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.