USING SLACK FOR SYNCHRONOUS AND ASYNCHRONOUS COMMUNICATION IN A GLOBAL DESIGN PROJECT

DS 88: Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education (E&PDE17), Building Community: Design Education for a Sustainable Future, Oslo, Norway, 7 & 8 September 2017

Year: 2017
Editor: Berg, Arild; Bohemia, Erik; Buck, Lyndon; Gulden, Tore; Kovacevic, Ahmed; Pavel, Nenad
Author: White, Kim Brendan Frank; Grierson, Hilary; Wodehouse, Andrew
Series: E&PDE
Institution: University of Strathclyde, United Kingdom
Section: Creativity and Innovation in Design Education
Page(s): 346-351
ISBN: 978-1-904670-84-1

Abstract

Innovations in technology and the growth of the global economy are changing the way companies work. With an increasing number of workers distributed across the world, the communication tools teams have traditionally used are transforming to suit these changes [1]. Design educators are aware of these changes and design students are responding by using communication tools familiar to them. This paper examines the use of the increasingly popular cloud-based team collaboration tool, Slack [2] in the context of a Global Design Project and assesses some of its benefits and drawbacks compared to other communication technologies available, including social media. Educators who seek to provide guidance for students, and students who seek to learn about tools that are increasingly being adopted by businesses that need to effectively communicate asynchronously will be interested in this assessment of Slack and this paper’s recommendations for its application in similar work.

Keywords: Slack, A/Synchronous Communication, Social Media

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