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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 creates a schismSubmitted by digitalvision on September 29, 2007 - 8:34am.
Interestingly, at my shop, there is a schism. Any of the younger guys (and a few of those a little too old to be in the club but go anyway) love IM and I can't get them to answer email without force - which the older folks (over 28 or so) ONLY use and despise IM. One guy hates both and tries to demand people call him. I check him for a neck beard every once in awhile. Throw in to this mix you have clients who say they want to use project management software but never, ever, ever, ever do (they end up just emailing everything - I've ended up creating multiple inboxes just to keep the troops straight with and give them all access to it, sort of like cooks at a restaurant get orders - thank god for IMAP) - and I end up having to be the bad guy about how everyone communicates, doing what I don't like to do and that's mandate exactly how people work (I am not a watch-over-the-shoulder guy, I feel like we're all adults). I've talked to other organizations with a mix of younger and older workers (especially outside of technology), and they face the same interface problems, but on a grander scale as you have people completely comfortable with technology talking to people who are completely intimidated - and it inevitably breaks down. » POSTED IN:
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