We're a 100+ person agency and we switched recently to Slack from Campfire. It has revitalized our company communication, which had slowly languished on Campfire. I'm of the opinion that a few things made this happen:
1) Forced switching. The IT department said we're moving and closed the other method of communication. We unsuccessfully tried a number of other solutions to replace Campfire (including Slack at one point) but they were small efforts made voluntarily by a couple people at a time. This combats the fax machine effect, where a communication system is only as valuable as the number of people using it.
2) Shiny content already waiting. Our company is full of interesting people with interesting things to say. This time around the channels were quickly seeded with various interests, including a dedicated Gif channel, and our bot and karma systems were migrated over.
Slack is certainly nice. It has a pretty interface, some handy integrations, and is actively being developed. But I don't think it was Slack's features that really made our communication come back. That was the community of brilliant and funny people who were itching to talk again. This was just a good excuse.
Its price will make your IT department cry, but if it makes communication better it's worth it.
We're a 100+ person agency and we switched recently to Slack from Campfire. It has revitalized our company communication, which had slowly languished on Campfire. I'm of the opinion that a few things made this happen:
1) Forced switching. The IT department said we're moving and closed the other method of communication. We unsuccessfully tried a number of other solutions to replace Campfire (including Slack at one point) but they were small efforts made voluntarily by a couple people at a time. This combats the fax machine effect, where a communication system is only as valuable as the number of people using it.
2) Shiny content already waiting. Our company is full of interesting people with interesting things to say. This time around the channels were quickly seeded with various interests, including a dedicated Gif channel, and our bot and karma systems were migrated over.
Slack is certainly nice. It has a pretty interface, some handy integrations, and is actively being developed. But I don't think it was Slack's features that really made our communication come back. That was the community of brilliant and funny people who were itching to talk again. This was just a good excuse.
Its price will make your IT department cry, but if it makes communication better it's worth it.