Did you know illumy is a totally remote company? Our headquarters are in the Bay Area, but the illumy workforce is distributed around the globe. To make illumy “work,” we rely on—you guessed it—illumy. In the tech world, using your product is called eating your own dog food. And that’s what we do: For all of our intra-company communication, illumy is our platform of choice. Here’s how we use illumy in our day-to-day.
Fast, fun peer-to-peer conversations
For peer-to-peer conversations, illumy is like email and instant messaging—but better. Like a conventional email account, illumy includes a dedicated email address (so people who aren’t on illumy can reach you, and you can email them). Side note: email on illumy is opt-in, instead of opt-out. The first time anyone who’s not on illumy emails you, you have to choose to accept or reject the request. Buh-bye, spammers!
illumy has emoji, reactions, and endless scrolling. In addition to those great features, it also comes with super-fast search, giphys, and unlimited file sharing—especially useful for exchanging documents, photos, videos, etc.
In setting out to build illumy, we wanted to make messaging fun again. Remember the thrill of getting online email for the first time? That’s the feeling we’re chasing (and making even better).
Dead-simple team chats
With Team illumy located in multiple U.S. and global time zones, we need a single platform that keeps everyone on the same page. illumy’s group messaging features are a perfect fit.
It’s super-easy to create dedicated team chats—as well as smaller sub-teams with just a handful of members. Meanwhile, we’re all members of the “illumy all hands” team, making this our dedicated channel for company-wide communications.
One standout feature for team messaging is @ mentions/tagging. When you’re tagged in an illumy thread, you’ll see an unread-message notification in red, so you can’t miss it. Thread members can also use “@everyone” to tag every person. Doing so will ping every thread member with a red notification.
You can also flag messages 🚩 to revisit later, and you can easily see a list of all the messages you’ve flagged in the thread in the Widgets panel, making it ridiculously easy to organized your to-do’s. ✅
Private groups
Private groups work like unofficial, off-the-record conversations. For example, our team members in Virginia could create a private thread to debate which in-state school is the best—or try to get to the bottom of why they called the city Newport News. Was “Newport” taken? 🧐
Another option is to create an all-hands thread that simulates impromptu “collisions” like the ones you have at the office water cooler. The thread can serve as a hangout for non-work-related conversations, (but with all of the great sharing and file-management features mentioned above).
One of the biggest benefits of using illumy for work is strong built-in privacy. Even our developers and admins can’t see the contents of illumy threads they’re not members of! Upload and share with confidence—but remember to be kind.
High-def voice and video
Text-based messaging all day is fine. But sometimes, it’s easier to communicate verbally 🗣. Or maybe you just need to hear the voice of another human. For that, illumy offers unlimited voice and video calling to other illumy members. It’s perfect for adding color to a conversation or project, and it’s a seamless transition from text-based communication to voice/video and back again.
VoIP and international calling
illumy also offers plans that include a dedicated local phone number and allow calling around the world. The rates are very inexpensive—often, they’re the lowest or very close to it. Currently, this feature is available only on the web app, but very, very soon, you’ll be able to call almost anywhere in the world from your mobile device.
illumy is full-featured, fast, and fun. We honestly love it, and we all use it all day, every day. Whether you use it for work, school, or personal things, we think you’ll agree is pretty awesome—and we’re always working to making it even better. What features would you like to see? @ us on the social apps: @illumyinc.
Photo by Mateus Campos Felipe on Unsplash
