Re:Slack Is Buying HipChat from Atlassian
by munificent on Friday July 27, 2018 @08:03PM
(#17630553)
> I have never expected that the other party is sitting and staring at the screen in any Slack or chat I’ve used.
OK, maybe not literally staring at the screen.
> What do you think has caused that expectation in your mind?
I think the structural analogue and communication style — even the name! — of chat is a verbal conversation. In a conversation, you say as little as needed and then pause for the other person to take their turn. Each utterance is pretty short so that you give the other party a chance to respond.
If you do that asynchronously, it takes forever to work through a sizeable quantity of content.
In email, the analogue is written letters. The expected asynchrony is high and in return the writing style accommodates that: each email is usually a roughly complete though with possibly some paragraphs. Since you know the person replying to you can reply to individual sections, it's OK to put out a complete thought. You don't have to shorten it to give them a chance to interject.
OK, maybe not literally staring at the screen.
> What do you think has caused that expectation in your mind?
I think the structural analogue and communication style — even the name! — of chat is a verbal conversation. In a conversation, you say as little as needed and then pause for the other person to take their turn. Each utterance is pretty short so that you give the other party a chance to respond.
If you do that asynchronously, it takes forever to work through a sizeable quantity of content.
In email, the analogue is written letters. The expected asynchrony is high and in return the writing style accommodates that: each email is usually a roughly complete though with possibly some paragraphs. Since you know the person replying to you can reply to individual sections, it's OK to put out a complete thought. You don't have to shorten it to give them a chance to interject.