When I dreamt up GuitarOS, I always imagined it having a community aspect––some sort of forum where we could all compare notes and encourage each other.
But the technologies available up until now were a bit underwhelming.
Private Facebook group? Too many notifications, too difficult to share files, too easy to get sucked into the rabbit hole of inane commentary.
Forum software? Too clunky, too unwieldy, too ugly.
But then I discovered Slack.
What Is Slack?
Slack is “team communication for the 21st century” that allows you to “be less busy.” At least that’s what the people at Slack say.
I say it’s like instant messaging for asynchronous communication, like email without extraneous back-and-forth and/or reply-alls, and like file sharing without obnoxious boundaries.
It’s easier to show than to tell. Check it out.
There’s a “channel” for what you’d write in your practice journal:
There’s a channel where you can share that epiphany you just had:
And a channel for general questions about GuitarOS stuff:
Then people can reply and comment:
So It’s A Forum?
Well yes, but check out what else you can do.
Direct Messaging:
Crazy Easy File Sharing:
Instead of typing out what you just wrote down in your practice journal, snap a photo and drop it in #practicejournal.
Add audio files:
Share PDFs of charts (or whatever):
Paste a Dropbox or Google Drive link and the file comes right up.
Robust Search:
Search returns not only the text inside of Slack, but also the content of PDFs, Dropbox & Google Drive links, and other docs.
How To Set Up Slack
In order to get access to this, I have to manually send you an invite. If you feel like I’ve dropped the ball on sending that invite (or that invite expired before you pulled the trigger), just shoot me an email at josh@fretboardanatomy.com saying something like “hey, send me a Slack invite already” and I’ll hook you up.
You’ll get a link in an email that looks like this:
There are free apps for desktop & mobile, or you can use it in the browser without having to install anything. It’ll walk you through the basics.
You’ll want to switch notifications from default to recommended.
The default pings you anytime anyone posts anything. That would be lame.
Instead, click this link:
https://guitaros.slack.com/account/notifications
…and then click this button:
Now instead of blowing up every time someone posts what they practiced today, you’ll only get pinged when someone mentions you.
One other exception you might make––I set #lightbulb_moments to alert me whenever someone posts anything there, because I find it fascinating and educational. If you want that too, just scroll down a little on that Account > Notifications page and set it like so:
Otherwise, you’re all set.
I hope you’ll take a minute at the end of your practice each day to brag a little––we’ll all be better for it.