Does the Rise of Slack Signal the Slow Demise of Email?

Email has served us well over the years, but unfortunately it continues to take a lot of our time not to mention looking a little dated. It seems that our former digital messaging friend is now famously affecting our productivity both at home and in the office. The urgency of the electronic message means we are often fighting a losing battle in our quest to reach the elusive inbox zero, and our tasks are often the first casualty. 

We are all subjected to countless messages that have been CC’d, for the sole purpose of a colleague covering their back. Not to mention the frustrating passive-aggressive behavior of someone copying your boss into an email to guarantee a quicker response. Is it any wonder we struggle to get anything done?

Meanwhile, many reading this will just shrug their shoulders and declare it is what it is. But in a digital age where we are increasingly expected to bring our unique voice to the workplace, it seems there is a new generation of tools emerging that will finally allow you to communicate via a medium that enables you to utilize the nuances of your personality in ways that email could only dream of.

Rather than managing collaboration and work streams in a variety of applications, many are turning to one solution that provides everything we need. Slack is a good example of an application that is meeting these modern requirements, and we shouldn’t be too surprised that it became the fastest growing business app in history only two years after its launch.

Bloomberg recently reported that the messaging startup is also seeking up to $4 billion in valuation from the next funding round. With the recent arrival of Slack voice calls, it’s clear that even nonbelievers will start to pay attention to how this technology is challenging the status quo.

Could this signal the beginning of the end for Microsoft’s Skype or Google’s Hangouts as both businesses and individual users subscribe to the philosophy that less is more? There is an increasing realization that having 5-10 separate apps that are all taking valuable resources on your device of choice is nonsensical when there is one solution that offers everything. 

The words “email killer” are often overused, but Slack is the first real contender to provide a different way of working. Over the years, many organizations have implemented a form of unified communication systems; many have been on the market. Having everything under one roof sounds great in theory, but often leaves us too available and easily distracted by anyone who needs something. Slack seems to have found another way.  

Maybe we have concentrated a little too hard on removing the email platform from our lives instead of the constant influx of messages and notifications that is leaving us with nowhere to hide. We are often more concerned with instantly replying to noise than focusing our attention on completing tasks and feeling productive.

The simple answer to this modern curse would be to close down our messaging apps of choice and spend an hour away from the digital white noise that will find you whether you are in the office or working from home. This would be much easier of course if we had only one app to close down and escape rather than multiple applications on multiple devices. Maybe this is Slack’s secret sauce.

We should not underestimate how adding voice and video to Slack will be a major game changer that will threaten many established enterprise communication tools. With users now thinking and working differently, it can only be a matter of time before Microsoft and Google wake up to the potential threat on their doorstep and develop similar solutions.

Slack has already become the fastest growing application, and the rise of stealth IT has ensured that many are embracing this engaging platform. Users are already sampling new ways of working without waiting for the guardians of their networks who always seem to take too long to implement meaningful change.

Being able to adapt quickly to our constantly evolving digital landscape is increasingly becoming paramount to businesses. Most of us would admit that email in the traditional sense just doesn’t cut it in the modern business environment. The overwhelming success and growth of Slack is making this new form of unified communications impossible to ignore.

Has your organization started using or experimenting with Slack? What are the pros and cons you have encountered? Please share your experiences by commenting below.

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Thanks for reading. You can find my previous LinkedIn articles here, and you can also connect on Twitter at @DanielBurrus

DANIEL BURRUS is considered one of the World's Leading Futurists on Global Trends and Innovation, and is the founder and CEO of Burrus Research, a research and consulting firm that monitors global advancements in technology driven trends to help clients understand how technological, social and business forces are converging to create enormous untapped opportunities. He is the author of six books including New York Times & Wall Street Journal best seller Flash Foresight.   

Daniel Burrus is also the creator of  The Anticipatory Organization? Learning System, a training process for executives and their teams to develop the skills to accurately foresee and take critical actions before disruption strikes.

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