Hey everyone! We’ve got a new release for you, and it has security fixes so please make sure you upgrade. We’ll disclose the details of the issue down the line, but stress that this update is important. Over the weekend we received a report from Val Lorentz (thank you!) that it was possible to create a situation where Element wouldn’t show all of the user’s rooms or Spaces, causing minor (temporary) corruption and Denial of Service (DoS).

The quote above sits on my desk, right next to my favorite quote from tennis legend Arthur Ashe, “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” Both of these quotes motivate me to evaluate what’s happening in my field, how I can impact it, and what that impact can make on the future.

New and upcoming automation features help your teams do more with less.

Team collaboration is a must when you’re working on projects — but sometimes it can feel a little like herding cats. Sure, it’s easier than ever to assemble a team, especially now with the rise of remote work and the wealth of communications apps out there. But the truth is, real team collaboration is much more than a Slack channel.

Raise your hand if you know someone who’s fallen for a phishing scam. The ordeal often requires a few hours, several emails to tech support to regain control of the account, and finally, the reversal of credit card charges. Now imagine this happening to a colleague’s work email address. As an IT professional, you might have onboarded them into the company’s network, trained them on best practices, and worked with them regularly in the past.

We’re incredibly excited to share this news! In our view, being identified as a leader in The Forrester Wave for Secure Communications (Q3 2022) is a powerful validation of the benefits Element brings to large enterprises and governments. In Forrester’s words Element is a great fit for “...organizations that prioritize flexibility, federation, and data sovereignty”. We are always having conversations with our customers about these three benefits.

Offering even more transparency, these enhancements empower teams to feel secure as they embrace the future of work.

New enhancements to your digital HQ make it easier than ever to work from anywhere.

As the pandemic unfolded, healthcare services locally and internationally performed monumental efforts to persist and remain relevant. Hospitals and medical services across Australia started shifting their healthcare systems using the latest technology to continue moving forward in a challenging economic climate.

On July 18, 2022, Slack announced that starting September 1, search history for organizations on Slack’s Free plan will be limited to just the past 90 days of message history. At first blush, this might look like a minor policy tweak. But it is in fact a dramatic change that makes Slack’s free plan untenable for many organizations, including ones that have been happily using Slack’s free plan for years.

Emails have been a staple in our lives since the late ‘90s. Today, the average person receives more than 100 emails per day — and that’s not counting the spam. Our inboxes fill up every night with sales events, new streaming series, and disavowed princes who need our help depositing a large sum of money somewhere safe. With all that clutter, your company’s newsletter has a lot of competition, but not to worry.

It's no secret that cybersecurity threats are becoming more and more prevalent, and companies are starting to take notice. But while it's important to make sure your company is taking the necessary steps to protect itself from potential cyber attacks, it's also important to make sure you're not making it too difficult for employees to do their jobs. After all, if employees are spending all their time trying to wade through complicated security measures, they're not going to be very productive.

No matter the domain, managing teams, is one of the challenging and crucial duties for every manager. A manager will be recruited for more than just managing the Company's finances, profit, and loss; managing the team and groups is also a necessary duty. The most significant error made by small to large businesses is choosing employees for promotions or hiring based on their knowledge of the sector rather than their people management skills.

Confession: I’m a white-knuckle flyer. Even though I travel a lot, every clang, rattle, and clink on an airplane can send me into a tailspin (pun intended). To stay as calm and collected as possible, I look for reassurance. And I always find it—in the flight attendants.

In today’s hybrid work culture, teams need the support of a powerful collaboration tool to function efficiently. And though ample options are available in the market, open source collaboration software is gaining more popularity than ever. Why? This type of software promises better collaboration for security- and compliance-oriented teams.

A knowledge base is the perfect solution to avoid repetitive customer queries that reach your help desk, deflecting an overwhelming amount of support tickets for your customer service team. By building a knowledge base, your users can solve their own customer support issues, sparing you time and resources to deal with more complex inquiries. A good knowledge base is thoughtfully curated and organized with the audience in mind, allowing easy access to the information stored.

When it comes to customer service, it is no secret that sales chat software has changed the game. From increasing customer experience to driving conversions and improving retention, live chat is a fundamental way to interact and support customers. Customers and support agents have noticed, and there is no better time to implement an effective sales chat software.

For remote teams, connectivity and productivity might be two faces of the same coin. Working from the office isn't a prerequisite anymore, as the global workforce has shifted to a remote workplace. Reliance on internal communication has increased more than ever, with a wide range of communication tools such as email, phone calls, and social networking used daily. Long email threads and social media chats are no longer appropriate for business teams.

The most secure messaging apps are becoming a priority for more and more companies. They want to enable both best communication experience to their employees and ensure the highest level of security. Why? Because organizations know how beneficial team collaboration is. At the same time, they know that their reputation and business success depend on keeping their customers and internal data private.

A couple of years ago, Erik was straight out of college and beyond excited to land his first real job. To make it even better, his team members were welcoming and dedicated. Erik was thrilled to be part of a team that was making a difference for the company. But as time went on, the shine began to wear off. Erik lost interest in his work and started to see his job as a paycheck more than anything else. What happened? Erik became a disengaged employee. How does an engaged employee become disengaged?

As a byproduct of the rapidly evolving digital world, we discovered the best apps for internet calling that don't require contact numbers made up of country codes. The days of utilizing a phone with a standard contact number to call people are long gone. All you need is a device with an internet connection to initiate the calls.

What’s in a name? For Mary Poppen, her’s is synonymous with organizational knowledge and understanding that the employee experience contributes significantly to the customer experience. Mary’s insights are widely respected across the customer success industry, and she has been a speaker and contributor to many articles and books on the subject.

The collaboration apps market boomed in 2020. With the abrupt switch to digital workplaces and remote work, organizations realized they need to support their employees’ work with the proper technology. That’s why today, we’re bringing you a list of the best team collaboration apps to try in 2022 - if you haven’t already.

Global crises, like the Covid-19 pandemic, have revealed the significant role that governance plays in securing health and lives. Care practices and measures in response to health crises are only a portion of healthcare governance. Concerned with the processes and systems of an organization, governance is an overarching framework that underpins the efficacy and stability of an organization’s operation.

Atlassian’s deeply integrated ecosystem of tools is now an essential part of thousands of companies. In fact, the company claims to have over 200,000 customers. And it’s no wonder; Jira, Confluence, Trello – and everything else in the full Atlassian suite – offer incredible power and flexibility. These tools are so well connected that using any combination is seamless, once setup is complete.

At Asana, we’re big on helping organizations cut back on busywork and increase efficiency. This month, we’re proud to introduce a set of new features designed to help teams take back time and focus on what matters—even in a distracted world.

The Great Resignation of 2021. And 2022. And 2023? If economic trends continue, that may well be the case. Attrition is increasing across the board and a lot of it has to do with employee disengagement. Harvard economist Lawrence Katz calls this “a once-in-a-generation ‘take this job and shove it’ moment.” But it doesn’t have to be. Employee engagement can dramatically lower attrition rates in both high and low turnover industries.

Just before the holidays in 2021, the marketing team at Mural was met with the most brow-furrowing of work problems: Company leaders presented them with an abstract-sounding challenge and gave them a hard deadline to figure it out. Mural was going to complete its first acquisition in its 10-year history and establish a new market category. But how does one launch a new category? And what is this new category? How does one communicate that positive transformation to customers?

When you work at a company called Human Interest, it would only make sense that employee connection is central to your company culture and employee experience. But for Debbie Gunning, VP of People, connection has been at the forefront of her career since she discovered the field of recruitment and talent acquisition. Connection has been a long-running theme in her jobs and life.

Led by investors Cipio Partners and Iconical, this funding round will fuel the company’s ability to further develop its industry-leading solution for mission-critical secure collaboration.

Is your intranet a content dumping ground? A graveyard of unread posts? Do you find that no matter your efforts, pleading, or incentivizing efforts, you still can’t get your fellow employees to read the information posted to your intranet? If this sounds like your organization, you’re in good company. People resist change and default to what’s easiest. Unfortunately, intranets are notorious for being the opposite of easy. But don’t despair just yet.

Users search for virtual meetings and webinars’ tools in the name of Zoom alternatives expecting the same capabilities in the tools they are seeking - that is, the impact of Zoom on worldwide users. In other words, "Zoom" as a brand name has become synonymous with online meetings. If internet stories are to be believed, there was a significant surge in the use of Zoom for remote work, distance education, and online social contacts during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Editor’s note: Digital transformations can frustrate employees if leaders don’t communicate opportunities to learn new skills. Successful change initiatives depend on structured communications for long-term sustainability.

Do you have a favorite place to shop? Take a moment to imagine it. What does it look like? How does it feel? Whether it’s a farmer’s market, a home improvement center, or the storefront of a luxury brand, we don’t just shop there for what we buy. We love the carefully-curated experience, designed to be memorable. It’s the little touches that make a customer experience unique and keep shoppers loyal. That’s what customer experience strategy is all about.

My KonMari journey began a few months into the pandemic. I picked up Kondo’s definitive work about tidying up out of boredom. I admit I was surprised at how quickly her ideas resonated. It might have been the rut I was in because of lockdown and working from home, but I was immediately following the steps religiously at home. During a period of excessive time indoors, her process brought much-needed peace and joy to my home. Work was a different story, though.

This month at Miro we released many of the features that were talked about at Miro Next and a few more besides. Read on to see how Miro’s newest features can help your team work better together, check out our roundup of releases from July. This month at Miro we released many of the features that were talked about at Miro Next and a few more besides. Read on to see how Miro’s newest features can help your team work better together, check out our roundup of releases from July.

The daily bombardment of alerts dinging, beeping, and ringing from all those applications we use is enough to drive someone completely crazy. Yet, for some inexplicable reason, we allow ourselves to be interrupted by Slack in a way we wouldn’t from any other platform. Even though it seems completely counterintuitive, and despite the sheer amount of daily notifications (because we still can get a bunch of notifications from Slack alone), we love and use Slack—a lot.

Editor’s note: Tech decisions can set the tone for how employees experience belonging, especially in distributed workforces. Successful leaders often cultivate company culture through digital workplace experiences. CIOs enjoy an outsized role influencing company culture, even before employees or customers are onboarded. “I hold the keys to the experience that every employee has,” said Colleen Berube, CIO and SVP Operations at Zendesk.

Tech pioneers in the food industry share their experiences of Slack as the collaboration engine of their digital HQs.

The pandemic saw a massive shift in the way teams work together. With remote work becoming the new normal, secure collaboration tools became crucial in helping teams collaborate seamlessly despite being spread across different cities or even different continents. But why does the word "secure" hold the utmost importance here? While remote work offers the flexibility of working from anywhere and using any device, it can pose a great threat to an organization's data.

The way businesses communicate with their customers is constantly evolving, and it's essential to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to providing the best possible experience. A business that can communicate effectively with its customers is more likely to build a strong relationship and earn repeat business. Knowing what steps to take to improve customer communication can be difficult, but we've compiled the best tips that will help you strengthen your customer communication this year.

The notion that we can return to the office as it once was—is flawed. As people question whether the office is a thing of the past, we must consider what the office of the future could look like. To do that, we must first acknowledge the flaws and gaps that existed in the workplace prior to the pandemic. Work-related stress and burnout were at an all-time high. Density of space was at capacity. Daily commuting was polluting the planet and draining our energy.

Editor’s note: Top-down initiatives can set the tone for how employees experience diversity and belonging, especially in distributed workforces. Successful leaders often cultivate inclusivity through digital workplace experiences. While remote work offers an opportunity to make the workplace more diverse, equitable and inclusive, there are also significant hurdles to overcome to ensure no one is left behind.

In the digital age, customer service is more important than ever. Today’s consumers are savvier and have more choices than ever before, so it’s crucial that businesses offer outstanding customer service to stay competitive. One of the best ways to provide outstanding customer service is to use a website live chat tool. Live chat allows you to instantly connect with visitors and provide them with the help they need in real-time.

Workplace use of WhatsApp is an expensive habit - so expensive it’s costing five US investment banks a total of $1B in fines from the SEC 🤯! This isn’t just a Wall Street problem - it's worldwide. Germany’s financial watchdog, BaFin, is investigating senior executive use of WhatsApp at Deutsche Bank.

The term employee experience (EX) has been a trending buzzword over the last few years. But what exactly does it mean? From attracting talent to onboarding your new employees, and all the way to when an employee leaves the company–the EX considers every interaction during an employee’s life cycle. This includes the employee’s role, workspace, manager relationships, and overall well-being. The EX is a golden circle that makes both employees and employers successful.

As we move further into the 22nd century, new technologies are constantly emerging that can help with presentations and pitching. Whether you're a startup founder looking to give a TED Talk or just want to make your next work presentation more engaging, there's a tool out there for you. In this blog post, we will discuss the top 11 presentation and pitching tools for 2022. Keep reading to find out which tools made our list!

While many understand the value of decentralised, interoperable, end-to-end encrypted chat and a whole treasure trove of communication features - it’s no good if folks can’t get signed up or logged in…

The momentum for the new quarter is established early in the first month, and it’s true about Q3 at Rocket.Chat. We have had a great start to the second half of this year with the launch of salient features in our 5.0 version that facilitate secure communication and seamless collaboration to help you move the needle on your business goals. At Rocket.Chat, we are always committed to empowering organizations to own their data by bringing data privacy and security into every conversation.

In 2020, the pandemic changed everything about work. Most employees commuted just 16 steps from their bed to their workplace. Work days got longer around the world. Remote workers reported feeling isolated. Communication grew with close colleagues but decreased with everyone else.

Well-written and readable files are essential for every business — both businesses that operate online and offline. Little wonder that ninety-seven percent of business data is still documented on paper. Businesses usually have their essential information recorded in a video or audio recorder. However, transcribing those audio files into written texts is essential for most businesses' documentation process.

For many organizations, Slack is the software of choice for business communication. Slack’s ubiquity in modern companies makes it one of the first notification integrations a SaaS company might want to build, possibly after email and mobile push notifications. In our experience, Slack notifications are a great way to reach business users (as Slack is mostly used in a business context) with time-sensitive alerts or action items while they’re at work.

Product notifications are a mission-critical component of your product that can’t be left to chance. However, notification channels are ever-evolving, and you need to keep up in order to reach users when, where, and how they prefer to be reached. A future-proof multichannel notifications strategy helps you stay in touch with your users without coming off as intrusive, non-responsive, or antiquated.

It’s no secret that open source software is an important part of many development teams’ daily workflows. But does that include productivity tools? Oftentimes, development workflows get shoehorned into the same productivity tools used by nontechnical teams—but these tools can be a poor fit for the needs of developers.

Everyone, at some point, learns the importance of constructive feedback or criticism when they need to give it to someone at work. Whether a colleague deleted that spreadsheet you worked on for three weeks or a co-worker always speaks over you in Zoom meetings, the day of reckoning will arrive. Are you ready? Do you know how to approach a sticky situation with grace?

The hiring process is important, and when you fail to deliver and manage it properly, you might get too many wrong perceptions of your company, mostly from unsuccessful candidates. Moreover, talent acquisition is competitive, but recruiters have to be aware of ensuring applicants come away from the hiring process and have had a positive experience from the outcome. However, how exactly can software tools help you improve the hiring process? Let’s find out more in this article!