Latest Communication Tools: Slack, Email, and Instant Messaging (“Slack?!?”)

Flyover Country, Circa 2019

“Even the most modern communication technologies are limited: They can’t carry as much information as a real-life, face-to-face collaboration. Slack, email and instant messaging are famous for their inability to convey tone, and the resulting crossed wires.”

–“Where You Should Move to Make the Most Money: America’s Superstar Cities“; The Wall Street Journal (12/15/18).

Apparently, not only don’t I use the most cutting edge technology . . . I don’t even recognize their names.

Exhibit A: something called “slack” (or, is that “Slack??”).

Definition, Please

According to the online dictionaries I checked, the only noun version of the word is this one: “looseness, play, give” — as in, “the rope had some slack in it.”

I’m familiar with the word slacks (plural) — what I wear to work most days — but I’m pretty sure that’s not what the author meant.

Finally, I thought to check with my in-house technology experts: that would be my 19 year-old Stanford freshman son, who’s home on winter break; and my equally tech-savvy 16 year-old son, who’s a sophomore at St. Louis Park High School.

But, their doors were both closed, and they were still sound asleep as of mid-am.

Now, THAT definition of “slack” I know . . .

P.S.: The map accompanying the article failed to identify a single city within 1,000 miles of the Twin Cities that qualified as a “superstar city.”

The closest: Austin, Texas, almost 1,200 miles away.

Besides the Twin Cities, the Journal omitted successful (if not thriving) places like Chicago; Madison, Wisconsin; Kansas City; and Denver (though nearby Boulder and Nashville, TN are mentioned).

See also, “Frank Underwood’s Negotiating Secrets.”



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