What is Digg?104 Comments
- FirstDigg, on 06/04/2008, -0/+45We do use IM at my office and it does save a lot of time, especially when communicating with people working remotely. I can be on the phone and answer someone's quick question at the same time. What really bugs me though is when people send one liner emails when it is much more appropriate to send an IM asking or stating the message instead.
This article should definitely be shown to companies who block IM outright. They could really benefit. - whoreable, on 06/04/2008, -2/+22Sure it's all good till you get the IM that says you are fired.
- geniuslocimusic, on 06/04/2008, -0/+11I think it scares a lot of supervisors, but it works great where I work. Just like anything, if its used responsibly, it can be a nice communication tool.
- Bicep, on 06/04/2008, -1/+11Popping an IM is a lot quicker and less obtrusive than visiting the desk of a person on another floor. Hooray for sitting on your bum. I mean who wants to get up and walk around anyway! Also, since it's very fast, even all the extra BS that happens over IM can make it a quicker and even more interesting! Plus you get to use smileys in IM! har har. One of IM's greatest strengths is that it's work-from-home compliant. On the down side, IM sessions can run off into very heated sessions that can last 45 minutes or more. If you're a slow typer, you're kinda screwed unless you can use the differently-mooded smiles, thumbs-ups, broken-hearts, and other various icons to have your conversation. Wow, I'm even more productive now that I've written this comment! Also, imagine if your boss chewed your arse for NOT being available via IM!
- jggube, on 06/04/2008, -0/+8We are actually required to use GTalk in our office for communication and collaboration. With that said, it does prove to be disruptive at times since the conversations may not always be about work. What I personally do when I have a deadline and can't be disturbed, is that I simply sign off IM and ask everyone to communicate via email, or even call/text me if it's very important.
- DreKor, on 06/04/2008, -0/+8I've found that IM is a godsend when dealing with people from foreign countries. Usually, representatives from foreign companies have fairly good English skills, but their accents can completely negate them over the phone. IM makes every one accent neutral and allows them to take the time they need to understand what is going on.
- dleesgeetar, on 06/04/2008, -0/+8ah, this state of pure innocence must be cherished, let us observe ht83 from a distance, neither digging nor burying the comment
- DucoNihilum, on 06/04/2008, -0/+8I say we just bury him.
- Ardentfrost, on 06/04/2008, -1/+9I made a work IM name "ThunderDong"
- dleesgeetar, on 06/04/2008, -0/+7that works too
- theendcrazyeye, on 06/04/2008, -0/+7I use Pidgin here at work. I can have my novell messenger, AIM, sametime and Gtalk all in one app thats really convenient.
- DreKor, on 06/04/2008, -2/+8When people send me one line (or worse, one word) emails, I want to light them on fire. My inbox is full enough already without the out-of-context garbage people send me. And, for god sakes learn how reply and reply all work.
- bradleyland, on 06/04/2008, -0/+6It's a signal vs noise thing. If my inbox is full of short little one-line questions, the longer, more important emails get lost in the shuffle. I much prefer that short questions be sent to me in IM.
There's also a time savings. Email is not instant. It was never intended to be an instant protocol. For questions that require conversation, IM is far more efficient. You're "locked in" to that conversation, providing instant feedback.
To be honest, I never saw much benefit of IM over a phone conversation. The two are far more similar, for me at least. The big advantage is, if you use a decent IM client, you can log your conversations for reference later, much like email. - waxoff, on 06/04/2008, -1/+6Emails are better suited for a slightly more formal way of communicating. The request/response of email time is longer than IM. IM is more like written conversation. E.g.:
Me > send me the lnk to the code diff
You < http;//someserver.mycompany.com/diffs/versionX_versionY_diff.html?module=Z&user=A
Me > thanks
You < np
(semi colon used above to avoid digg creating a real link)
Typically, it is informal, fast and right to the point. You can try that with emails, but because the time it takes to cycle across the server and to your desktop it just it not as fast. You loose some of the conversational aspects IM has. Email still has advantages though. It'd be nice to see the equivalent of groups in some of the more popular IM programs. E.g: All devs on my project. So occasionally email wins if you need to broadcast a sort message. Email is also better when you have a lot to say, want a record (CYA), or want to be more formal. E.g.: You wouldn't send a proposal to a client over IM. (At least I hope you wouldn't.) - built2spill, on 06/04/2008, -1/+6greytfriend: Because it is instant and more like conversing than email is. It fills the gap between the telephone and email.
- greytfriend, on 06/04/2008, -1/+5OK, I admit my total and abject ignorance of IM. Why is it better than email for quick messages? I know I'm way behind the times on this one.
- AngryAngryBrian, on 06/04/2008, -0/+4 I have mixed feelings about external IM solutions at work (AIM, MSN), but what you need is some sort of local IM solution. We use Openfire, good stuff and its open source. Also Jim in accounting doesn't saturate your WAN when his wife sends him a 90MB Puppy screen saver with a trojan in it.
- 955701, on 06/04/2008, -0/+4Does anyone else go nuts though when they get 5 people popping up for an IM conversation at once?
They need to make one w/ a setting, Maximum number of conversations at once. If someone starts chatting w/ you and 4 other people chime in immediately after, I was the last 3 to get a "Someone got to me first, I'll let you know when I can talk again" message.
Any Skype/Pidgin dev's out there listening? - spwpi10, on 06/04/2008, -0/+4You don't have to stop your employee's from talking to people on IM outside of work contacts. My current employer allows us to have contacts outside of work and everyone really loves it and it's pretty good for morale.
If an employee is going to take a quick 10 minute break there going to do it no matter what you do. Instead of talking on AIM they will just go on the internet and read news or something (which you are doing right now, no?).
All i'm saying is, don't fear IMs. It'll make your employee's happy and disallowing it isn't going to make them any better. - Vegabondsx, on 06/04/2008, -0/+4While I'm not a big fan of Microsoft closed systems, Office 2207 for businesses has a messenger called "Office Messenger 2007" which connects to the Exchange server's address book and can be integrated with Outlook. This makes it easy to see when your co-workers are at their desk, if they are busy, as well of course as sending messages. Office 2008 for the Mac even has the same support for Office 2008's Entourage and Microsoft Messenger. It's actually quite a productive use of the instant messenger in my experience.
- Disregard, on 06/04/2008, -0/+3Microsoft Office Communicator is actually a really solid product. AD integration and it has the server-based chat logging any serious company will demand. Easy to lock-in to internal users only as well, which is kinda a must.
- akatherder, on 06/04/2008, -0/+3IMs have their place and they are very useful, but I totally disagree with the headline. Getting an IM is more of an interruption than email is for me. When an IM come in, it breaks your concentration and too many people expect an immediate response. At least with an email, you can sit on it for a while until you finish your train of thought.
- Bandito, on 06/04/2008, -0/+3Works well when used properly.
When not, your computer can light up like an Xmas tree. Its happened to me way too often. Too many people asking too many questions. The DO NOT DISTURB status is your friend. - whataboutdave, on 06/04/2008, -0/+3... And way more bandwidth intensive ($$$).
Really, what do you need video for other than it being cool? - thunderer, on 06/04/2008, -0/+3Although, the record keeping aspect is less of an issue with IM clients' chat history logs.
- eliasg, on 06/04/2008, -0/+3I've always used IM to get work done, it's an excellent way to communicate.
The problem that companies face are users who have their non-work friends on their buddy list and are chattering-away. - jun2san, on 06/04/2008, -0/+3"With great power comes great responsibility." - Manny Pacquiou...who may have been quoting spiderman.
- RickS2, on 06/04/2008, -0/+2replication takes time. time is money.
- juankovo, on 06/04/2008, -0/+2Does anyone have any recommendations for good corporate IM software? We don't want to use external services like Yahoo or Google as sensitive info might be sent via IM and we want it to stay inside the network. Also, we don't want people having their non-work contacts IM-ing them all the time. Ideal for us would be something that uses Active Directory authentication.
- AngryAngryBrian, on 06/04/2008, -0/+2I second this, also they just opened a good chunk of the enterprise bit so you get some pretty nice features. Don't use the embedded database, I recommend MySQL.
- gahal, on 06/05/2008, -0/+2My department uses IM while at work, our cousin department is mostly in with us as well. It is really nice for 'interrupted' communication. Quick questions or notes to people, or for active communication where you are up and down from your desk or actively doing other stuff. It also helps with my department being spread all over the country, with my closest coworker (in my department) being a few hundred miles from me.
Of course we still use email, phone, fax, ticket queues, and even snail mail for lots of stuff, its just a matter of picking the right form of communication for the situation.
Lots of times an IM can be something like "hey are you there? Give me a call when you can." - waxoff, on 06/04/2008, -0/+2@thunderer
Chat history logs help, but it lacks the search, filtering, organization and ordering capabilities of most email clients. - sega01, on 06/04/2008, -0/+2Email:
Bob: Dear Joe,
I was just wondering if you had completely your work on our website theme? The CSS was not valid the last time I checked.
Sincerely,
Bob
Joe:
Dearest Bob,
What is the URL that you are checking? We switched things around recently.
Cheers,
Joe
Bob:
Hello again,
What is a "URL"? It is not a reference to the show: "My name is Earl", I hope?
Cheerfully,
Bob
Almost nothing was accomplished, and the conversation would go on. Email also is much more formal that the goodness of IM.
IM:
Bob: last time i checkd the theme was invalid. r you not 1337 enough to fix it!?
Joe: what url are you checking? things got switched around a while ago
Bob: http://company/
Joe: you are so slow; we haven't used that in months! http://company-online/ n00blet
Bob: oh, sry. its all good then, pls dont be angrie!
This could go on too, but at least the lack of formality could improve employee morale in most cases. Something was also accomplished in less time, which is infinitely better than email. Besides, you could send your favorite lolcatz! - waxoff, on 06/04/2008, -0/+2Problem is what to do when you are working closely with someone from another company. (E.g.: Clarifying requirements, design specs, or the like) You run into issues when both companies have different IM solutions. It is just easier to use something like Tillian which is able to connect to most commercial networks. You should have users create a work only account and not give it out to family or friends.
- aduck, on 06/04/2008, -0/+2my boss gets upset if we don't sign on to the company's IM every morning, but there are plenty of people who don't understand the technology.
- corbettkroehler, on 06/04/2008, -0/+2Email is out of hand. I concur with this assertion fully. If only more companies would listen!
- sagien, on 06/04/2008, -1/+3Try looking into Jabber.
http://www.jabber.org/
You get to have your own server and it can sync up with AD. Works with GAIM or Pidgin or whatever it's called now. Worth looking into.
I set it up for the last company I worked for. It worked great. We were able to block external IMs and still utilize the technology for internal and private use. - eszymczyk, on 06/04/2008, -0/+2Was going to post this... other than paragraph 3 with which I disagree... well said!
Phone: look up the person's extension, dial it, wait for answer, maybe no answer, leave a voicemail, wait for response
IM: find their name in your alphabetized list, if they are available --> click, send message, wait for response - eengineer, on 06/04/2008, -0/+2hey, ur fired. g2g, ttyl, lolz?
- mayhemchaos, on 06/04/2008, -0/+2One of my first questions when starting a new job is: do you allow IMing - and then send out my gTalk and AIM to co-workers. It's far better then emailing or getting up to ask a simple question. Lord knows I hate having to make small talk or when higher ups try to make small talk when all they really need is the TPS reports.
- nutzngum, on 06/04/2008, -0/+2In my office, I end up turning my IM client as all I get are "hey...whatcha doin'?" IM's.
and i rarely have it on at home...i find it's a distraction, moreso than the phone or emails. - likwidfuzion, on 06/04/2008, -0/+2Away messages works wonders.
- leerayIG88, on 06/04/2008, -0/+2my IM name is Goatmeal666
- Andrwmorph, on 06/04/2008, -0/+2hot_slut_69
- TheUngod, on 06/04/2008, -0/+2Make sure to add the TM symbol afterward or you might get sued.
- GreatGiftPicks, on 06/04/2008, -0/+1I would never want my employees on IM. In total agreement with Bluejaye. Time management experts really recommend setting aside blocks of time for different activities like returning emails and phone calls. A constant interruption of IM would be one more thing to manage. Of course some jobs require constant communication, I would have to agree that cryptic one liners are NOT the most efficient way to get it done. Back to the basics: Urgent and Important (top priority) vs. Urgent not important (need an answer now) vs. Important (Big Picture). I have a feeling that IM would keep employees in urgent not important mode too much.
- phoque, on 06/05/2008, -0/+1IM is really annoying when you are working. I am starting to prefer Email for everything again. Its just so convenient that you can decide when you will read other peoples messages and not to have a "bing" interrupt you every couple minutes.
- Bluejaye, on 06/04/2008, -1/+2My personal experience is that IM's are *more* disruptive than e-mail, but certainly at the same level of disruption as a phone call. But the phone call tends to be more productive, since the conversation tends to not be cryptic one liners.
- GreatGiftPicks, on 06/04/2008, -0/+1That bites : ) bummer.
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