The increase in remote working hours has sparked a surge in creativity within companies. Most organisations have developed procedures to help employees manage their tasks more effectively whilst working remotely. These procedures have also been accompanied by the introduction of tools to make them possible. In addition to video-conferencing platforms, the use of collaborative communication solutions has skyrocketed. At Incógnito, we wanted to try out a less common alternative for coordination in a corporate environment. We were looking for an agile communication platform. And I think we’ve found it: Discord, the chat system of choice in the world of video games.
It’s not as though we at Incógnito spend all day playing games. Nor does this mean that we view video games in a negative light. Everyone I know is aware that I’ll be buying the remastered edition of Diablo II as soon as it’s available, and that I’ll do the same with the long-awaited Diablo IV. What I mean is that if an app like Discord could be an effective alternative for large groups of users needing real-time connectivity, why couldn’t it be well suited to the world of decentralised business?
“If Discord can be effective for large groups of users who need to connect in real time, why not for the world of decentralised business?”
Collaborative tools for businesses
It is true that the market offers us other solutions that provide more features, rules and ways of organising work tasks. Any.do and Trello can be excellent task organisers. Teams and Zoom are highly effective platforms for group multimedia communication. Slack (now owned by Salesforce) has become the standard for communication amongst team members. But we were missing a much more agile and straightforward channel to enable a way to talk when we need to, view and demonstrate when necessary, and all without losing the speed of chat for conveying quick instructions and sharing links.
Discord is a chat platform whose main strength is that it allows free voice and video streaming over IP. It operates via servers, which can be either public or private. Groups of people can join a public server to take part in its active channels, or set up their own server with the access and behaviour rules they see fit. Best of all is the low latency it offers, which – provided the user has a good internet connection – creates a very strong sense of immediacy. It’s almost as if the people in a conversation were physically together. That’s exactly what we were looking for at Incógnito.
“The best thing is the low latency, which gives a very good sense of simultaneity”
Three advantages of Discord
What are the three key takeaways from our Discord app in a corporate context?:
1. Screen sharing is key.
As it is designed for the world of video games, this feature is far more optimised than in other environments. All a user needs to do is click the relevant button, select what they want to share (the entire desktop, a document or a browser tab) and start a broadcast that anyone else with access to the voice channel can join. It’s easier and quicker than doing it via video conference. In a work environment, it feels as though everyone is gathered together, looking at exactly the same thing. It’s very useful for coordinating tasks in real time.
2. Organisation of work by channels.
On Discord, it’s very easy to create different text channels to organise the conversation. We can set them up for work teams or for specific tasks (for example, sharing links of interest or coordinating leisure activities). Each channel can have its own rules. To prevent anyone from abusing this feature, you can set a delay of a few minutes before members are allowed to send a message. This is brilliant for compulsive ‘texters’. The other available features are also handy: invitations, whether the channel is private or public, and so on.
3. A friendly environment.
One of the problems with many work platforms is that they reinvent the way work is organised and aren’t easy to understand at first. The learning curve is steep, which doesn’t make it easy to adopt the platform. With Discord, that isn’t the case. The interface is extremely intuitive and uses features in a way that’s familiar from any messaging platform. Once you’ve set up the server, channels and permissions, if you know how to use WhatsApp, you know how to use Discord. Conversations take place in a very, very similar environment. We can reply to specific messages and mention members in the same way we do on Slack, and, of course, we have the option to use emojis and GIFs to make conversations a bit more dynamic.
As a platform designed for the world of live streaming and video games, Discord also offers the option to provide gift packages or benefits to users via Discord Nitro, its subscription service. In large organisations, this can be a way of offering incentives to encourage participation and boost internal communication. Through these kinds of behavioural nudges, we can help shift the conversation from the conventional channel of email to the much more agile medium of instant messaging.
I wrote ‘email’. What was that?