Taking a break? Working from home? Do not disturb? Which emoji says it in one tidy character? Should we use emoji at all?! (tl;dr: yes)
![A duotoned dark purple and beige version of the Apple 'person shrugging' emoji, in front of a bright green starburst shape](https://www.producingparadise.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Theres-an-emoji-for-that.jpg)
An emoji is an icon that represents an emotion, symbol or object. They’re an evolution of the original emoticons that were created using a combination of basic symbols. Like a shrug emoji 🤷 vs emoticon ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Emoji have become a language of their own, and each platform has a slightly different dialect. If you’re using an iPhone, you’re seeing a different palm tree emoji than your Android counterpart (as is the case in my household!).
![Compilation of 16 different palm tree emojis, each with the same basic trunk and leaves but with varying levels of detail, shape, colours and lines.](https://www.producingparadise.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Emoji-palms.png)
It can be hard to know what each emoji means to different people. Take the palm tree 🌴 for example, Emojipedia says its meaning is:
A palm tree, a tree-like plant, as grows by the sea. Depicted as a palm tree with long, green, feather-like leaves and a tall, brown, segmented trunk.
May be used to represent beaches, tropical climates and cultures, summer fun, and vacations (holidays). Vendors implement a similar tree in their 🏝️ Desert Island.
Microsoft’s palm tree bears coconuts, as Samsung’s previously did. Apple’s palm tree previously had more erect palms.
We use the palm tree to represent ‘paradise’, as a reminder of a goal state where you feel good, as you might on a tropical holiday or if you were on top of your workload, for example 😏
Using Emoji on Slack
Emojis are encouraged in Slack, as you can use shortcodes like :palm_tree: 🌴 to type them out, or ‘react’ to any message.
When you open up the emoji keyboard, you can also see your most frequently used. I’m a big fan of smiles, grimaces, hand gestures and love hearts, it seems!
![Screenshot of the ‘insert emoji’ screen in Slack showing 36 ‘Frequently Used’ emoji and an ‘Add Emoji’ button](https://www.producingparadise.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Slack-emoji.png)
You can also set a skin colour (as indicated by the raised palm in the screenshot), but I like the default yellow as a sort-of neutral option — particularly as people in our Slack account tend to show their support for something by clicking on an existing emoji reaction, and so it counts these up together, like this:
![Screenshot of a Slack message from Jess saying "I've done my dash for today, seeya back fresh tomozza" with a wave emoji reaction and the number 5 next to it (indicating that 5 people used the same wave response)](https://www.producingparadise.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Slack-emoji-reacts.png)
You might have a shared emoji language or common emoji reactions like :heavy_plus_sign: ➕ to indicate that you agree, or allocating some other meaning to particular emojis.
At Slack, for example:
We’ve started a habit of associating certain emoji with teams. For example, if someone posts an idea in the feature request channel, and someone on the platform development team thinks it’s a good idea, they’ll add a custom platypus emoji reaction to the message. Anyone on team platform can search for has::platypus:, find every message tagged with it, and quickly generate a list of feature ideas.
Or at Evergreen, they asked coworkers to tag messages that every new 18F employee should know with the :evergreen_tree: 🌲 emoji so they could search for Slack for: “has::evergreen_tree:” to find all such tips and tricks.
![A Slack message saying “One more thing: if you write something on Slack and think all future new hires should also read it, please add an 🌲 as a reaction. Like this.” With the same emoji and number one beside it, as a ‘reaction’ to this message.](https://www.producingparadise.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/18F-evergreen-tree.png)
(As an aside, it was fun coming up with appropriate alt text for those two. I landed on “Animated cartoon parrot wearing a white face mask and jiggling back and forth while changing between different neon colours” for the corona parrot, and “Illustration of a smiling dog wearing a hat and an animated burning fire flame in the background” for the fine / on fire dog.)
As you might’ve guessed, I’m not afraid of (over?)using emoji in my digital communication. I find they can give that extra warmth or friendly tone you might otherwise miss when reading plain text, and makes an email subject line more informative at-a-glance.
![Example of three email subject lines, each with a different emoji at the end (home, thought bubble, and a clock).](https://www.producingparadise.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Emoji-email-subject.png)
I’m a proud emoji nerd 🤓 and my spirit animal/emoji is the squirrel 🐿️
Which emoji are you?
Pro-tips on digital communication
If you like this one, you might like to follow it up with one of these:
- How we produced our branding (including the palm tree illustration!);
- Using your personal values to guide your communication style; or
- How to choose the right tone and language in the (digital) workplace