Slack for everything

Traditionally, CRM systems are built as pull systems — it is the user who goes to the system to check information or carry out certain actions, not viceversa. More sit-down restaurant, less kitchen counter or food delivery.

With the rise of the next generation of enterprise collaboration platforms, there is an opportunity to bring insights, actions and workflows closer to the user. This is going to introduce interesting dynamics and challenges from an experience standpoint. Our solutions will have to change with the context. We will shift from processes designed to work as wizards to something more conversational. Big chunks of information will have to be boiled down to their essential parts for prompt consumption. Artificial intelligence will play a key role to separate grain from chaff, relevance from noise.

Of course, Slack (paired with very well designed programmatic and declarative development tools, Einstein, Flows, and all the usual suspects) was the answer to all those questions at Dreamforce. Still in awe, it left me wondering how replicable Slack's unique position as a Salesforce subsidiary can be to other players in this space, like Mattermost or that other platform that no one dared to mention even once. There could be some room to create good layers to orchestrate communication and automations between tools.