Experiences that people love.

A little under 6 months ago I changed jobs, which meant a change in communication tools (and a move from Apple to Windows). In this time, I’ve come to realise how much I miss Slack. It had such an impact on my productivity, knowledge sharing and I absolutely loved using it.

I starting using Slack when it first launched in 2013. I thought it was really useful and a much better alternative to Skype or HipChat. Back then it was fairly limited but it was great and I bring that down to the simplicity of the experience.

Start small, but make it great and continue to iterate.

In 2014 I moved companies and I logged onto my shiny new MacBook Air to find they used HipChat, I breathed in and said to myself ‘I thought we were past this’.

A few months later (after banging on about it) we rolled out Slack to the whole team. I knew I liked it and it was useful (and cool) but this time it was different. The product had come on loads since I’d last used it and after just short time, it became something that I couldn’t imagine my work life without.

I moved on to pastures new and it happened again, Slack and I broke up. I can’t tell you how lost I felt/feel without it.

How have Slack created something that I became so attached to?

They’ve built an awesome product team that obsess over insight and their customers. The Product team even get involved in customer support, so they can hear the frustrations (and delights) for themselves.

If you’re a Slack user, I’m sure you can relate to all of those serious conversations (you didn’t have to do on email), the banter, the gifs, the success announcements, the lunch train, the washing up bot, the update from the daily stand-up… Slack serves us all in many weird and wonderful ways.

Slack never, slack.

I guess my point is that when you create an experience that people can’t imagine life without, you’ve made it. Hey, even Microsoft and Google are copying Slack now!

Moving away from my example about Slack, take a moment and imagine your life without everyday essentials that you probably don’t even realise you rely on…

Think about your daily routine, think about the things you do today, think of them as ‘jobs’. Now think back one, two, five, ten years ago, and just reflect on how different the experience of ‘getting those jobs done’ today differs, and then imagine how different they could be in one, two, five, ten years from now.

Keeping track of your weight.

Three years ago, hey even for a lot of us today (I don’t even have scales!)… you’d stand on your scales, look down, step off, adjust the dial so it was exactly on zero, step back on, feel good or bad, and go eat some chocolate. An hour later you couldn’t remember your weight, you’d weigh yourself again and immediately think, no that can’t be right.

Today you’ve got connected scales, you track your weight on a daily basis and you can monitor your health and general well-being down to a tee. Within the app you also track other things like your heart rate and your steps.

Making your home cosy.

5 years ago you wouldn’t have dreamed of controlling your home from your phone (Hive). You’d forget to set the timer so the heating came on 30 minutes before you were due home.

Today, you’re on your commute home and the kids are going to be back from school in 30 min, in a few taps, you’ve put the heating on and turned the lights on in your hallway and living room.

Capturing special moments.

We all had trips to Boots with our Kodak film where we had to wait anxiously for 24 hours to get the holiday snaps back. And what about the times when we used to take our digital camera EVERYWHERE and spend the next day reviewing every photo and uploading a whole album from a night out to Facebook?

Today, we’re able to take photos on our smartphones that are way better quality than our digital camera could ever capture.

Getting ready for the journey ahead.

The days where you’d dread getting into your car. It’s freezing, it’s icy, my heating doesn’t work.

Today, some have the luxury of heating up their car ready for the journey without having to leave the house.

There’s clearly tonnes more examples and I’d love to hear yours. It’s fascinating how technology has enabled better experiences over the years and now with AI, virtual reality and driverless cars, it’s hard to imagine what life will be like 5, 10 years from now but it’s definitely going to be super interesting.