What Microsoft is Glad Slack Didn’t Say In Their Open Letter
By: Corinne Meier
Tags: Social Media, The Latest, Google, Innovation, Why Social Media

I feel that the 1-page letter they published was intense, but still lacking some information and edge. Slack turned down an $8 billion dollar buyout from Microsoft. It’s NOT only about avoiding the duplication of Slack within Microsoft, it goes deeper. Microsoft and the companies utilizing this system — even with the NEW enhanced version are simply archaic!

I commend Stewart for NOT taking Microsoft’s $8B. And, I commend, Microsoft for improving your product — by adding a duplication of Slack to your system. I mean, it is what it is, but my LARGER concern is this…

Dear Microsoft,

Slack is one of the fastest growing companies in the space and we know what we’ve got as illustrated in page-1. In fact, you (Microsoft) tried to buy us and we denied you for $8 billion. So, now you’ve duplicated Slack within Microsoft. $8 billion sure sounds like a lot of money. Why would we turn it down? Here’s why…

McKinsey Global Institute proved email inefficiency is actually a $900 billion — $1.2 trillion of “untapped value” ALL the way back in 2012!

Here is a short recap of their findings in “The Social Economy: Unlocking value and productivity through social technologies”

“72 percent of companies use social technologies in some way, very few are anywhere near to achieving the full potential benefit.” ← — You used to benefit from this way of thinking Microsoft.

“McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) finds that twice as much potential value lies in using social tools to enhance communications, knowledge sharing, and collaboration within and across enterprises.” ← — You are the company that used to love slowing companies down until you realized it. You would never have admitted you realized if we hadn’t come along. You would have kept selling a bad product to people willing to buy it.

“MGI’s estimates suggest that by fully implementing social technologies, companies have an opportunity to raise the productivity of interaction workers — high-skill knowledge workers, including managers and professionals — by 20 to 25 percent.”

In fact, Michael Chui, one of the authors, argues that putting information inside of email, means placing it inside of a silo — kind of locked up inside of a black matter.

Did you know?

The average interaction worker spends an estimated 28 percent of the workweek managing e-mail and nearly 20 percent looking for internal information or tracking down colleagues who can help with specific tasks. — MGI

When companies use social media internally, messages become content; a searchable record of knowledge can reduce, by as much as 35 percent, the time employees spend searching for company information. — MGI

Then, let’s not even begin to think about the great insight just released by Accenture…

The key lines to pay attention to

“Colossal corporate firms trying to innovate within their existing structures does not work, Accenture’s Narry Singh says.”

“Many large companies are dying,” he says. “Parts of businesses are being attacked by other companies and startups.”

“in a large number of cases “corporate innovation does not work” because firms are still too slow to move and change their working practices, Singh explains. Throwing money at innovation schemes doesn’t mean they will be successful.”

So, with that being said: your duplication isn’t going to remedy the age old problem of being too big to make radical changes and adjust to consumer demands.

And if we are in an age where companies like us are not going to sell out to large companies, maybe you should be spending more time taking start-ups way more seriously by investing in them when they are asking for financial help, like on Crunchbase.com when we were asking for $1.5 million back in 2009…

You could have even beat us or bought us way before 2012 when McKinsey Global Insititute opened the floodgates to the big data behind email inefficiency. It’s about paying attention! :)

Not to mention, what is Google Docs? How many people have Gmail accounts and use other Google features.

You are Google’s future adopted child Microsoft. Not our future parent.

You had the money. You had the time. As you will see below, the statistics and evidence was there. Why does it take a company like Slack to make you do something the right way? Think of all the innovation that has been deterred from coming to life based on a simple office tool that isn’t up to speed with innovation?

Yours truly,

#Slack #NewYorkTimes #CrunchBase #Microsoft #Startup #Innovation #McKinseyGlobalInstititute #MatthewChui #Trends #MarketingandAdvertising #MeierMarketing #ContentMarketing