Sharing news and information is an old business and Bonnier News contributes to its history with over 200 years of experience. It’s the Nordic region’s largest media group, spanning 12 countries and utilizing a range of communications, from investigative journalism to entertainment in print newspapers and magazines, digital sites, television, podcasts, and audio.
Constantly growing and seeing SEK 10 billion in yearly turnover, the organization is a true giant. But this constant growth was accompanied by the development of communication silos across the company. And in the industry of news and current information, seamless communication is paramount.
Focusing on bridging gaps, connecting people, and preparing for the future, Bonnier News chose Slack as its internal communication platform, and has been relying on it as the host for some amazing home-grown solutions. “It was the communication solution of choice across the board, and it’s now deeply integrated into our ways of working,” said Jacob von Heland, Team Manager at Bonnier News. In fact, it was the obvious choice for the conversational layer of the company’s chat bot.
“Slack was the communication solution of choice across the board, and it’s now deeply integrated into our ways of working.”
Supporting home-grown solutions
It’s not breaking news that AI is becoming a big part of the daily life of businesses around the world. But it is noteworthy that Bonnier News is at the forefront of this trend with its own internally built AI application, Atom, whose interface has been embedded in Slack. Atom is used throughout the organization, across borders. The project’s original focus was a customer chat bot, that later developed into an inward facing solution.
“We wanted to meet a whole range of needs and purposes that we saw at Bonnier News,” said von Heland. “And make it possible for people to engage more easily and directly with our data warehouses, to basically chat with the technical ecosystem, democratizing access and knowledge.”
What started as a way to find quick answers to questions about HR or IT grew into an organizational-wide chat bot that’s managed through Slack and can provide solutions to a wide variety of problems. “When we launched it on Slack, we saw huge engagement,” said Rebecca Hagnestad, Strategic Commercial Manager at Bonnier News.
“People were even asking the chat bot for advice on birthday presents for their partners. We knew it could be scalable, that we could put this in the hands of users, developers, or journalists and everyone would engage easily. It’s so fun and so easy, you don’t need access to a service account or anything like that. It’s in Slack, at the tip of your fingers.”
Transparency and democratization of the working environment
Bonnier News is highly distributed as an enterprise. This doesn’t affect just the various parts of the business but also teams, projects, and 8,000 employees that are all interconnected through various sites and roles. “This creates a need for spaces that you share democratically, across collaborators and roles,” said von Heland.
He highlights that Slack almost automatically becomes a space that requires people to be direct and transparent while making it easy to include others, curate channels, and organize collaborations.
Nordic honesty and directness translate well to Slack, where transparency is a given, while contributing to creating personal or meaningful links between people and groups. For example, when asked about the most common tools used by her team, Hagnestad immediately named the Giphy integration.
“It’s a great way to build culture and come together,” she said. “Emojis are also great and fun to use! We can support and acknowledge each other this way. We’re good at sharing ourselves at Bonnier News, both in the office and remotely, so it’s good we can do it in Slack.”
A new way of work and communication exists within Bonnier News thanks to Atom supporting staff every day and Slack enabling direct and clear communication. What’s more, this approach removes the need for emails, which are now mostly used for external communication. Although many external collaborators choose to rely on Slack Connect, establishing even deeper internal roots within the Bonnier News self-sufficiency ecosystem.
“Slack is essential for us. It’s what we wake up to.”
Integral part of a busy ecosystem
Karin Nilsson and Fredrik Lindeborg are Co-Heads of Subscription Platform at Bonnier News and oversee several teams of people who rely on Slack every day. “Obviously we use Slack for internal communications, but our team also uses it for setting up workflows, alarms, and notifications,” said Lindeborg who, himself, favors recommendations and reminders in his daily work.
Nilsson, however, prefers the ‘save for later’ and scheduling functionalities, while also pointing out that integrations such as Drive and Polly also contribute to their Slack ecosystem. What’s more, Google Meets and Slack groups work in tandem for their weekly meetings, making it possible for people to video chat while keeping notes and sharing presentations inside a dedicated channel.
“I really love Slack,” she said. “Slack has been a huge and very positive change for us, and we now have a culture that uses it more than anything. Slack is essential for us. It’s what we wake up to.”
“We hope we never go back”
As Bonnier News keeps growing, its internal ecosystem of tools will keep scaling up easily and naturally. This includes its home-grown AI as well as Slack, the all-encompassing communication platform. In fact, Slack became such an integral part of everyday life at Bonnier News that it’s hard to imagine the company without it. It’s a daily subscription delivered to everyone’s door.
“I still remember the email inbox, with thousands of emails in it,” said Nilsson. “When we moved away from it, Slack opened up a new world for me. I hope I never have to go back.”
