Slack Single Servings: Recent Episodes
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Tamara Stanners wanted to make a good impression as a new radio announcer, so she volunteered to be frozen alive in a 5000-pound block of ice for a charity event. The response to her chilling experience was anything but lukewarm.
Erin Stanfield went abroad hoping to expand her small town horizons, only to end up with a job as a mascot (where she dressed as her hometown's literary hero) at a theme park built to look like a tiny replica of the town she just left.
Toshiko Adilman left her husband, her two young boys, and the comfort of their home for a job as an interpreter on a movie filmed in Antarctica. But the exhilarating, temporary gig almost became a permanent disaster when she found herself stranded, and literally shipwrecked, thousands of miles from home.
Dr. Floyd Huen has been fighting for the rights of Asian Americans since joining the activist movement at the University of California, Berkeley in the 1960s. Now he's grappling with the fact that some members of that community think he's trying to harm instead of heal.
Cicely Hansen is the proprietor of Decades of Fashion in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco. Her store is rooted in her love of vintage fashion, and her formative years as a teenager in the '60s partaking in the iconic Summer of Love.
Former EPA scientist Gretchen Gehrke spends her evenings and weekends protecting the climate data that she and her colleagues used to collect.
Tareq Hadhad was set on a career in medicine until war broke out in Syria, forcing his family to flee to a small island in the Canadian Maritimes where he learned that whether healing through medicine or peace-making with chocolate, both paths can lead to a sweeter life for his family.
Widower Joe Bartley felt like life was passing him by, sitting in his small-town flat with little to do and no one to talk to. So, he decided to pound the proverbial pavement and get back to work. The question was, who would hire him?
Retired corporate executive Paul Critchlow was becoming increasingly horrified with all the blank spaces in his calendar. When a friend of his offered him a summer internship at Pfizer, he jumped at the chance, and his experience proved to be much more meaningful than just filling time.
Investigative Reporter Kevin Donovan learned that the truth can be an unpopular thing after revealing the dark secret of a city mayor revered by some of his own readers.
Without people like Greg Zerafa, Chris Bedetto, and Jerry Greaney there would be no New York Times to greet you at your doorstep each morning. Meet the men who are literally behind the machine.
Ian Winfield studies fish populations in England’s freshwater lakes, often with Bruce Springsteen blaring in his earbuds. Now he's using the Boss's lyrics to encourage others to take greater care of endangered natural resources.
Dr. Cassandra Quave researches plants hoping to find a cure for the next wave of antibiotic-resistant infections and diseases—some of which she barely escaped herself.
Dr. Rebecca Hsu is a freelance forensic pathologist who literally picks people's brains to find the truth.
Lola Augustine Brown wants the career, the kids, and the hen house all at the same time. It requires a very strategic dance and inevitably she sometimes slips.
When a client hasn't paid, just tell Julie. Julie Elster's business is dedicated to getting the overdue invoices of freelancers paid with a whole lot of sweetness and a smidgen of sauciness.
Maurice Ashley faced off against child prodigies to become the first black international chess grandmaster.
Glenn Martin devoted three decades of his life to inventing a Jetson-like jetpack. Soon after it took flight, he quit the company that was created to bring it to market.
An academic takes a unique job as a Wikipedia editor and consultant for the University of Oxford, using his access to historical texts and data to build the most comprehensive Wikipedia entries online—including the complete guide to everything Brexit.
A football contest backed by a certain cherry-flavored soda empowers a young Mexican-American woman born of undocumented parents to stay in college and fight for immigration reform. Read an extended version of this story on slack.com/podcast.
James Wong writes hundreds of fortunes every month for the largest manufacturer of fortune cookies in America. This enormous feat has often left him stumped for inspiration.
Collette Divitto defines herself as a talented baker, not a woman with Down syndrome. So when she couldn't find work or fair pay she launched her own cookie business and so far, success is tasting pretty sweet (and a little chewy in the middle). Read an extended version of this story on slack.com/podcast.
Lucy Parsons thought she had the world at her fingertips when she graduated from a top notch college until her "respectable" first job put her health at risk, all because she had little to do. Follow along at slack.com/podcast and @slackstories.
Sean McLaughlin spends his working hours and much of his free time watching grass grow. He's a turf specialist whose passion and killer green instinct bought him a ticket to the big leagues...Superbowl LI. Follow along at slack.com/podcast and @slackstories.
Senegalese model Khoudia Diop laughs in the face of bullies and "beauty standards". Though she has no problem confronting people who tease her for her skin color, nowadays she's choosing to spend more time ignoring them and loving herself. And the fashion world is taking notice. Follow along at slack.com/podcast and @slackstories.
Rugby star Keegan Hirst was the first British professional player to come out as gay, after many years fumbling between his public persona and his private life. Follow along at slack.com/podcast and @slackstories.
When web developer Christian Ziebarth couldn't satiate a taco craving from his youth, he set off on an epic culinary (and legal) journey to bring back Naugles Tacos and Burgers, trademark and all. Follow along at slack.com/podcast and @slackstories
Renowned Belgian chef Karen Keygnaert was awarded a prestigious Michelin star five years running, but she's decided to forfeit the accolade altogether; choosing instead to define success by her own terms. Follow along at slack.com/podcast and @slackstories
Erin Emiru struggles to become a productive member of society after a schizophrenia diagnosis puts her at odds with microscopic rats and medical professionals.
Follow along at slack.com/podcast and @slackstories.
Lyn McCauley goes to med school as a fake patient to teach budding doctors a lesson she wishes one of her own practitioners learned a long time ago.
Follow along at slack.com/podcast and @slackstories.
Peter Muyshondt climbed the ranks of the Belgian police force fighting the war on drugs. But after his younger brother succumbs to a life of addiction and crime, he starts to wonder whether police culture and policy could use a makeover. Follow along at slack.com/podcast and @slackstories.
At the height of the housing crisis, HR professional Michelle Berg hit her career high as a corporate downsizer, flying across the country firing thousands of workers. But she gains a whole new perspective when she gets the boot herself. Follow along at slack.com/podcast and @slackstories.
Taryn Wright has always been a very curious person. When an injury forced her to take some time off from her job as a futures trader, her side-project led her into an accidental career identifying fake online profiles, leaving her with new friends, and a few enemies, along the way. Follow along at slack.com/podcast and @slackstories.
Reporter Jana Pruden stumbled upon one of her newspaper articles embedded in the design of a random scarf while at a trade show. This little fashion faux pas led her on a worldwide investigation of epic proportions. Follow along at slack.com/podcast and @slackstories.
An engineer-turned-lawyer-turned-open-source software champion is diagnosed with a life-threatening heart disease, but she's not convinced her pacemaker is the most secure cure. Follow along at slack.com/podcast and @slackstories.
If you enjoy the show, please leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ rating or review in iTunes.
Madelon Guinazzo is a professional cuddler who practices the art of respectful touch while fulfilling a modern day need for genuine human connection. Follow along at slack.com/podcast and @slackstories.
If you enjoy the show, please leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ rating or review in iTunes.
Sean Mann carried out his father's dying wish to study Kung Fu and start a school dedicated to the martial art in the family name. He's hoping his kids will take over one day... if he can manage to avoid repeating his father's mistakes. Follow along at slack.com/podcast and @slackstories.
If you enjoy the show, please leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ rating or review in iTunes.
A musician experiencing existential angst has a chance encounter with a wise man at a bakery, only to discover he's met the mentor he didn’t realize he needed. Follow along at slack.com/podcast and @slackstories.
If you enjoy the show, please leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ rating or review in iTunes.
Gustavo Diaz can't return to the country he loves, but that doesn't mean the former army colonel is done fighting for his people. Now he resides in Hoover, Alabama, where he does double duty as a hardware store clerk and, during his work breaks, political agitator. Follow along at slack.com/podcast and @slackstories
Muddy Matches is a dating site made for country folk, by country folk. Meet Lucy Reeves, the industrious farm girl who started it all. Follow along at slack.com/podcast and @slackstories
Dennis Pilarinos learns the heartbreaking perils of putting his tech startup first. Follow along at slack.com/podcast and @slackstories
A Palestinian entrepreneur makes a dramatic escape from war-torn Gaza, leaving everyone she loves behind for a once-in-a-lifetime chance to pursue her dream. Follow along at slack.com/podcast and @slackstories
Tim Doucette has been legally blind since he was a boy. He grew up believing his interest in astronomy would go unfulfilled, until the day he looked into the night sky and realized he could see things most people can’t. Follow along at slack.com/podcast and @slackstories
As a mom, Emma's crooning voice came in handy when putting the babies to sleep, until one day she discovers her mind-tingling voice could help soothe millions of others. Now if only she could figure out how to describe her job to the neighbors. Follow along at slack.com/podcast and @slackstories
Nothing could stop Maili Wong from doing everything she could to climb the ranks as a Wall Street trader until she found out her job might literally be killing her. Follow along at slack.com/podcast and @slackstories
Keith Porter-Snell worked his entire life to become a concert pianist. With a swift snap of his hand, his entire career went careening out of sight, forcing him to redefine his classic vision of success. Follow along at slack.com/podcast and @slackstories
During his tenure as the Superintendent of the Oregon State Penitentiary, Frank Thompson was ordered to oversee the prison's last two executions, even though he didn't believe in capital punishment. Later in life, he proves there's never a bad time to stand up for what you believe in. Follow along at slack.com/podcast and @slackstories.
Ray Torres likes driving fancy cars, until a bad gig landed him in federal prison. Now he's back on the road doing what he loves, and the only thing he sees in the rearview mirror is the man he left behind. Follow along at slack.com/podcast and @slackstories.
After 30 years performing as a male comic, Lara Rae takes the big step of transitioning and re-booting her career—now as a woman. Follow along at slack.com/podcast and @slackstories.
In his private life, Andy Stuart lives a life deeply devoted to the pagan practice of Druidry—until a mysterious case in his professional life as a cop encouraged him to come out on the job. Follow along at slack.com/podcast and @slackstories.
Roz Morris dreams of becoming a bestselling author... despite the fact she’s already sold millions of bestselling books. Follow along at slack.com/podcast and @slackstories.
Scott Serafin went to war as a medic and returned with a newfound sense of duty. A promise he made in a foxhole would lead to a very merry transformation. Follow along at slack.com/podcast and @slackstories.
Rachel Denton is not a people person, which would be fine if she weren't a nun. So what's a woman of the cloth to do? She has to make her peace with serving the Lord's flock without walking among them. Follow along at slack.com/podcast and @slackstories.
Margo Walsh was a successful Wall Street recruiter. She was also a raging alcoholic. Everything came to a head one infamous Christmas night. Striving to get sober, she finds a fresh start with a new career helping former felons find one, too. Follow along at slack.com/podcast and @slackstories.
How the drivers of the iconic London Black Cab service band together to take on Uber. Follow along at slack.com/podcast and @slackstories.
Thornton Blackburn escaped slavery in Kentucky only to be imprisoned again in Detroit. After a historic riot and a trip on the Underground Railroad he lands in Canada and starts a business that rides on to this day. Follow along at slack.com/podcast and @slackstories.
Nancy Pearl credits the library, and a very special librarian, for saving her life. It's no wonder she became a librarian herself. What she wasn't expecting was to be immortalized forevermore, in plastic. Follow along at slack.com/podcast and @slackstories.
The ink wasn't even dry on Arianne Shaffer's diploma before she was thrown into the world of hospital chaplaincy, becoming one the youngest among her ranks in North America. But how does a 25-year-old find connection with end-of-life patients and their families? On the job, Shaffer discovers the one thing that transcends all boundaries. Follow along at slack.com/podcast and @slackstories.
Mohamed Alborno is a Palestinian man who learned early on that once the world deems you a refugee, you will always be treated like a refugee. This makes travel, work and finding basic healthcare nearly impossible. Now he's making it his life's work to build a new country that all refugees can call home. And others want in. Follow along at slack.com/podcast and @slackstories.
Rob Shevalier keeps the wildlife in check at Toronto Pearson International Airport. While he's motivated by his sense of duty, his colleagues are more practically driven by their love of food. Follow along at slack.com/podcast and @slackstories.
Russ & Daughters has been serving smoked fish, caviar and specialty Jewish delicacies since 1914. All remained relatively the same at the appetizing shop until the fourth generation got the chutzpah to shake things up. Follow along at slack.com/podcast and @slackstories.
David builds towns in the woods. His son had another calling...in Silicon Valley. Follow along at slack.com/podcast and @slackstories.
Sandy Hook Elementary School was demolished following the 2012 mass shooting that took the lives of twenty innocent students and six staff members. Architect Barry Svigals took on the daunting task of rebuilding the new school, which turned out to be the most all-encompassing project of his entire career. Follow along at slack.com/podcast or @slackstories.
When the Yankees came to town for an exhibition game, 17-year-old Jackie Mitchell was recruited by the local men's minor league team to pitch against stars like Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. The results were both groundbreaking and heartbreaking. Follow along at slack.com/podcast or @slackstories.
For years Joan Bailey hid behind the scenes, crunching numbers at a bank. After a series of layoffs she decided to try something new. Joan tapped into her unexplored passion for tinkering and leaped into the world of heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC). Her career has been heating up ever since. For more follow along @slackstories or slack.com/podcast
Jess Salomon dreamed of saving the world. She studied and practiced international law, eventually making her way to the U.N.’s International Court of Justice. But like many people, Jess discovers that her true sense of purpose in life lies somewhere completely different than where she expected to find it. For more follow along @slackstories or slack.com/podcast
Jean Wright had two childhood loves: sewing and space. After years of pondering, longing, and studying, she finally found the gumption—and dream gig—to marry the two. Follow along @slackstories or slack.com/podcast
Dave Keystone has always struggled to stay still—until he got a paid gig Snapchatting his way across Europe. Now he’s back home and wondering: Which work environment is more unsettling—the familiar or the unknown? Follow along @slackstories or slack.com/podcast
Steve Kiziak was snatched off the streets of Vancouver into the life of a body double for Hollywood actors. In one pivotal moment, Steve went from working in construction to show biz. Now, almost two decades later, he wonders if he should trade it all in for a chance to pursue his unexplored passions. Follow along @slackstories or slack.com/podcast
Hans Fenger was a musician rocking and rolling his way through life. Like most musicians, he dreamed of being a rock star. Circumstance forced him to put that dream on hold and take a gig teaching kids music. Fenger was having none of it when it came to traditional children's music, so he taught them what he knew best: pure rock and roll. On a whim, Fenger recorded his students singing and decades later, Fenger’s rock idols took notice. Follow along @slackstories or slack.com/podcast
Behind every working human, there’s a story. Work in Progress is Slack’s new radio show about the meaning and identity we find in work. Each week, join host Dan Misener for stories of personal ambition and debilitating insecurities, great successes and abject failures, the plans we make and the luck that…happens. Hosted by Dan Misener, produced by Slack. Follow along @slackstories or slack.com/podcast
The standard unicode emoji set is by no means perfect, but slowly it’s evolving to be more inclusive and more representative of different people and cultures. Not leaving anything to chance, the government of Finland designed their own set of emoji to stir up national pride and drum up international interest.
Emoji are powerful pictographs that add an emotional layer otherwise missing from text communication. Unfortunately they can be misused, overused, and abused at work causing some ire or just plain confusion in the workplace. Slack’s resident grammarian Anna Pickard and Internet linguist Gretchen McCulloch share some handy tips for keeping our emoji use in check. (:greencheckmark:)
Coming back full circle with a segment from our first episode: We hit the streets and ask completely innocent bystanders to create sound effects for their favorite emoji. The results are nothing short of weird.
By day, Fred Benenson is immersed in research and data. By night, he flexes his creative muscles moonlighting as an author. An emoji author. His repertoire so far includes an emoji translation of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick and a guide on how to speak (or write) emoji.
A group of high school female sophomores are challenged to design emoji that more accurately reflect themselves and the breadth of their interests. And it’s not all sugar and spice.
Erroneous emoji use can lead to some serious misunderstandings. To keep the peace, a group of researchers from the University of Minnesota are studying the emojis that confound people the most with hopes this data will encourage emoji makers to standardize their designs and descriptions.
As long as you have a laptop and a Wi-Fi connection, you can be on the job from anywhere in the world. But what happens when you try hosting a buttoned-up boardroom meeting over video conference with a cow mooing in the background? That’s just one of the many things these overseas workers have to contend with.
Waking up this age old debate from its slumber, we talk to a few experts about which caffeinated beverage gives you the better boost.
Elizabeth Cutler and Julie Rice were two strangers with a similar outlandish idea. After a serendipitous lunch meeting, they decided to spin that idea into a fitness empire. Meet the founders of SoulCycle.
Cherie Silvera keeps track of medical supplies in conflict zones for Doctors Without Borders. It’s hard work, and often isolating, but thankfully a no-pressure weekly volleyball game keeps her going.
The Wallenda family have performed tightrope walking stunts for eight generations. Under the big top, between skyscrapers and across Niagara Falls, the troupe perseveres in reaching new heights.
Chef Chuck White and Anne Churchill cook for rock stars and pop sensations on tour. Their food is the glue that keeps the band and crew grounded. We join them on the road in their roadside kitchen stocked full of surprises.
Newcomers to teamwork — kids taking on their first group projects — give their advice on surviving the sometimes awkward, often acrimonious, give and take of teamwork. We have so much to learn.
Curatio is an app that matches people coping with the same health challenges around the world. Kind of like a (non-creepy) Tinder for wellness. Together users are more informed, better supported and more motivated to achieve their health goals.
You know those people that always seem to know how to get impossibly good deals on airfares and upgrades? LoungeBuddy co-founder Tyler Dikman is one of those people. And he has the tips to prove it.
Breaking up with bad habits is hard to do. Author and speaker Gretchen Rubin has been there, done that, and has some excellent advice on how you can do it too.
What is multitasking exactly? And how on earth do you get good at it? Can you get good at it? We have so many questions, and neuroscientist Kelly Garner has answers.
Kaggle is an online platform that gathers a community of number crunchers, analytics soothsayers and data wizards (of the technical kind, there’s no actual wizardry involved, we don’t think). Together they build machine learning algorithms that can do anything from grading high school papers to diagnosing eye diseases.
Longtime New Yorker copy editor and bestselling author Mary Norris schools us (gently) on writing well. She also explains why this skill still reigns supreme over automated spell-check, which is a sobering thought given how terrible some of us around here are at grammar. :facepalm:
A new form of crisis intervention is gaining traction and all you need to access it is a tap of a finger. Using text messages to connect people with a team of volunteer counselors, Crisis Text Line can then use anonymized data to make the service smarter every day — and thereby more responsive to more people in crisis.
Meet the people of Wantoo — a startup that eschews desks in favor of ottomans and sofas, all in the name of conversation. It may sound like a new way to work, but it turns out people have been doing this since the toga-wearing, wine-swilling days of the ancient greeks. And it’s working!
Award-winning product designer Ayse Birsel doesn’t just design furniture, she uses those principles to help you construct the life you’ve always imagined.
Co-working spaces: A breeding ground for creative productivity, or a distracting muddle of incongruous working styles? It’s the eternal question plaguing freelancers, contractors and startup venturers everywhere — so we brought together two entrepreneurs (and a clutch of experts) to debate the pros and cons.
Danny Groner refused to be a nameless face in the crowd, so he embarked on an epic journey to get to know every single person at his fast-growing company. Now he wants you to pay it forward.
In which we visit a grade school in Texas where students are taught to become budding entrepreneurs. Move over lemonade stand, this is serious business.
A simple age-old kitchen timer can have a profound effect on how productive you are at work. We experiment with tic tocking our brain into efficiency.
“Let’s all go work in Antarctica!” Said no one, ever. Oh, except for this team of brave souls who doubled down on down-feathered outerwear and took up the post at the Port Lockroy post office.
The problem isn’t that you drink coffee, researchers say it’s when you drink it that could make all the difference.
Our brains are constantly hard at work writing scripts and narratives about how other people perceive us. Trouble is — according to best-selling author and researcher Brené Brown — most of those stories simply aren’t true. Here, she expertly debunks our inner monologues and reveals how editing your thoughts can help you, and your team, work better together.
Steve Fuller has spent the last 42 winters alone in the wilds of Yellowstone National Park. His team? A motley crew of bisons, caribous and grizzlies—and he wouldn’t have it any other way.
Like the ocean, the depths of the internet features leagues of bottom-feeder content, things like viewless YouTube videos and social media posts devoid of any actual social activity. But to writer and Internet explorer Joe Veix, the content he finds there feels a lot closer to life on the surface.
These days, people think the solution to finding solitude is to unplug your phone. According to Michael Harris, author of “The End of Absence”, there’s one thing they’re forgetting: To really recharge, in work and in life, you might just need to unplug from people, too.
Some believe a life without a phone is not worth living. Others think life is for the phone-less. We take to the streets to hear your opinions on the great phone debate.
Do you break into a cold sweat whenever you’re in a crowded area? Do you get heart palpitations at the thought of standing in a room full of people? Japanese Entrepreneur Mikito Tanimoto has the solution for you — and all you need is a cardboard box and a smartphone.
Would you rather be without elbows or knees? Would you rather change the past, or see the future? Would you rather have one full-time job OR a slew of freelance gigs? We hear from a man in the process of shedding his full-time security blanket and a woman who’s mastered the side-hustle juggle.
There’s an art to maintaining Kumbaya-level accord in the workplace, and there’s a Japanese martial art that can help you achieve it. (Disclaimer: No coworkers were harmed in the making of this segment.)
Unlike your alarm clock, your brain houses no snooze button, making 9am start times the equivalent of a medieval torture device for the masses. We enlist the help of Oxford University neuroscientist Dr. Paul Kelley to provide evidence in favor of flexible start times. Gavel, please.
Soon, legions of musicians will descend into Austin, Texas for South by Southwest (SXSW), hungry to remove “starving” from their “starving artist” résumé. We hear from a few creative cats who found a new way to crack the business and keep on keeping on.
Working things out doesn’t have to involve all that chit-chat. Instead, you can discover deeper truths (and deeper grooves) by singing your way out of strife.
Your job isn’t alway sunshine, rainbows and lollipops (unless you’re Willy Wonka, in which case, please get in touch). But it’s especially challenging if you’re not on the same page (or planet) as one of your co-workers. So, we took a poll: How do you resolve office clashes?
Job interviews are tough. Your palms get all clammy, your stomach is tied up in twists and knots, and that’s exactly the moment your interviewer decides to throw out a question completely out of left field! We hit the streets to find out the strangest questions you’ve been asked at a job interview.
Ever since she was ten years old, Julia Landauer’s been lapping the boys at their own games. Today, she’s a champion NASCAR driver and, if that weren’t enough, she also recently earned a science degree from Stanford University. To get here, she had to break all the rules.
How many quarters does it take to reach the top of the Empire State Building? What’s 54 times 17? Why are companies like Google and JetBlue asking these questions in job interviews? What does this have to do with the job you’re applying for? And for the love of Pete, how do you answer them???
Side-eye stares and low whispers giving you the inkling you’re on your way out? Act quickly, and you can use this comprehensive guide to leave your job with your head held high (just be sure not to smack your nose on the door on your way out, it will NOT serve your purpose).
Most writers moonlight as bartenders or restaurant waitstaff to bring in an extra buck or two. Not Rachel Stavis. Rachel’s a full-time writer with a part-time job in, of all things, in “entity extraction”. Here, she shares how fulfilling it can be to do away with judgments and embrace your (supernatural) gifts.
The office Albatross, the millstone around the neck of progress, the person whose very presence is the elephant in the room. But, despite this, letting them go just feels inhumane. This is the story of Cameron Herold, former COO of 1-800-GOT-JUNK, and the day he finally learned how to let go.
Want to be more empathetic in 2016? Put yourself in someone else’s shoes. Better yet, put yourself in an animal’s hooves. Master trend forecaster Rohit Bhargava explains why virtual reality will take off in 2016.
For those of you stubbornly clinging to your smartphones of yore, Rohit Bhargava has some good news: Being behind may actually put you ahead in 2016.
What if we told you the best form of exercise might be playing games on your phone? This new fitness regimen is a classic case of brain over brawn.
I’m going to travel more! I’m going to learn a new language! I’m going to get promoted! Most resolutions focus on individual progress; not a bad thing! But this year, it’s all for one and one for all.
Most resolutions involve some mixture of consuming less and exercising more. These days, there’s a new kind of resolution on the block. We hit the streets to find out what people want to change about their work life in 2016.
We close out the Resolution Pack with a final prediction from trend oracle Rohit Bhargava who predicts that the future for silver-haired citizens is golden.
One might assume that dangling off the side of a mountain during a lightning storm is not the best way to bond your team. One would generally be right. Or WOULD one?
Crystal balls, fortune tellers, and magic eight balls are SO yesterday. Today’s modern mystic is a human named Rohit Bhargava—a man with a proven method for spotting trends before they go mainstream.
If your 2016 resolutions include “listening to more podcasts”, do we have the thing for you! Our podcast-loving team have put together some of their favorite brain-tickling, ear-pleasing favorites to start your new year off right.
We channel our inner Oprah to bring you a collection of our favorite podcasts, recommended by a few lovely members of the team at Slack. Happy listening!
Slack is a messaging app used by all kinds of teams to pull off all kinds of amazing stunts. Here at Slack, we sometimes use it to orchestrate a multi-country prank in honor of our beloved CTO Cal Henderson.
Elizabeth Chan had a dream; an incredibly specific dream. She wanted to make a living doing just one thing: singing Christmas songs. So she did.
It’s that time of the year: The annual staff holiday party. Every company does theirs differently, some companies do them really differently.
We assemble a festive panel of experts to learn the actual root cause of those warm, fuzzy feelings we tend to get over the holiday season. Science!
Fact #1 - For a long time, Portland Airport had some of the ugliest carpet in the world. Fact #2 - There is a hot fashion trend in wacky sock patterns. Fact #3 - There is a Portland company capitalizing on both FACT #1 and FACT #2.
In North America, a holiday retreat like this could very well wind up with some kind of lawsuit. But in Berlin, sweating things out with your coworkers is really no big thing.
The art of personalized gift-giving is obsolete. So this year, Santa will be emailing you a generic digital gift card. Fear not, we have a plan to rescue this age-old art form.
Real life scenarios, like the flocking of birds, have inspired countless innovations in technology development. But what happens when these lessons are applied back to real life scenarios, like raising your kids? We find out.
In which we pit man against machine to determine, once and for all, who is the ultimate authority on cooking the best bird ever.
Here’s a head scratcher: You have a career you’ve always known and loved. Suddenly, you’re not legally allowed to do it anymore. So, what do you do? You start making hats. Obviously.
In the aftermath of Cyber Monday, the final bastion of the bargain shopping frenzy, consumers emerge weary-eyed from their purchasing haze to discover their carts are filled with … piles of bizarre things.
It’s probably happened to you: You order your coffee, state your name, and then stand confused and caffeine-deprived as the barista calls out something entirely, indecipherably different. (Tasting note: Best served with a side of erroneously-labelled, steaming hot pumpkin spiced beverage.)
On Black Friday, finding a bargain is a sure thing. Launching your business on the biggest shopping day of the year, though? Definitely not a sure thing. This year, one new wearable tech company is taking that risk—and it’s all or nothing.
Is there anything worse than trying to figure out how to change the clock on your microwave or adjust the time on your car dashboard using those teeny, tiny buttons? Nope. There is not. Nothing. It’s literally the worst thing ever.
Becoming a neuroscientist is hard. Becoming a neuroscientist AND best-selling author? Practically impossible! Or so you’d think. This is the incredible story of what happened when Lisa Genova, author of acclaimed novel and Oscar-winning movie Still Alice, asked herself: “Why not me?”
Good old Benjamin Franklin, and many other dead luminaries, maintained strict daily routines. These included notable keys to success like eating breakfast and getting struck by lightning. Can you imagine what their routines would look if they were alive and well today? We do, in handy listicle form.
Molly Shaffer Van Houweling is a full-time law professor at Berkeley. She’s also a world-class racing cyclist trying to set a new world-record. Clearly, multitasking is one of her strong suits.
One of the greatest privileges afforded to you as an adult is the ability to quit anything you want, whenever you want, with minimal guilt. We talked to a few people about the moments that drove them to exercise that privilege.
Thanks to technology, many workplaces have evolved from cubicle kingdom to free-flowing open concept office. Some company founders and their employees are even questioning whether a physical office is necessary at all. Meet one family that bravely put this theory to the test.
In which a personal crisis drives a successful TV director to a satisfying job as grocery store fruit stacker.
Ding! Buzz! Bleep! Notifications can elicit anything from a shrug of indifference to a full on sweaty, hivey outbreak. But fear not, this handy list helps you gauge the appropriate emotional response to common notifications.
You know what they say: When in San Francisco ... book a stay at the massive offices of a local tech start-up. Welcome to Social Print Studio, the world’s weirdest Airbnb.
This Halloween you can either dress for the job you want, or dress up as the job you want. Grab ye olde fountain pen and unfurl that ancient scroll, you’re going to want to jot these ideas down.
Who doesn’t fantasize about quitting their job, selling their earthly possessions, and gallivanting around the world? We talk to a South African couple who didn’t just dream the dream, they actually went out and did it.
In which we travel to South Korea to uncover the productivity-enhancing secret found in almost every office: nap rooms. In case you needed some documentary evidence to convince your office manager.
All the best writers claim — to anyone in earshot, particularly their publishers — that walking is not a distracting procrastination: On the contrary, it’s the antidote to writer’s block. Now researchers are marching in to back that up.
One artist’s back-of-the-napkin sketch, uploaded to the internet, took on a sadly all-too-familiar life of its own. This is the inspiring story of how she reclaimed her art, her career, and her love for both.
Reading this through spiderweb cracks of a shattered phone screen and swiping your thumb across glass that may, quite possibly, do your digit damage? You are not alone.
Meet Alex Gregg - entrepreneur, artist, purveyor of magnificent hand-crafted ice cubes. Yes, ice cubes. Yes, hand-crafted. Yes. We know.
It’s inevitable. After lunch, your energy falls off a cliff. We hit the streets to find out the top strategies for coping with the mid-afternoon slump. (DISCLAIMER: Results not guaranteed.)
Everyone has boss stories: Great boss stories, horrible boss stories. Hardly anyone has “NO boss” stories. Until now. Welcome to Holacracy.
“Being able to recognize my co-workers as ‘Hoverers’ and ‘Speakerphoners’ has not only improved my workplace relationships, it has also taught me a lot about myself. This is must listen for any office worker!” -Wilson Carstairs, Professional Podcast Blurb Writer
In today’s apps, the “swipe” motion is all the rage, but what if that technology was applied to a different purpose: Playdates. Swipe right on snack-sharing toddler, left on prone-to-tantrums toddler.
A successful criminal and civil rights lawyer makes a radical career change. Now he fights for clean water. Meet Mark Mattson, Waterkeeper.
When you think of tech early adopters, you likely think of iPhone-toting, Oculus Rift-sporting Silicon Valley types. But it turns out, it’s farmers who are way ahead of the game.
If you needed an algorithm for how likely the human race was to be destroyed by wolves over time, you would need to data on the number of wolves, the time taken to eat one human, and how tasty humans are compared to bacon. Or would you? Who knows! What does algorithm actually mean? We find out.
If the internet has done nothing else, it’s increased society’s appetite for high concept meals on wheels, and word play. In these realms the internet becomes hungry. Hungry like the wolf. Which is also a great name for a carrion-based food truck.
We all want to share viral videos with our co-workers. But not so fast! The S.H.A.R.E. system outlines the five steps to take so you don't embarrass yourself by sharing a lame video.
In the resplendent light of the full moon, best selling author Tom Rath emerges to reveal the unconventional truth about living a healthy, meaningful life.
Resolving HR disputes can require some outside-the-box thinking, and nobody thinks more outside the box than a group of kids who have never stepped foot inside an office. You may want to take notes.
Franklin Leonard was doing a bad job finding good screenplays, until he asked his pals to compile a list of the best unproduced scripts. Find out how The Black List helped Slumdog Millionaire, The King’s Speech, Argo and other notable movies get made.
Online shopping is the greatest. It’s fast, convenient, and devoid of human interaction. But what would happen if physical stores started operating like their virtual counterparts? You may never shop again.
13 years after David Allen published Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, he takes us through the GTD lifestyle, where we learn to focus despite the constant distraction of social media, smartphones, and the internet.
Today’s smartwatches track vital biometrics, tomorrow’s will measure just about everything else – from how many dogs you petted to how much time you’ve spent with your hand stuck inside a pickle jar.
Unlike the sinister robots depicted in movies, most bots just want to chat. Bot builder Ben Brown explains how bots will make everything in your work life, from meetings to lunch, easier.
Work wherever you want. Work whenever you want. Work however you want. Oh, and take as much vacation as you want, too. Welcome to the future of work.
He has hundreds of thousands of followers on all sorts of social media channels. He’s not a rapper, he’s not an actor, and he’s not at all related to a Kardashian. He is simply awesome at social media. Meet Anil Dash, the poster child for being ‘internet famous.’
Nobody wants to talk about it. Nobody wants you to know they’re doing it. But let’s face it: EVERYONE has to “use their phone” at work, if you know what we mean. Here are some tips to make it easier on everyone.
From the ’90s to today, email signatures have evolved a little bit every year. Join us for a look back through time at the trends that dominated that little bit of text at the bottom of your emails.
The stereotypical Pinterest board features rustic weddings, classic architecture, and mouth-watering dinner ideas. Thanks to Will Hall, you can ALSO enjoy child bodybuilders, spelling bee losers, and hair weaves discarded on sidewalks.
In the world of movies, everyone knows that Kevin Bacon can be connected to ANYONE in six moves. But did you know that Ashton Kutcher is the Kevin Bacon of the tech world? Listen and learn as we connect celebrity tech investors to Ashton in six moves or less.
Much like discovering how sausages are made, some things will keep you up at night. Welcome to your next nightmare - this is how hackers are trying to steal your passwords. (And what you can do to protect yourself.)
Dr. Joe MacInnis learns valuable leadership lessons every time he almost dies (which is surprisingly often). Discover what the brink of death can teach us all about what true leadership means.
Welcome to the most terrifying decision of your day that you’ve possibly never considered before - how do you get one of those plastic coffee cup lids off the stack without getting someone else’s germs in your mouth?
Have you ever heard your parents try to explain what you do for a living? Perhaps you should. Because apparently they have NO clue.
Chad Dickerson isn’t just the CEO of Etsy - he’s also a priority-driven powerhouse of productivity. Here are his tips to making the most of your time.
Hollywood movies have long been pitched using the “it’s X meets Y” elevator pitch formula. It’s Batman meets On Golden Pond. It’s Elf meets Halloween. It’s Fried Green Tomatoes meets The Shining. Brace yourself: the Hollywood Style Elevator Pitch has invaded Silicon Valley as THE way to seduce Venture Capitalists. As evidenced here, the results are not always pretty.
The number of features a smartwatch has is practically infinite, but during the rise of mechanical watchmaking, it took an army of the world’s best jewellers, craftsmen, mathematicians, and astronomers decades (and the equivalent of millions of dollars) to create a the most complicated watch the world had ever seen.
Ding! The doors slide open. You are filled with dread, knowing that you are about to enter one of humanity’s most awkward social situations: riding the elevator with strangers. Welcome to the strange world of elevator design theory.
The Elevator Pitch is now so ubiquitous that It feels like it must have originated in the era of Mad Men. So it’s hard to believe - but true - that idea was Ilene Rosensweig’s tactic to advance her boyfriend’s writing career at Vanity Fair in the 90s.
Much has been written about Silicon Valley’s diversity problems. Simply put, there are too many massive companies overflowing with white dudes. Enter Black Girls Code, an organization that is pushing for necessary changes in the world of tech.
The Dear John message we should ALL send to our least favorite relationship partner: voicemail.
Nobu Adilman and Daveed Goldman turned a hobby into a phenomenon and are changing lives by reinventing the choir.
You know that guy with the diorama of Tatooine on his desk? Or the woman who has turned her cubicle into a shrine for Dolly Parton? They might just be onto something.
Everyone knows a knuckle-cracker. Popping, clicking, and cracking announce their presence wherever they go. Did you know that the cause for these pops has been a heated scientific debate for decades? That is, until the Sherlock Holmes of joints ‘cracked’ the case.
You are at work, surrounded by your colleagues. Your phone rings. You look down. It’s your significant other calling. Is there ANY worse feeling than the dread of knowing you will soon have to say “I love you, too” in the middle of your office? Here is our short and instructive guide on how to manage personal calls in the office.
The average person is spending 42 minutes a day on Facebook. And every year that number is getting bigger. We wanted to know what this trend means for our future. So we spent 24 hours STRAIGHT scrolling, liking, sharing, posting, poking and updating. Here’s a report from the future of ‘peak Facebook.’
See ya later, SXSW. Toodle-oo, TED Talks. This. Is. The. Greatest. Festival. Conference. Ever.
Ding! Bloop! Gonk! We are bombarded with sounds coming from all of our devices all the time. They demand our attention, informing us of new emails, texts, Facebook messages, calendar invites, and phone calls. Find out how we feel about notification noises, and then sit back and enjoy our soothing audio relief potion.
You can feel it. That little burst of energy and excitement. Summer is almost here. And that means it’s almost time... for summer vacations. It’s baked into our culture. We take it for granted, but can you imagine a time without time off? Discover the history of how vacations came to exist.
It’s not every day that you find a story that combines OK Go (the band that has made an art form out of one-shot videos), DNA, and being able to store all of human knowledge in the palm of your hand. And yet, as strange and unlikely as that story may seem, here it is.
Who is the most thick-skinned person in your office? Probably your Office Shorts Guy. Why? Two reasons: 1. He doesn’t care what you think because he prioritizes comfort over fashion style. 2. He actually has thick enough skin to tolerate wearing shorts in frigid temperatures.
It’s ground zero for conflict and tension in the office. The office kitchen. From the selfish lunk whose food takes up an entire shelf in the fridge, to the lazy loafer who left dirty dishes in the office sink AGAIN, there are culinary crimes being committed daily. The worst offence: the inconsiderate colleague who microwaves foods that leave a thick and heavy stench hanging over your cubicle for hours.
xWe are inspired by people who take big career risks for the chance to find their true calling. Meet Clark Little, a guy who quit his job of 17 years to take photos INSIDE waves. Today, he has 1.4 MILLION Instagram followers and has never looked back.
What is your office-life secret? Hear the true story of one office worker who uses an elaborate ruse so he can play an hour of games in a bathroom stall every day.
How do you invent a brand new word? Hear the unexpected origin of the word, Podcast. (Hint: it was not invented by Apple or Adam Curry.)
Have you ever wondered how to make your podcast sound more like all your favorite podcasts - the really, really good ones that we all love? This is our audio cheat sheet and an homage to some of our favorite podcasts.
The inventor of Creative Mornings, the TeuxDeux minimalist calendar app, the Swissmiss design blog, Studiomates co-working space and Tattly temporary tattoos shares her secret for turning tough problems on their heads to find creative solutions.
Traditional microphones capture sound waves as they hit a diaphragm and cause it to vibrate. Scientist Abe Davis realized that sounds waves hit all sorts of other objects, too. So he invented a way to capture sound from virtually any object, from a plant to a bag of chips.
Coffee shops are full of people hard at work and we have some burning questions. What kinds of work are they doing? And why are they choosing to do it in a coffee shop? And most importantly, why aren’t there any businesses transforming their dull, corporate cubicles into a bustling, artsy coffee shop?
Go inside a new $10 million quantum computer and find out how it might just change the world as we know it.
There is no way to dictate an emoji into Siri or OK Google because emojis don’t have sounds… until now.
Grandchildren of the world unite to send a powerful message about technology to their grandparents.
Hear the true story of a real-life, over-the-top office fist-fight that took place at a call center in Nebraska.
Meet a school teacher willing to give up everything for a chance at a one-way trip to Mars.
Office advice from the star of ‘The Office’. Author and actor, BJ Novak, shares a smart productivity tip.