OP here. Iit's telling that so many people are commenting in this thread about how Slack isn't that bad because you can customize it to be less attention-grabbing. The fact remains that Slack is engineered to be attention-grabbing out of the box. Sure you can tweak it to make it less shouty, but Slack is still a product that is sold for money by a company. It's not in their interests to make it align with your existing workflow if they can upend that workflow entirely. No one's making money from you having a meeting or sending a well thought out email, so I think it's worth being cynical when considering paid alternatives.
I think it's also worth remembering that for hacker type folks like us, customizing software is the norm. But default settings are default for a reason, and they will inevitably end up being the most commonly used. When everyone else in your company expects you to use Slack they way do, i.e. for 8 hours a day with instantaneous reply times, then it becomes hard to push against that and eventually it becomes the status quo
OP here. I think the problem is that when tools like Slack are engineered in such a way as to make people dependent on their product, it's unfair to expect users to accept all the responsibility of mitigating against that. Software companies aren't using organizational productivity as a benchmark for their success, just usage statistics. So no, Slack doesn't enforce a single way of working, but it is engineered to consume as much of people's time as possible, for better or worse.
Jason Fried wrote his in his (much more comprehensive) post about group chat pros/cons:
"It’s common in the software industry to blame the users. It’s the user’s fault. They don’t know how to use it. They’re using it wrong. They need to do this or do that. But the reality is that tools encourage specific behaviors. A product is a series of design decisions with a specific outcome in mind. Yes, you can use tools as they weren’t intended, but most people follow the patterns suggested by the design. And so in the end, if people are exhausted and feeling unable to keep up, it’s the tool’s fault, not the user’s fault. If the design leads to stress, it’s a bad design."
AEM Developer, Mid-level to Sr | New York, NY | Contract | Onsite
We're Big Human, a reputable digital product design studio near Union Square in New York.
We are looking for a talented AEM developer to lead a major project for a well-known international media client. The successful candidate will be working from our office as part of a small, dedicated team for a 4-6 month engagement.
The successful applicant will work closely with other members of our dev team (including other AEM developers) to create and configure AEM templates and components, help design an architecture solution to support multiple sites and provide support and troubleshooting during testing.
Other requirements:
- Located in NYC or willing to relocate
- 3+ years of development experience using AEM / CQ
- Experience with AEM v6.1 Touch UI
- Java-based skill-set with extremely thorough understanding of AEM building blocks, templates, custom components, dialogs, widgets, custom workflows, Digital Asset Management (DAM) customization, and development / deployment processes
- Experience designing and building RESTful APIs
- Ability to translate marketing needs into AEM specific recommendations & solutions
- Knowledge or desire to learn Adobe Analytics and Adobe Target
- Has worked in an agile environment
- Need to work with onsite team members and offshore team members to define, elaborate, and develop features and requirements
Big Pluses:
- Front end experience
- Understanding of other Adobe cloud services that can be implemented with AEM
- SEO knowledge
- Client-facing communication skills
AEM Developer, Mid-level to Sr | New York, NY | Contract | Onsite
We're Big Human, a reputable digital product design studio in New York. We’re looking for an engineer who can lead all AEM development projects for our team.
The job would require implementing and managing each project (including 3rd party integrations), building new AEM websites, and working closely with internal product development. You would coordinate with other lead members of our dev team to implement and integrate best practices of AEM usage, as well as provide support and troubleshooting during testing. Ideally you would have suggestions for how to enhance existing business applications using Adobe, and are able to identify requirements early-on during scoping & discovery phase of a project.
Our client for this project has a strict NDA; sorry we can’t tell you more! We’ll spill the beans during the application process.
Other requirements:
- Java-based skill-set with extremely thorough understanding of AEM building blocks, templates, components, dialogs, widgets, and development / deployment processes
- Experience designing and building RESTful APIs
- 3+ years of development experience using AEM / CQ - Experience with AEM v6.1 Touch UI
- Ability to translate marketing needs into AEM specific recommendations & solutions
- Can leverage AEM to solve cross-departmental challenges
- Knowledge or desire to learn Adobe Analytics and Adobe Target
Big Pluses:
- AEM 6 Architect Certification
- Complete understanding of other Adobe cloud services that can be implemented with AEM
- SEO knowledge
- Desire to help drive the development team forward
- Client-facing communication skills
AEM Developer, Mid-level to Sr | New York, NY | Contract | Onsite
We’re a reputable digital product design studio in New York. We’re looking for an engineer who can lead all AEM development projects for our team.
The job would require implementing and managing each project (including 3rd party integrations), building of new AEM websites, and working closely with internal product development. You would coordinate with other lead members of our dev team to implement and integrate best practices of AEM usage, as well as provide support and troubleshooting during testing. Ideally you would have suggestions for how to enhance existing business applications using Adobe, and are able to identify requirements early-on during scoping & discovery phase of a project.
Our client for this project has a strict NDA; sorry we can’t tell you more! We’ll spill the beans during the application process.
Other requirements:
- Java-based skill-set with extremely thorough understanding of AEM building blocks, templates, components, dialogs, widgets, and development / deployment processes
- Experience designing and building RESTful APIs
- 3+ years of development experience using AEM / CQ
- Experience with AEM v6.1 Touch UI
- Ability to translate marketing needs into AEM specific recommendations & solutions
- Can leverage AEM to solve cross-departmental challenges
- Knowledge or desire to learn Adobe Analytics and Adobe Target
Big Pluses:
- AEM 6 Architect Certification
- Complete understanding of other Adobe cloud services that can be implemented with AEM
- SEO knowledge
- Desire to help drive the development team forward
- Client-facing communication skills
Big Human - New York City (Union Square) - Front-end Developer
We're looking for an experienced (4+ years) front-end developer. We're an agency that works with a wide range of clients from Time Inc to Jetsetter to small startups you've never heard of. We're all Javascript all the time - Express and Backbone/Marionette power most of our sites at the moment.
You have: a deep understanding of CSS, HTML and Javascript (not just jQuery), pre-processors and Grunt/Gulp. Knowledge of front-end frameworks is useful, React is a real plus.
We have: competitive salaries, unlimited PTO, flexible hours, Metrocards, lots of social events, free gym and Citibike membership and plenty more
Big Human - New York City (Union Square) - Front-end Developer
We're looking for an experienced (4+ years) front-end developer. We're an agency that works with a wide range of clients from Time Inc to the Winklevoss Twins to small startups you've never heard of. We're all Javascript all the time - Express and Backbone/Marionette power almost all our sites.
We need someone who has a deep understanding of CSS, HTML and Javascript (not just jQuery), uses pre-processors and Grunt/Gulp. If you've worked with Backbone and Marionette before, that's a real plus.
Big Human - New York City (Union Square) - Front-end Developer
We're looking for an experienced (4+ years) front-end developer. We're an agency that works with a wide range of clients from Time Inc to the Winklevoss Twins to small startups you've never heard of. We're all Javascript all the time - Express and Backbone/Marionette power almost all our sites.
We need someone who has a deep understanding of CSS, HTML and Javascript (not just jQuery), uses pre-processors and Grunt/Gulp. If you've worked with Backbone and Marionette before, that's a real plus.
You should be able to click one of the first two discs to select them, then add a track from the search results. Thanks for the feedback though, it's interesting to know that you thought the discs were step indicators
That argument falls flat on its face when you consider that this is an industry that destroys a lot more jobs than it creates. You think companies that employ 10 people and then sell for millions of dollars are creating jobs? Where do you think that money comes from? Tech startups have hollowed out thousands of middle class jobs and all the money that pours into them is at the expense of investment in other industries that truly create jobs. I'm not saying that's a good or a bad thing, it's just capitalism. But you can't use job creation as a defense
I'm glad you appreciate the value of a healthy, balanced lifestyle. But reading this, it's easy to see why people post "Die Techie Scum" stickers around SF. You've taken a job that someone else could actually use to help pay rent and have turned it into a hobby. If I did this job for a living I would be furious at the arrogance of someone treating as an exercise in "Feeling Good". Get some perspective.
I think it's also worth remembering that for hacker type folks like us, customizing software is the norm. But default settings are default for a reason, and they will inevitably end up being the most commonly used. When everyone else in your company expects you to use Slack they way do, i.e. for 8 hours a day with instantaneous reply times, then it becomes hard to push against that and eventually it becomes the status quo