing conversation.
And as bots get smarter, the
distinction between our human
coworkers and our digital ones
gets harder to spot.
And, perhaps, less meaningful.“
(Owen Thomas, readwrite.com)
Pic credit: LinkedIn

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Why is Slack such a success story?
 Easy to start with.
 Starts with 0€.
 Simple for beginners.
 Rich of features for the
matured users.
 Extend with plug-ins.
 Bots can be built relatively
easily e. g. based on Google
Spreadsheets.
 Interact with many kinds of
data sources.
 Thus act as a bridge between
legacy and modern systems.
Pic credit: Fotolia

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A software you are already using for years can be
turned into a data source for Slack with one click.
 Slack provides a huge
catalogue of extensions
and connector to 3rd
party systems.
100s of tools
integrated...
Graphics: Slack Website.

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Channels can be used just as a publication journal.
Its content is not bound to our own systems.
 NZZ, Zurich, posts any published stories into a ‚latest
articles‘ channel.
 At the beginning of his shift the editor in charge can
scroll back in order to catch up.
 Reporters can keep track whether their stories have
been published – including when and where to find.
 Social media staff use it as an incoming newspool to
find the best stories for audience development.
 ...
This could well
be a list with
articles
published by a
competitor...
...or a statistics
channel or
anything else
fed by any kind
of service into
Slack.
Screenshot courtesy of NZZ

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In Zurich Charles Darwin reigns
among the Slack channels.
 You can have more than a few
channels.
 As all kinds of topics can be
covered this will happen
automatically in a larger
organisation (like Zurich
based NZZ here).
 It looks messy but it‘s a good
example for the organisation
to find its right way over time.
 Manual cleanup from time to
time for a clear channel list.
Darwin will lead the way.
216? You
serious? #wtf
Screenshot courtesy of NZZ.

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Usage of chat services goes
from just one team – to the whole company.
 „Just our online team“
 „The whole online staff,
all developers and some
external partners.“
 „The whole staff is using
it, journalists, developers,
businesspeople – as well
as some external service
providers and few freelance
journalists.“
Pic credit: Fotolia

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Voices about using Slack.
 „We significantly reduced the flood of cc-mails.“
 „Other systems do not provide this application
range.“
 „On top of that comes a relative security with two-
step-authentication and restriction to a seperate
corporate account.“
 „It is much more practical as skype or google
hangout. It combines private channels, open
channels and direct messages on a single platform
and it allows simplification of processes through
bots and integrations.“

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Problems and critics.
 Cost.
 Just a communications tool.
 Yet one more tool.
 iOS- and Android-Apps are not up to
the standard of the browser version.
 Security concerns.

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This is Slack.
„We shape our tools
and thereafter
our tools shape us.“
Thanks (and kudos) to André Maerz (NZZ), Ulrich Kutsch (Aachener Zeitungsverlage),
Stefan Plöchinger (SZ), Marcus Schwarze (Rhein-Zeitung).
Quotes from Owen Thomas (readwrite.com). Further quotes from Zach Seward (Quartz), Lauren
Rabaino (Vox Media), Alexis Madrigal (Fusion), Julia Turner (Slate), Matt Taylor (The Times of
London), Troy Thibodeaux (AP), Chris Lavergne (Thought Catalog) in „How 7 news
organizations are using Slack to work better and differently“ by Laura Hazard Owen (google it!)
Marshall McLuhan
Pic credit: Fotolia

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Marian Semm
Büro für Medieninnovation
Josef-Dachser-Straße 2b
D-86842 Türkheim-Irsingen
Tel. +49 | 8245 | 9 66 89 56
Fax. +49 | 8245 | 9 66 89 57
Mobil +49 | 151 | 54 60 41 53
Skype sam2810
www.marian-semm.de
www.facebook.com/marian.semm
www.twitter.com/marian.semm
info@marian-semm.de
Slack in the Newsroom
Herzlichen Dank!