The Arc of Collaboration 合作的弧线

The arc of collaboration is long and it bends in the direction of functional workflows.
合作的弧线很长，它朝着功能性工作流程的方向弯曲。

Why Slack is an Else Statement, there is no distinction between productivity and collaboration, and why the Slack of Gaming may be Discord but the Discord for Enterprise is not Slack.
为什么 Slack 是一个 Else 语句，生产力和协作之间没有区别，以及为什么游戏的 Slack 可能是 Discord，但企业的 Discord 不是 Slack。

Disclaimer: I currently use every product mentioned in this post, and love all of them.* I also used to work at Greylock and helped with the investments in Discord and Figma. There’s lots of opinions I have on both of them as well as their general spaces. But really you should talk to Dylan Field and Jason Citron. And John Lilly and Josh Elman, who led the investments in both. Because all four have shaped my thinking on productivity and collaboration significantly. And compared to the world they are still living decades in the future on how both are merging and where they are going.
免责声明：我目前使用本文提到的每一款产品，并且都非常喜欢它们。* 我曾在 Greylock 工作，并参与了对 Discord 和 Figma 的投资。我对它们以及它们所处的领域有很多看法。但实际上，你应该和 Dylan Field、Jason Citron、John Lilly 和 Josh Elman 谈谈，他们都参与了这两项投资。因为这四个人在生产力和协作方面深刻影响了我的思维。与世界相比，他们在这两者融合及未来发展方向上仍然领先几十年。

*Except Salesforce, because I am not successful enough to need a Salesforce instance for my personal life.
*除了 Salesforce，因为我还不够成功，不需要一个 Salesforce 实例来管理我的个人生活。

When Slack first started growing, there were many debates over which company would own collaboration, Slack or Dropbox. Dropbox proponents argued that Dropbox already managed all the actual records of a company, and so would be the center of gravity. Slack partisans argued that Dropbox was a transitory product, and eventually companies would stop caring about individual files, and messaging would be the more important live heartbeat of a company.
当 Slack 首次开始增长时，关于哪个公司将主导协作的争论很多，Slack 还是 Dropbox。Dropbox 的支持者认为 Dropbox 已经管理了公司的所有实际记录，因此将成为重心。Slack 的支持者则认为 Dropbox 是一个过渡产品，最终公司将不再关心单个文件，而消息传递将成为公司更重要的实时脉动。

Messaging, it turned out, appears to be a better center of gravity than documents. And while Dropbox (barring significant traction in its new products) seems to be fading in its centrality, what’s striking is that Slack’s victory seems hollow as well. If anything we’ve seen even *more* new companies building towards owning parts of these workflows and getting traction.
消息传递，结果看来，比文档更具吸引力。而尽管 Dropbox（除非其新产品获得显著关注）似乎在其中心地位上逐渐消退，但令人惊讶的是，Slack 的胜利似乎也显得空洞。如果说有什么变化，我们看到的是更多的新公司正在致力于掌控这些工作流程的部分并获得关注。

That’s not a statement on its prospects as a company, or its accomplishments. Slack, even with recent dips in its stock, is a $15B company with very impressive underlying metrics. But there’s this feeling that’s hard to shake.
这并不是对其作为公司的前景或成就的评价。即使在最近股价下跌的情况下，Slack 仍然是一家市值 150 亿美元的公司，拥有非常令人印象深刻的基本指标。但有一种难以摆脱的感觉。

If Slack won the war, and owns collaboration, why doesn’t it feel like the war is over?
如果 Slack 赢得了战争，并拥有协作，为什么感觉战争还没有结束？

Slack was supposed to be the app that became the OS, the end of the cycle on productivity. But that hasn’t happened. How should we understand what’s happening.
Slack 本应成为操作系统的应用程序，标志着生产力周期的结束。但这并没有发生。我们应该如何理解正在发生的事情。

Slack is ubiquitous at most companies in tech (and in many other industries as well), but it doesn’t feel like it is becoming the central nervous system undergirding all the apps and workflows of its customers.
Slack 在大多数科技公司（以及许多其他行业）中无处不在，但它似乎并没有成为支撑其客户所有应用和工作流程的中央神经系统。

A new generation of functional apps have risen, with messaging and collaboration built directly into them as first parties. And with them it becomes increasingly clear that Slack isn’t air traffic control for every app, it’s 911 for when they fail.
新一代的功能应用程序崛起，消息传递和协作作为第一方直接内置其中。随着这些应用的出现，越来越明显的是，Slack 并不是每个应用的空中交通管制，而是在它们失败时的 911。

Slack is the 911 for whatever isn’t possible natively in a company’s productivity apps. And though it’s improving, there are still many structural cracks. Slack is current best solution for filling these cracks. But it doesn’t fix the cracks themselves, improved processes and productivity apps are needed for that.
Slack 是公司生产力应用中无法原生实现的事情的 911。尽管它在不断改进，但仍然存在许多结构性缺陷。Slack 是填补这些缺陷的最佳解决方案。但它并不能修复这些缺陷，改善的流程和生产力应用是解决这个问题所需的。

As the ecosystem of specialized SaaS apps and workflows continues to mature, messaging becomes a place of last resort. When things are running smoothly, work happens in the apps built to produce them. And collaboration happens within them. Going to slack is increasingly a channel of last resort, for when there’s no established workflow of what to do. And as these functional apps evolve, there are fewer and fewer exceptions that need Slack. In fact, a sign of a maturing company is one that progressively removes the need to use Slack for more and more situations.
随着专业 SaaS 应用和工作流程的生态系统不断成熟，消息传递变成了最后的选择。当一切顺利进行时，工作在为此而构建的应用中进行，协作也在其中进行。使用 Slack 越来越成为最后的渠道，当没有既定的工作流程时。而随着这些功能性应用的发展，需要使用 Slack 的情况越来越少。事实上，一个成熟公司的标志是逐渐减少在越来越多情况下使用 Slack 的需求。

What drives these changes in collaboration? And is there room for one app to focus entirely on collaboration–and if so, what should it look like?
是什么推动了这些协作的变化？是否有空间让一个应用程序完全专注于协作——如果有，它应该是什么样子？

To understand this is to understand that there is no distinction between productivity and collaboration. But we’re only now fully appreciating it.
要理解这一点，就要明白生产力和协作之间没有区别。但我们现在才完全意识到这一点。

Separated at Birth: Productivity and Collaboration
出生时分离：生产力与协作

Productivity and Collaboration are two sides of the same coin for any team with more than one person. Work is just the iterated output of individuals creating and coordinating together.
生产力和协作是任何一个有超过一个人的团队的两个方面。工作只是个体共同创造和协调的迭代产出。

But the two have been distinct and isolated segments historically, due to how long the feedback loops of both were.
但由于两者的反馈循环持续时间较长，历史上这两个部分一直是独立且孤立的。

Post-software and Pre-cloud. Collaboration is external to productivity
后软件和前云。协作是生产力之外的。

What really began our modern era of how to think about collaboration began with the shift to software. Digital work has significantly faster feedback loops for productivity. Software, quite simply, can produce and iterate new things at a daily if not hourly or minute basis.
我们现代合作思维的真正开端是软件的转变。数字工作在生产力方面具有显著更快的反馈循环。软件，简单来说，可以每天甚至每小时或每分钟产生和迭代新事物。

Suddenly, the constraint on work became much more about the speed and lossiness of collaboration. Which remained remarkably analog. The friction of getting people your document, much less keeping correct versioning was non-trivial.
突然，工作上的限制变得更多地与协作的速度和损失性有关。而这仍然是相当模拟的。将文档发送给他人的摩擦，更不用说保持正确的版本控制，都是不容小觑的。

Even with the introduction of email, people could send each other files—but still had huge coordination costs around versioning.
即使引入了电子邮件，人们仍然可以互相发送文件，但在版本控制方面仍然存在巨大的协调成本。

Cloud – Dropbox and Box
云 – Dropbox 和 Box

As the industry began to transition to cloud, companies like Dropbox and Box rose. Instead of everyone keeping their own local copies of documents, what if everyone had them pooled in the cloud. Then parts of collaboration like versioning and permissioning could be done across the entire team.
随着行业开始向云端转型，像 Dropbox 和 Box 这样的公司崛起。与其让每个人都保留自己本地的文档副本，不如让所有文档都集中在云端。这样，版本控制和权限管理等协作部分就可以在整个团队中进行。

Employees could make changes directly in document, and trust it would propagate to their co-workers. In practice, there were still versioning issues to handle. But it was a significant improvement.
员工可以直接在文档中进行更改，并信任这些更改会传播给他们的同事。实际上，仍然需要处理版本控制问题。但这已经是一个显著的改进。

However, this model looks transitory in retrospect. In a pure cloud world, this atomic unit of documents seems increasingly archaic. Documents are more a constraint of a pre-cloud world. And once you assume storing them online is table stakes, the question becomes where is actual collaboration happening that then leads people to wherever they need to do work.
然而，回顾来看，这种模型显得过于短暂。在一个纯粹的云世界中，这种文档的基本单位似乎越来越显得过时。文档更多是一个前云世界的限制。一旦你假设在线存储是基本要求，问题就变成了实际的协作在哪里发生，从而引导人们去完成他们需要做的工作。

And core Dropbox is not a solution to this. People store their documents in it. But they had to use email and other messaging apps to tell their co-workers which document to check out and what they needed help with.
核心的 Dropbox 并不是解决方案。人们将他们的文档存储在其中。但他们不得不使用电子邮件和其他消息应用程序来告诉同事查看哪个文档以及他们需要什么帮助。

Dropbox understands this concern. It’s what’s driven their numerous forays into owning the workflows and communication channels themselves. With Carousel, Mailbox, and their new desktop apps all working to own that. However, there are constraints to owning the workflow when your fundamental atomic unit is documents. And they never quite owned the communication channels.
Dropbox 理解这个担忧。这正是他们多次尝试掌控工作流程和沟通渠道的原因。通过 Carousel、Mailbox 以及他们的新桌面应用程序，所有这些都在努力实现这一目标。然而，当你的基本原子单位是文档时，掌控工作流程是有局限的。而他们从未真正掌控沟通渠道。

Slack

Slack became the place you messaged your coworkers and sent them links to the work you wanted them to check out. They began to displace Dropbox as the center of gravity for companies.
Slack 成为了你与同事交流和发送工作链接的地方，想让他们查看的内容。他们开始取代 Dropbox，成为公司的重心。

The dream of Slack is that they become the central nervous system for all of a company’s employees and apps. This is the view of a clean *separation* of productivity and collaboration. Have all your apps for productivity and then have a single app for coordinating everyone, with your apps also feeding notifications into this system.
Slack 的梦想是成为公司所有员工和应用程序的中枢神经系统。这是对生产力和协作的清晰*分离*的看法。拥有所有的生产力应用程序，然后有一个单一的应用程序来协调每个人，同时让你的应用程序也将通知输入到这个系统中。

In this way, Slack would become a star. With every app revolving around it. Employees would work out of Slack, periodically moving to whichever app they were needed in, before returning to Slack.
通过这种方式，Slack 将成为明星。每个应用程序都围绕它运转。员工将通过 Slack 工作，定期切换到他们需要的应用程序，然后再返回 Slack。

But productivity *isn’t* separate from collaboration. They are the two parts of the same loop of producing work. And if anything collaboration is in *service* of team productivity.
但生产力并不是与协作分开的。它们是产生工作的同一循环的两个部分。如果说有什么的话，协作是为了团队生产力而服务的。

What is Slack, really? Slack 到底是什么？

There has been much pushback to Slack in recent years. Often centered around this feeling that Slack is distracting and not productive. As with any successful app, much of it is the gripes that come with any app that is successful enough to become a significant part of your working life. But there’s an underlying current to these critiques that I think is real but people struggle to pin down precisely.
近年来，Slack 遭遇了很多反对意见。人们常常觉得 Slack 令人分心且不够高效。和任何成功的应用一样，这些抱怨往往伴随着任何足够成功、成为你工作生活重要部分的应用。但我认为，这些批评背后有一种潜在的情绪是真实存在的，只是人们很难准确地表达出来。

It’s not that Slack is too distracting and killing individual productivity. It’s that your company’s processes are so dysfunctional you need Slack to be distracting and killing individual productivity.
并不是说 Slack 太分散注意力，影响个人生产力。问题在于你们公司的流程太不合理，以至于需要 Slack 来分散注意力并影响个人生产力。

Slack is not air traffic control that coordinates everything. It’s 911 for when everything falls apart.
Slack 不是协调一切的空中交通管制。它是当一切崩溃时的 911。

Every slack message about a new document your feedback is wanted on or coordinating about what a design should look like is a failing of process or tools. Slack is exception handling. When there’s no other way to make sure someone sees and update, or knows context, Slack is the 911 that can be used.
每条关于新文档的 Slack 消息，您希望得到反馈，或协调设计应该是什么样子的，都是流程或工具的失败。Slack 是异常处理。当没有其他方法确保某人看到更新或了解上下文时，Slack 就是可以使用的 911。

Slack serves three functions:
Slack 有三个功能：

• Else statement. Slack is the exception handler, when specific productivity apps don’t have a way to handle something. This should decrease in usefulness, as the apps build in handling of these use cases, and the companies build up internal processes.
  否则语句。 Slack 是异常处理程序，当特定的生产力应用程序没有处理某些事情的方法时。这应该会随着应用程序在这些用例中内置处理能力，以及公司建立内部流程而减少其有效性。
• Watercooler. Slack is a social hub for co-workers. This is very important, and full of gifs.
  水冷器。 Slack 是同事们的社交中心。这非常重要，充满了动图。
• Meta-coordination. Slack is the best place for meta-levels of strategy and coordination that don’t have specific productivity apps. This is really a type of ‘else statement’, but one that could persist for a while in unstructured format.
  元协调。 Slack 是进行没有特定生产力应用的战略和协调的最佳场所。这实际上是一种“else 语句”，但它可以在非结构化格式中持续一段时间。

There is an entire separate essay to be written about meta-coordination. Which I think can have very different outcomes from functional workflows. We may be very far from formalization of meta-coordination and less concrete strategy planning. Which means unstructured text, meetings, and video calls could be the best current functional workflows for them for a while. But for our purposes of this essay will put that as out of scope.
关于元协调还有一篇完整的文章要写。我认为它可能与功能性工作流程有非常不同的结果。我们可能离元协调的正式化和更具体的战略规划还很远。这意味着非结构化的文本、会议和视频通话在一段时间内可能是他们当前最佳的功能性工作流程。但就本文的目的而言，我们将其视为超出范围。

As a company’s processes mature and the apps they use get more sophisticated, we expect to see the need to go to Slack for exception handling *decrease* over time. (Though of course, the complexity of the overall company may increase at a faster pace than this maturation, leading to a net increase in slack messages).
随着公司的流程成熟以及所使用的应用程序变得更加复杂，我们预计对 Slack 进行异常处理的需求会随着时间的推移而*减少*。（当然，整体公司的复杂性可能以比这种成熟更快的速度增加，从而导致 Slack 消息的净增加）。

These three functions are incredibly important. From the perspective of owning the process of doing work, they point at interesting relationship.
这三个功能非常重要。从拥有工作过程的角度来看，它们指向有趣的关系。

Slack’s importance is inversely tethered to the rate at which functional workflows within companies become legible and systematized. Both at an operational level, and long term at the meta-strategic level.
Slack 的重要性与公司内部功能工作流程变得清晰和系统化的速度成反比。 无论是在操作层面，还是在长期的元战略层面。

And this makes sense. The platonic flow of productivity should minimize time spent not productive, with collaboration as aligned and unblocking with that flow as possible. By definition, any app that requires you to switch out of your productivity app to collaborate is blocking and cannot be maximally aligned. It’s fine to leave your productivity app for exceptions and breaks. But not ideal when working (and not having issue).
这很有道理。理想的生产力流程应该最小化非生产性时间，尽可能地与协作保持一致并消除阻碍。根据定义，任何需要你退出生产力应用程序进行协作的应用程序都是阻碍性的，无法达到最佳一致性。离开生产力应用程序处理例外和休息是可以的。但在工作时（且没有问题）这样做并不理想。

Functional workflows rule everything around me
功能工作流程主宰着我周围的一切

Slack ironically is more similar to Dropbox than expected. The more time goes by the more it looks like exception handling being needed ubiquitously is a transitory product as we switch off of documents. After all, like Dropbox, Slack makes the most sense as a global communication channel when the workflows themselves don’t have communication and collaboration baked in natively. For documents this is true, but increasingly for modern apps this is false.
Slack 讽刺地说，实际上与 Dropbox 的相似性超出了预期。随着时间的推移，似乎普遍需要异常处理的情况是一个过渡产品，因为我们正在逐渐摆脱文档。毕竟，像 Dropbox 一样，当工作流程本身没有内置的沟通和协作时，Slack 作为全球沟通渠道最有意义。对于文档来说这是正确的，但对于现代应用程序来说，这种说法越来越不成立。

As it becomes more clear what are specific functional jobs to be done, we see more specialized apps closely aligned with solving for that specific loop. And increasingly collaboration is built in natively to them. In fact, for many reasons collaboration being natively built into them may be one of the main driving forces behind the venture interest and success in these spaces.
随着具体功能任务的逐渐明确，我们看到越来越多的专业应用程序与解决特定循环紧密相关。而且，协作越来越多地原生内置于这些应用中。事实上，由于许多原因，协作原生内置可能是推动这些领域风险投资兴趣和成功的主要动力之一。

As these apps proliferate, there is less and less need to turn to Slack. And Slack becomes more and more about the edge cases that aren’t yet built in.
随着这些应用程序的激增，转向 Slack 的需求越来越少。而 Slack 则越来越多地关注尚未内置的边缘案例。

Github is a great example of this for the engineering side. Salesforce for Sales. Out of scope of this essay, but there’s lots to write about this and I’d generalize Shopify as being part of this as well.
Github 是工程方面的一个很好的例子。Salesforce 是销售方面的例子。虽然超出了这篇文章的范围，但关于这个话题有很多可以写的，我也会将 Shopify 一般化为其中的一部分。

But for our purposes, let’s use an example, Figma.
但为了我们的目的，让我们以 Figma 为例。

Figma

Figma is a collaborative design tool. Unlike Sketch or Photoshop, Figma has collaboration built in natively as a first party. This means the ability to comment on designs. But it means much more too. It means the ability to design together at the same time. To be able to send a live demo to someone frictionlessly and then be able to make live changes as you talk to them. It means being able to build design systems that are reusable and plugins that are shareable.
Figma 是一个协作设计工具。与 Sketch 或 Photoshop 不同，Figma 原生内置了协作功能。这意味着可以对设计进行评论。但这不仅仅意味着这一点。它意味着能够同时一起设计。能够无缝地向某人发送实时演示，并在与他们交谈时进行实时更改。这意味着能够构建可重用的设计系统和可共享的插件。

Figma shows what collaboration means when you understand that collaboration is *intimately* part of productivity. And always has been.
Figma 展示了当你理解协作是生产力的*密切*组成部分时，协作意味着什么。而且一直都是。

If you are working on a design Figma handles all communication. There’s no more need to send an updated file on Slack. Or type in feedback on Slack. Or make a change and let someone know on Slack. And as Figma increases the scope of their app and adds more team and enterprise features. Even for sharing with non-designers on the team, the need for external communication falls.
如果您正在进行设计，Figma 处理所有沟通。无需再在 Slack 上发送更新文件，或在 Slack 上输入反馈，或在 Slack 上通知某人更改。随着 Figma 扩大其应用范围并增加更多团队和企业功能，即使是与团队中的非设计师共享，外部沟通的需求也减少了。

And as Figma expands into plugins, the ecosystem will continue to solve for more and more of the needs and exceptions.
随着 Figma 扩展到插件，生态系统将继续满足越来越多的需求和例外。

Over time, our workflows align with our functional flows. And collaboration is no exception.
随着时间的推移，我们的工作流程与我们的功能流程保持一致。协作也不例外。

And Figma is not alone. More and more apps in all categories understand that collaboration should and must be built in as a first party if they want to best serve their customers. Notion, Airtable, etc all understand this. The feedback loops of collaboration get so short that they become part of the productivity loop.
Figma 并不是孤单的。越来越多的各类应用程序意识到，如果想要更好地服务客户，协作应该并且必须作为第一方内置。Notion、Airtable 等都明白这一点。协作的反馈循环变得如此短，以至于它们成为生产力循环的一部分。

The future increasingly looks like one where companies use very specific apps to solve their jobs to be done. And collaboration is right where we work. And that makes sense, of course. Collaboration *should* be where you work.
未来看起来越来越像是公司使用非常特定的应用程序来解决他们需要完成的工作。而协作正是在我们工作的地方。这当然是有道理的。协作*应该*是在你工作的地方。

Meta-coordination 元协调

It should be noted, that meta-coordination adds nuance to this. Just as we increasingly productize the functional workflows. It allows us to start to be better at the meta-coordination at longer timeframes. Which could have standalone functional apps that specialize in these slower cadence coordination problems. Slack and Zoom are both possible answers in this regard. As are apps working in todos, project management, etc.
需要注意的是，元协调为此增添了细微差别。正如我们越来越将功能工作流程产品化一样。这使我们能够在更长的时间框架内更好地进行元协调。这可能会有独立的功能应用程序，专注于这些较慢节奏的协调问题。在这方面，Slack 和 Zoom 都是可能的答案。还有处理待办事项、项目管理等的应用程序。

The efficient frontier of meta-coordination is fascinating. Over time we see productivity apps eat up the stack. Google docs is a good example of the abstraction layers of coordination.
元协调的有效前沿令人着迷。随着时间的推移，我们看到生产力应用程序不断占据技术栈。谷歌文档是协调抽象层的一个很好的例子。

Google docs is good at line level commenting. So for this low level of coordination it excels. Which when sending word documents was the current state of the art, felt advanced. But increasingly, feels limited for higher abstraction levels of collaboration. As apps like Figma build in deeper collaboration.
谷歌文档在行级评论方面表现出色。因此，对于这种低级别的协调，它非常出色。当发送 Word 文档时，这种状态被认为是先进的。但随着 Figma 等应用程序在更深层次的协作中不断发展，这种方式越来越显得有限。

Can there be a meta-layer?
可以有一个元层吗？

This isn’t to say that there cannot be a horizontal collaboration app that is core to the productivity workflows. But it likely cannot be blocking to productivity. It can’t be a peer level app that is standalone. Instead it must work across and within each productivity app.
这并不是说不能有一个核心于生产力工作流程的横向协作应用。但它可能不能阻碍生产力。它不能是一个独立的同级应用。相反，它必须在每个生产力应用之间和内部协同工作。

Standalone messaging is not what ties all apps together. It is a peer level product that’s used where the others fall through.
独立消息传递并不是将所有应用程序联系在一起的东西。它是一种同级产品，用于其他应用程序无法满足的地方。

However, there is a need for a layer across all the applications. A layer for things that should be shared across the apps as well collaborative functionality across them.
然而，所有应用程序之间需要一个层。一个用于在应用程序之间共享的内容以及它们之间协作功能的层。

Slack in its current form cannot be this. If you have to switch out of a product to use Slack, then it is not the layer tying them altogether. Instead, the layer needs to exist a layer above. If everything was in browser it’d be a browser extension. But since most apps are not, it needs to be at the OS layer.
Slack 目前的形式无法做到这一点。如果你必须切换到其他产品才能使用 Slack，那么它就不是将它们联系在一起的层。相反，这一层需要存在于更高的层次上。如果所有内容都在浏览器中，那它就会是一个浏览器扩展。但由于大多数应用程序不是这样，它需要位于操作系统层。

There is some mix of presence, collaboration, coordination, and identity that should be ubiquitous across whatever apps are being used. A layer more attached to the people doing work and what they’re trying to accomplish—than which specific app they’re in.
在使用的各种应用程序中，应该普遍存在某种程度的存在感、协作、协调和身份认同。这一层次更贴近于正在工作的人及他们试图实现的目标，而不是他们所使用的具体应用程序。

Perhaps one of the closest to this we’ve seen was Screenhero. After all, the idea of screen sharing is inherently about collaboration while working within productivity apps.
也许我们见过的最接近这一点的就是 Screenhero。毕竟，屏幕共享的概念本质上是关于在生产力应用中协作的。

But it made the decision to be downstream of Slack, not upstream. It assumed Slack would be the central nervous system for people at work, and people would switch over to Screenhero from Slack. It traded scope for distribution. And got neither.
但它决定在 Slack 的下游，而不是上游。它假设 Slack 将成为工作中人们的中枢神经系统，人们会从 Slack 切换到 Screenhero。它以范围换取分发，但两者都没有得到。

KK note: It was acquired by Slack in an all equity acquisition. So to be clear it was hugely successful
KK 注：它被 Slack 以全股权收购。因此，明确来说，它是非常成功的。

But there *is* a non-enterprise example of what this layer might look like.
但确实有一个非企业的例子，展示了这一层可能是什么样的。

That company is Discord. 那家公司是 Discord。

Discord

Discord is the best analog for what should exist. For a while Slack and Discord were compared to each other as competitors. As Discord has focused squarely in gaming, and Slack in companies this comparison has been used less and less.
Discord 是最好的类比，代表了应该存在的东西。曾经，Slack 和 Discord 被视为竞争对手进行比较。由于 Discord 专注于游戏，而 Slack 则专注于企业，这种比较逐渐减少。

But this misses the main distinction between Slack and Discord.
但这忽略了 Slack 和 Discord 之间的主要区别。

Discord is actually two products bundled into one. It *is* a messaging app that looks akin to Slack. But it is *also* a meta-layer that runs across all games.
Discord 实际上是两个产品捆绑在一起。它*是*一个看起来像 Slack 的消息应用程序。但它*也是*一个跨越所有游戏的元层。

Beyond its Slack-like functionality, Discord has functionality like a social graph, seeing what games your friends are playing, voice chat, etc. These have been misunderstood by the market. They aren’t random small features. They are the backbone of a central nervous system.
除了类似 Slack 的功能，Discord 还具有社交图谱的功能，可以查看你的朋友正在玩的游戏、语音聊天等。这些功能在市场上被误解了。它们并不是随机的小功能，而是中央神经系统的支柱。

Active users of Discord have it on all the time, even when they are not playing games. It’s a passive way to have presence with your friends. And when your friends start playing games it makes it easy to with one click go join them in the game. Bringing your actual social graph across all games. Finally, voice chat makes it possible to talk with your friends across all games, even when you are playing the game. Like when working in a google doc, having to switch out of your game to message is a negative experience. Instead Discord adds functionality to your games even while you are focused solely on them.
活跃的 Discord 用户一直在线，即使他们没有在玩游戏。这是一种与朋友保持联系的被动方式。当你的朋友开始玩游戏时，只需点击一下就可以轻松加入他们的游戏。将你实际的社交网络带入所有游戏中。最后，语音聊天使得在玩游戏时也能与朋友交流成为可能。就像在使用 Google 文档时，必须退出游戏去发消息是一种负面体验。相反，Discord 在你专注于游戏时为你的游戏增加了功能。

We will see more companies understand and begin to work on this area.
我们将看到更多公司理解并开始在这一领域工作。

Final Thoughts 最终思考

Abstracting out of productivity and collaboration apps into the processes themselves, there’s something beautiful at how much we’ve improved and continue to improve at the process of working together with other humans.
抽象出生产力和协作应用程序，深入到流程本身，我们在与其他人合作的过程中取得了多大的进步，并且仍在不断改善，这其中有一种美。

In Making Uncommon Knowledge Common I said “One way the tech industry can be viewed, is a process by which we collectively push forward our understanding of industries and new business models.”
在让不常见的知识变得普遍中，我说过：“科技行业可以被视为一个过程，通过这个过程，我们共同推动对行业和新商业模式的理解。”

And perhaps a company is just a process that hopefully compounds and improves in its ability to serve its customers.
也许一家公司只是一个过程，希望能够不断积累和提高其服务客户的能力。

But underlying both of these is the most beautiful loop of them all. Progress is a process by which humans compound and improve on our ability to work together better for the things we care about.
但这两者背后是最美丽的循环。进步是一个过程，通过这个过程，人类不断增强和改善我们共同合作的能力，以便为我们关心的事物更好地合作。

Like distributed computing, it has turned out that for most of human history coordinating among humans has been a slow, intractable, sisyphean effort. In the last few decades we have seen tremendous technical breakthroughs in the latencies and tooling possible to remove these constraints. Across the world, whether in productivity apps or in national governance, there will be a transition period as our norms and processes adapt to this tightening of the collaboration feedback loop. But perhaps I remain incredibly bullish on what it means for our alignment and output as we increasingly systematize and make sense of these.
像分布式计算一样，事实证明，在人类历史的大部分时间里，人类之间的协调一直是一项缓慢、棘手、像西西弗斯一样的努力。在过去的几十年里，我们在减少这些限制的延迟和工具方面取得了巨大的技术突破。在全球范围内，无论是在生产力应用还是国家治理中，随着我们的规范和流程适应这种协作反馈循环的收紧，将会有一个过渡期。但也许我对这意味着我们的对齐和产出持有极大的乐观态度，因为我们越来越系统化并理解这些。

Our ability to compound together at compounding together is our most beautiful trait.
我们在一起复合的能力是我们最美丽的特质。

Appendix 附录

Appendix: Distribution 附录：分配

Of course, an approach like Discord for enterprise will need novel acquisition loops. This type of collaboration has strong intra-company network effects at scale. But lacks trivially obvious inter-company network effects or pre-liquidity loops.
当然，像 Discord 这样的企业解决方案需要新的获取循环。这种类型的协作在规模上具有强大的公司内部网络效应。但缺乏显而易见的公司间网络效应或流动性前循环。

Out of scope for this essay. And don’t quite want to get into the tactics I think would be effective here. That said will note a general framework here.
超出本文的范围。我也不太想深入探讨我认为在这里有效的策略。话虽如此，我会在这里指出一个一般框架。

If you look at most collaboration companies’ loops there are a few dimensions to categorize most of the tactics and loop sequences by:
如果你查看大多数协作公司的循环，有几个维度可以对大多数策略和循环序列进行分类：

• Single player vs multiplayer
  单人游戏 vs 多人游戏
• Intra-company vs Inter-company
  公司内部与公司之间
• App required vs no app required
  应用程序必需 vs 不需要应用程序
• Synchronous vs Asynchronous
  同步与异步
• Personal capital vs Social capital driven
  个人资本与社会资本驱动

A company working in this space has significant surface area for novel growth loops at each combinatorial set of these.
在这个领域工作的公司在每个组合集上都有显著的表面面积，以便于新的增长循环。

Appendix: Fortnite and Epic
附录：堡垒之夜与 Epic

Discord is also useful for understanding what comes after this stage as well. If you look at Discord. One potential TAM constraint is if gaming becomes 1) power law with low ecosystem churn and 2) not monetized via purchase.
Discord 也有助于理解这个阶段之后会发生什么。如果你看看 Discord。一个潜在的 TAM 限制是，如果游戏变成 1) 具有低生态系统流失的幂律分布，并且 2) 不是通过购买来实现货币化。

Fortnite and Epic is the best example of this potential. And Epic’s playbook in launching their app store vs Steam is a case study in how a dominant enough app can move up the stack if it has enough sway over end consumer attention.
《堡垒之夜》和 Epic 是这一潜力的最佳例子。Epic 在推出其应用商店与 Steam 的对比中，展示了一个主导性应用如何在拥有足够的消费者关注度时，向上提升其地位的案例研究。

There are similar lessons for companies selling to other companies. And we’ve already seen examples of these in specific industries. So always, something to watch for.
对于向其他公司销售的企业来说，也有类似的教训。我们已经在特定行业中看到过这些例子。因此，总是要留意这些。

Credits 致谢

Many thanks to Keila Fong, Saam Motamedi, Dave Petersen, and Eugene Wei for the many discussions about this topic, their help with this post, and their unceasing pressure to publish it.
非常感谢Keila Fong、Saam Motamedi、Dave Petersen和Eugene Wei就这个话题进行的许多讨论、对这篇文章的帮助，以及他们不断施加的出版压力。

Furthermore, even more thanks to Keila without whom these super professional quality stick figure drawings would not have been possible.
此外，特别感谢凯拉，没有她，这些超级专业的火柴人画作是不可能实现的。

Though they didn’t pre-read this post, also want in particular to thank John Lilly, Josh Elman, Dylan Field, and Jason Citron. All of whom have heavily influenced my thoughts on productivity and collaboration. And compared to the world they are still living decades in the future on how both are merging and where they are going.
尽管他们没有预先阅读这篇文章，但我特别想感谢 John Lilly、Josh Elman、Dylan Field 和 Jason Citron。他们都对我在生产力和协作方面的思考产生了深远的影响。与他们相比，他们仍然生活在未来几十年，关于这两者是如何融合以及它们将走向何方。