Rands Hanging with civil like-minded humans

A Destiny Public Service Announcement

Slack is fully integrated into my life. Over the course of the last six months, it’s become a rarefied default application for me. It’s still early in the day and the coffee hasn’t kicked, but I can’t think of the last application that became default. Probably Twitter?

The communication gap that Slack is filling is real time communication. AOL Instant Messenger used to fulfill this purpose, but it was slowly replaced by a deadly combination of lack of innovation and the emergence of the phone as a dominate platform.

I’ve got four “teams” as part of my current Slack set-up. Work fully adopted Slack over the last few months. I have two small private groups where small collections of dear friends around the planet gather together where we’d otherwise be sending each other infrequent emails. Finally, I created the Rands Leadership Slack and the channel is 700+ strong and exceeding every single one of my expectations in terms of usage and quality discourse. If you’re in (or aspire to be in) the leadership biz, I highly recommend dropping me a note – you won’t be disappointed.

What is impressing me about all of these groups is the civility of the conversation. After years of watching discourse on the Internet turn increasing divisive where humans treat their misinformed opinions as fact, I’ve been delighted to find small corners of the Internet where we can debate, disagree, learn, and move on.

And I want more.

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I do have a Destiny problem. I play on the PS4 and while the PS4 has a good interface, the tools to manage and interact with a community are atrocious. Because I’ve got Slack on the brain, I’ve created a Destiny Slack channel to both organize the clan I play with, but also to gather other civil like-minded humans who are interested in briefly escaping our Earthly bonds. Interested? Send me a note.

Leave a Reply to Ethan Unland Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

5 Responses

  1. I remember when USENET was largely civil, rational conversation. But then they let the AOLers in and it all went to heck. At least, we blamed the AOLers back then. I think what really happened was that as more and more people got Internet, it stopped being a bastion for engineers and scientists to talk engineering-y and scienc-y things.

    I guess the point is, I find that any online channel dedicated to a particular purpose with a bent toward civil, rational conversation tends to find it.

  2. Slack seems like a great tool for Destiny clans. How do you track events like raid schedules? I’m trying to setup the same thing for my clan, so any direct suggestions would be helpful. Thanks.

  3. Melanie 8 years ago

    The leadership slack feels truly like the corner where all the mature folk hang out. It also feels safe. I wanted to comment here to say thanks and encourage other women to join.

  4. Ben Overmyer 8 years ago

    For gaming communities, the up-and-coming Discord might be a better choice than Slack, if only because it also incorporates really advanced voice communication as well.

  5. Ethan Unland 7 years ago

    So I am in Leavenworth wearing a destiny year 2shirt and I meet a father and son who recognized the shirt! This is the first thing they mentioned for the best experience for Destiny community! How neat!