(2017-06-22) Benson Thoughts On Building Bots And Buildings Slack Platform

Buster Benson: Thoughts on building bots and buildings

Our CEO Stewart’s emphatic answer was: no. Bots were not the future — at least, not the only future, and definitely not a basket that he wanted to put all of our platform eggs into. (ChatBot)

Slack.Com has an App Directory, not a Bot Directory. Instead of making everything a bot, we built tools to simplify bot development (like the Events API) but also tools to simplify app user experience within Slack channels (like buttons and menus and more coming soon).

The hype and hope of bots is that they might be our ride to a more human-friendly software world. By being more casual and easily integrated into conversations, it doesn’t seem like a huge stretch. But like open workspaces and remote work, we still have some kinks to work out.

Here are some tips for creating a user experience that integrates with, rather than disrupts, your customers’ natural flow of work.

1. Introductions and onboarding

2. Private vs public conversations

think about what’s going to be the same in 10 years.

Communication will still be at the heart of how we work.

We’ll be in a world even more interconnected with the software we use to do that work

People and companies that find ways to best focus individual and collective attention, make good decisions quickly, and avoid needless context switching will continue to have an advantage in life and business

Software that helps give teams these superpowers will benefit from living right in the conversations people are having, and in the spaces they work (whether that’s Slack, other products, or physical space). (TeamWork)