Do not worry, if you are new to Slack. It is extremely simple. As I am writing this, I have been used Slack no longer than four weeks :)
Slack is a messaging service similar to WhatsApp or Facebook messenger: You can send text messages to individuals or a group of people. In contrast to other messaging services, Slack sends messages very fine grained. Thus, Slack notifies you only if the information is relevant for you. Hence, the times are gone in which you had to mute a group chat because huge numbers of non-relevant messages were sent.
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How does Slack know which messages are important to me? Actually, it does not (*see later section for more info). Nevertheless, it helps you to choose what is relevant to you. This is achieved by a hierarchy with three levels. The three levels are workspaces, channels, and threads.
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You can send direct messages to anyone in the CBB Slack Workspace the same way you may be used to on WhatsApp, Instagram, or Facebook. You also have the option of creating a group chat
Keywords
Although Slack does not automatically recognise which messages are of importance to the use, there is the possibility to enter keywords in your profile so that you are notified when a keyword is used. For this, you just go to your profile > notifications > my keywords, and assign some keyword(s). So, for example, if you are mainly interested in reading messages related to the CBB seminar, you can enter that keyword and be notified every time it's used in the Workspace, plus the keyword is highlighted in the conversation, so it’s easy to find.