Slackify, created at PennApps XVI
I’m always trying to look out for tips and tricks to improve the productivity and speed of my organizing teams.
Being as involved as I am, the little things can make a huge difference.
I had read a Google study that found teams can be more productive if they share personal details and maintain good morale with each other. Ever since I’ve been trying to find ways to use that knowledge to make my own teams better.
Two summers ago, I found an example of the knowledge in use (whether intentionally or not, I’m not sure) at my summer employeer iQmetrix. They loved Slack and their graphic designer loved making custom Slack emoji’s of everyone in the office.
There were emoji’s of people winking, dancing and all manners of playing around, and it did wonders for bonding and morale.
The following school year I had to try it out. When someone took a picture of me sleeping in the clubroom, I slapped the Computer Engineering Club logo on it and uploaded them as custom emojis: compeforehead and compecheeks.
They were a huge hit with the team and helped cement a culture of using emoji’s to react and reply to messages.
My friend Michelle graduated that year and messaged me over the summer describing how she missed that culture. Even remembering compecheeks.
This year I want to take the use of custom emoji’s to the next level, and hopefully I can do that with Slackify, created at PennAppsXVI.
Slackify is an Expo app that allows users to choose/take photos which then get resized to emoji dimensions perfect for uploading to Slack. With this app, a team can quickly grow their custom emoji index with all manner of photos.
I can’t wait to find out how turning a moment into a meme for the team is taken by my slack team. I’m optimistic it’ll be awesome.