Introduction

The fulcrum of my new book Reimagining Collaboration: Slack, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and the Post-COVID World of Work ¹ is a new model of collaboration: one based upon hubs and spokes.

Short version: Slack, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and others serve as internal collaboration hubs. Third-party apps and systems serve as spokes. Even better, employees can connect hubs to spokes without much technical proficiciency. #nocode

Make no mistake: This is a big deal.

Think of Zoom and Slack as operating systems.

Against this backdrop, announcements at the most recent Zoom and Slack conferences reinforced this notion. Case in point: Zoom’s launch of Zapps. In this context, stop thinking of Zoom as a videoconferencing tool. It’s not. Rather, think of it as an operating system. The other apps, tools, and systems live on top of it. Platform thinking at its finest.

What does this look like? Watch the quick video below.

Mind. Blown.

Simon Says: Collaboration and knowledge work evolving. Are you?

The question isn’t whether critical third-party apps can seamlessly connect, automate manual tasks, and change the fundamental nature of knowledge work. They can; in fact, they already are. Slack, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams are moving in this direction—and have been for years.

The question is whether people are willing to change their habits and business processes.

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What say you?