Slack, when used effectively, can be a game changer for managing research projects, fostering networking opportunities, solving problems, and more. However, if not used intentionally, it can easily become just another app cluttering your computer. In this article, we’ll explore how to harness the full potential of Slack for various purposes.
What is Slack?
Slack is a popular messaging and collaboration platform, that teams and organizations use to communicate, share files, and work together more effectively. It also allows users to create channels e.g. for specific projects or topics. It is mostly known for being used by companies for internal communications, but what many people don’t know, lots and lots of Slack channels simply gather people interested in the same topics. And these are the channels that you should find and join.
Key Benefits of Slack
Effective Project Management
If you are working in a bigger team, Slack is a great tool where you can divide people into groups in separate channels, have private chats, share data, etc. Keep in mind that the free version retains data for only the last 90 days, so if it is not the best place to store your data.
Networking
I have a separate blog post where I share how I grew my LinkedIn network from just a handful to 500+ connections, but I will give you a spoiler: it’s mostly due to Slack. I joined plenty of bioinformatics-related channels and connected with many of their members. Now, whenever I open LinkedIn, I am flooded with bioinformatics content (although I do occasionally see those silly TikTok-like videos, I don’t think there is any remedy for that).
Problem-solving
Some channels directed towards professionals in the field can be quite useful when it comes to troubleshooting. Especially the ones that gather people working with the same tool or in similar fields, tend to have a quite active and helpful community. So, a pro tip here is to check whether the tools you are regularly using have a designated Slack channel (or any other forum) because it might speed up your work quite a bit.
Finding Events and Conferences
I so strongly believe that Slack is such an underrated tool when it comes to finding and promoting events, that I wrote a separate post about it. I provide a very straightforward approach to how to find such events, so you might want to check it out. In a nutshell, it is a great and very organized way to find events of interest. Sometimes you might learn about them from a related, but not exactly your field, which might broaden your horizons. Mine were most certainly broadened by attending a couple of applied math workshops.
Don’t forget to follow me on Instagram and WhatsApp, where I share upcoming science events that I’m aware of.
How else do you use Slack? Let me know in the comments!
If you found this post helpful, you can support my blog by buying me an online coffee! ☕️
Until next time,
A.
