But can it really do it?
Thenew Slack Connect featureis, says Slack, “designed to replace email outside your company.”
Adding a new conversation is easy.
Slack
You just paste in the contacts email address, write a few words, and send the invite.
But email is still involved.
“How can Slack replace email if you need the person’s email address so that DM them?
Slack
The Old ‘Email Is Broken’ Cliche
Email is great because its open.
Everyone has an email address, and anyone can email anyone else.
But email also can be a pain.
How can Slack replace email if you need the person’s email address so that DM them?
If your company uses Slack, its usually all-in on Slack.
Being able to fold outside contacts into the same world is appealing.
These messages were hard to block because they all came from the same feedback@slack.com address.
Block the abusive invites, and you block all invites.
Slack has since removed the feature that lets you personalize the invitation text.
There are other security and privacy concerns, too.
Email is absurdly insecure.
Its sent in plain text, and can be read anywhere along its path across the internet.
That said, theres a robust system of protocols around email, designed for accountability.
Rolf Bax,chief HR officer at Resume.io, agrees.
Email is also a vector for all kinds of attacks, which Slack aims to suppress.
Phishing employees to gain access to company data or passwords is a common enough problem over email.
Slack alreadyrestricts certain file typesin Slack Connect, andin a blog post, it says its building malware protections.
These are not yet available.
Not Appropriate
Finally, inviting customers or other business partners to Slack isnt always appropriate.
One can imagine companies trying to bring potential customers into Slack.
That doesnt really solve anything, and could make things needlessly complicated.
Instead of trying to replace it, then, perhaps we should think about using email better?
Whoever solves that will be onto something big.
