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IM best-practices in the workplace
Brian McCaffrey | Sep 28 2007
What is IM used for in the workplace? My office mates and I figured out this week that we have an IM client on our corporate workstations. Novices to the world of corporate IM, we don't really know what it's used for. I've used IM clients at home, of course, but never at work and we're all at a bit of a loss on how this would be useful, if at all. A quick session of searching 43f reveals that most of the discussion up until this point has been about managing the distractions of IM and managing your coworkers' expectations of your responses. But I'm wondering, what's IM used for in business? So far in my office, people have started chat sessions with entire work teams present online and left the session open all day. Team members will post questions or comments or requests to review edits on shared documents. In one of our groups, the director has moved some of his communication to the chat room, with the expectation that his team members will read this message during the next hour or two. Is this a typical use? How about one-on-one chats with colleagues? Tell me what IM looks like at your workplace. 46 Comments
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 IM... how I loathe theeSubmitted by jeredb on September 29, 2007 - 4:50am.
I just switched jobs, from an environment that used IM to one that doesn't. I have to say that I am much happier without the constant interruptions. In my previous position, IM was abused like crazy: "Did you get my email?" It was also used as a pager system, which was the most aggravating, "Can you come down here?" After the first couple of weeks of this and getting burned on a major project, those requests to "come on down..." turned into anxiety inducing needle-like pains. They were always short, never descriptive of what I would be coming down for, thus I never knew if I was going to be scolded or if it was just to discuss a great idea. I tried using a variety of away messages to explain that I shouldn't be disturbed, but that was just like telling people to not disturb me, but leaving my office door open. In my new job, I have a much smaller IM list, which excludes the management, making it much more useful for the quick questions, etc. » POSTED IN:
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