Slack: Keeping Communication Professional and Organized in a Work Environment!

By Madison Moll

During an ongoing pandemic, communication between co-workers and employers had to evolve from being in a typical office setting with face-to-face communication to trying to complete tasks and collaborate on projects through an online world. It can seem almost impossible to get work done when you can’t tap your co-worker on the shoulder to ask a question or knock on your boss’s office door to “grab a moment to chat”. However, Slack, an instant messaging app targeted for companies and businesses, makes it easy to communicate together on all-things business. 

What is Slack + What Are The Benefits of Using Slack in Your Work Environment?

Slack is a (free) channel-based messaging platform which allows people to work together more effectively, connect all their software tools and services, and find the information they need to do their best work. The benefits of using Slack compared to a GroupMe, an iMessage groupchat, or Facebook group is that Slack allows the users to organize the channels however they would like (ex. alphabetical, level of importance, etc.) This allows members of the intended workspace to have access to the files and messages sent in those channels, and even create private channels that are only open to specific users. You also have the option to go back and be able to search for a specific message using keywords in a specific channel or in the whole workspace. Finally, one huge benefit is the option to link and connect your work’s apps and profiles for social media platforms, Zapier, Toneden, Dropbox, Google Drive, and so many more!

The working world is one where you want to keep conversations relevant and professional. There are so many ways to contact a potential employer or current co-worker that can blur some lines between personal and professional (Texting, DM’ing, Emailing, Facebook Messenger), but with Slack you can stay connected with everyone in your workplace and maintain that work environment level of professionalism, plus have the added benefit of everything being in one-access point for the company.

How Olivia Management Uses Slack

My favorite part about Slack is the different “channel” options–which can help moderate and distinguish different areas for specific conversations. At OM, we have many different channels for all of us to communicate back and forth about specific projects or areas of the company! It’s very convenient and relieving to have some separation of ideas and areas for organization sake, plus then we have a way to go back and track specific conversations about ideas or find answers to questions already asked. It’s a way to also keep our messages and emails de-cluttered since Slack is the one-stop space for all of those work conversations. 

There are also options we use to make sure everyone sees a specific message, either about a project that everyone at OM has a hand in or a message about if we will be in person or online for a specific day. By sending @channel in a specific channel, everyone in that channel will get a notification that they have a “mention”, which ensures that most everyone will see the message. Typing @here is another way to notify everyone in a channel about a certain message as well! We can update our status in slack, which is helpful if someone is in a meeting or out to lunch, to notify those in the workspace that we might not see any messages for an hour or two.

To update your status, you click on your profile image at the top right-hand corner, type what you are doing in the “update your status” bar, and then pick an appropriate emoji for the situation. This makes communicating easier and a little more fun online!

Image found at Slack.com/features

Get Started with Slack!

Hopefully, after reading some of the benefits and how we use Slack at Olivia Management, you feel compelled to try it out for yourself. If you’re looking to enter the professional business world or start up your own company– you invest some time into getting comfortable with using Slack!

Instructions and installation download for Mac users click here!

More information on how to get started at Slack.com

Work! Life! Balance! Oh My!

Written By Kate Cosentino

Work life balance-the hardest balance to strike. There’s never enough time to live all of the lives I want to live, much less to check every box on my list or else I’d be a famous singer/songwriter, professional roller skate dancer, polyglot with the cleanest house you’ve ever seen. But alas— I’m only a fraction of that dream human being. In elementary school, I remember reading The BFG by Roald Dahl and learning that his mythical “Big friendly giants” did not have to sleep-saying, why sleep when you can live double the amount of time? That thought has always stuck with me. Life is so amazing and I don’t want to waste a second! It’s no wonder I’m a a three on the enneagram and I feel every single second cramming each one as full of as much productivity as possible. With that being said, I am constantly studying ways to combat my need to fit everything into the 7 days a week. Stephen Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is the most recent book to change my life layout.

Covey divides his schedule into quadrants to be re-evaluated weekly (or however regularly you want).

Image made by Kate Cosentino on Canva

As you can see in the image above, Quadrant 1 represents things that are both urgent and important. Examples include: deadline driven projects, urgent occurrences (like a car crash or leak in a pipe). Quadrant 2 are things that are important but not urgent. These are the things I typically care the most about like making music and working on my passion projects and career. Quadrant 3 is urgent but not important like maybe a call you have to answer or upkeep tasks you have to do. Finally Quadrant 4 are things not as urgent and not important so your Netflix and your Fortnite. Below is what a lot of my quadrant activities look like:

For me, Quad 1 & 3 are ever present so I use my planner to make sure I prioritize items in Quad 2. For example, I block out an hour or so daily for physical activity/exercise. That is not an urgent task but it is important to my mental and physical health. I also have to block out time where I’m working on me and my music because no one will give me that time but myself. Covey also suggests blocking in a healthy amount of leisure time from Quad 4. I think that is important or else you risk burning out and living in Quad 4. If I work too hard without a break I will get lost in movies and TV shows because I have no more brain power to keep going. If I schedule in fun nights with friends or time for my favorite show during the week, I get a healthy break that makes me more motivated to keep working.

I personally love using a physical planner with color coded pens and highlighters. I assign each quadrant a color. Quad 1 is pink, Quad 2 is purple, Quad 3 is blue and Quad 4 is yellow. It helps me visually how much time I am spending on each activity. This works well in Google Calendar where you can color coat activities as well-with the added bonus of a notification to your phone or two your email. Personally I love having the visual of these planners and blocking off time so that I don’t get too far behind on any of my goals—especially if they’re not urgent. And it makes sure I’m balancing work and play!

If you want a physical planner yourself I would recommend the Happy Planner of the Passion Planner. They come in varying sizes and layouts. I love the fun stickers and designs! Happy planning!

Airtable: The Spreadsheet-Database Hybrid You Should Be Using

By Devin Renspie

In times where technology is allowing more employees and companies to work from home (and a pandemic is forcing this remote form of working), it’s especially important that employers implement organized online databases so that every employee is on the same page, no matter where they are working from. This semester, I am interning with Olivia Management remotely, and I feel I owe a lot of my ability to work efficiently while away from the office to the time that my supervisors have spent creating ‘bases’ that contain all the information relevant to our artists and our processes in Airtable. Combined with Asana, another software we use, I am able to jump right into whatever task is thrown my way.

What is Airtable?

As the title suggests, Airtable is a software that combines features of spreadsheets and databases. I like to think of it as a more-intuitive version of Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets. In addition to creating records with just words and numbers, Airtable allows users to implement fields with features such as file attachments, checkboxes, drop-downs, and more. Moreover, users can make it so records can be grouped by different criteria and even linked within other records. The best part is, Airtable has apps for every device and supports real-time collaboration and commenting, meaning you can keep the rest of your team or your devices organized anytime, anywhere.

A quick look at the variety of field options that Airtable supports.

How Olivia Management Uses Airtable

At Olivia Management, we have multiple bases to organize information that we need to manage our artists’ various accounts and aspects of their careers. For example, we have a base dedicated to all their (and our!) social media logins, which is by far the most helpful base we have, in my opinion. Other useful bases we have include a catalog of our artists’ releases, a database of all our artists’ upcoming tour dates, and industry contacts that we have obtained over the years.

Get Started With It!

Now that I’ve shared a bit about how Airtable has helped us stay organized, I implore you to think about what kind of bases would help you or your company stay on top of what you do. If you’re not yet totally convinced that you’d benefit from such a tool, Airtable has a free version that contains all of the essential features I covered in this article! Although subscription plans include features like greater storage space, more aesthetic options, and tiered access to bases and records, the free version is a good option if you or your company are just looking for a way to create user-friendly spreadsheets and databases that are synced in real-time.

You can sign up for an Airtable account here!

Olivia's Digital Tool Box: Featuring Airtable

By Jackie Minton

When trying to work in a disorganized space, I feel a bit like a fish out of water. Unsorted papers look like abandoned intentions taking up my desk and piano bench. Bring that disorganization into the kitchen and my anxiety can take root when it comes to simply looking for that matching Tupperware lid. If you’re anything like me, a clean workspace is a must. 

However, having a clean physical space isn’t the only key to peaceful and productive work these days. With working from home becoming the new normal, an organized area now includes the digital plane. Today, the Olivia team is going to share our secret weapon to making a few hours of elbow grease look like an incorporated production.

Photo by Robert Bye from Unslpash

Meet our friend, airtable.com.
Whether you’re looking for a system to organize your personal passwords or a sophisticated way to track project deadlines, Airtable can help make your organizational dreams come true. The best part about this trusty tool is that a free account comes with unlimited data bases to dream, build, and track your information.

Here are a few ideas of ways you can use this powerful tool to maximize your digital workflow!

Centralize Passwords

Get your personal information out of the notes on your phone and into a singular location you can reach from anywhere. Include links to your account’s website to have one place to click through. We use this to keep track of all of our artists’ info from PRO accounts to social media.

Log Contacts

Whether it’s from your last business lunch or the booking contacts for your upcoming show. Log contacts and tag them by company and event needs. 

Create a Business Calendar

Or 5! Airtable has a great ability to house different calendars with various sharing parameters, and the ability to overlap calendars in your personal view.  Make a calendar for your social media plan, your travel schedule, or your upcoming co-writes. 

Sort Your Work Spaces

No matter what business you are in, it’s likely that you have to wear a few different hats to make your job happen. In the music business, we know this best! Venue details, marketing operations, and even managing a blog ;) are all small parts of the big picture we paint every day we come into work.

What parts of your process need some digital additions to the cyber-office space you’re building? Don’t be afraid to dream big!

Photo by Nastuh Abootalebi from Unslplash

Disclaimer: Airtable did not approve nor pay us for this article, but they should have.