We want to enable great communication and collaboration but avoid clutter. You can check the Practical tips supporting this below.

Sonder-wide Slack channels are open by default, private channels can be created when needed.

• The purpose of open channels is to make useful information available, provide possibilities for contribution, and make everyone feel included.
• Tip: Open channels can be browsed and joined, but people can’t see all the private channels created. It’s important to understand that it easily causes a feeling of missing out or being excluded. In many organisations, even project channels are created as open due to this reason.
• You can choose to opt in to open channels and opt-out from the channels, except for #sonder_all which we use for general updates that are useful for everyone: sharing important Sonder-wide updates, announcements of work opportunities and general Sonder questions.
• In addition to #sonder_all, we have the following channels where everyone should have access to
  • #sonder_fun: For sharing fun updates (and pictures) which could be anything from: “my cat is such a badass” to “I’m on a boat”. You are invited to please join this channel, and share your fun updates with the collective.
  • #sonder_biketrip: did you know there are many cyclists at Sonder. We’ve been day-dreaming of going on a weekend cycling trip this year. If you’re interested join us here.
  • #sonder_jukebox: What are you listening to? Share YouTube / Spotify / Whatever links here to music that’s getting you through the day.
  • #sonder_inspiration: Sharing links to anything that you find inspirational. Probably this is work-related or work-adjacent, but it will be great to have more activity here and gather inspiration from the hive Sonder mind.
  • #sonder_practice: Discussing your work at Sonder. For example: “How do you handle obtaining informed consent for a research interview with vulnerable communities?“.
  • sonder_project-leads: This is a closed channel for people leading projects at Sonder. If you’re leading a project and are not in this channel, please let Ciarán Duffy or Susanna Laanikari know.

If you have any feedback or suggestions on how to improve our Slack space, we are always listening.

Try to avoid private conversations unless they are necessary for privacy reasons.

• Even if you receive a question via email or private message, the answer might be useful to many others and hence worth sharing in an open channel.
• You might have many conversations ongoing, but your teammate might be feeling alone and excluded without us even knowing.
• Every DM results in a notification on the mobile and desktop devices of your recipient. And when you’re away from Slack for any length of time, those notifications can stack up.

Recommended practices for channels:

• Every channel should have a Clear channel Topic that lays out why the channel was created (ex: This is where we discuss our collaboration on client X”, or “Working on the Q4 contract for client X).
• Add Bookmarks on top of the channel, ex: Project’s GDrive folder, Miro board, Key files
• Key posts or other information can be also pinned and easily accessible on top of each channel (a detailed how-to on pinning)
• Managed by field indicates who to contact if there are any questions or improvement ideas.

If you notice a need for a new public channel, please start by browsing the existing ones to see if they could be utilised or extended to serve the purpose. If you still feel that there is a need for the channel, feel free to start it, let Collaboration tools admin role or Community facilitator role know about it, and share a short intro about its purpose with the network (#sonder_all) so that people know if they’d like to join.

• Please note that everyone does not have a full license to Slack