New service: Slack

[Robert Lehmann]

Dear all,

I'm happy to announce we have been sponsored by Slack.  Slack is a team communication tool and will augment our discussion forums Discourse and Groups.

» Click here to get started right away. «

You can login with your Google Apps credentials (username@opentechschool.org.)

It should be ideal for informal or real-time communications, such as last-minute events preparation, in-event problems and note-taking, quick discussions, live polls (such as our upcoming general meeting), or just casual banter.  What you use it for is up to you, of course, and I encourage you to experiment around with it.

Slack works very much like any other chat (or IRC, which we're going to deprecate soon if Slack works out for us.)  You can share information in public channels, private groups or on a per-user basis.  Details can be found in the excellent Slack Help Center.

We have seeded our instance with some public channels which mirror our usual groups (local teams / programming coaches.)  Some of these channels receive notifications from Github or Twitter.  There are also ways to invite users without a Google Apps login.

If you have any questions you can reach us on #tech or through the usual team.tech@.

Cheers and happy chatting,

Robert for Team Tech

PS.  We have been granted up to 100 users on the Standard plan.