Instant messaging in one form or another has been around since computers were first connected to a network. Today instant messaging is a very common tool that people use for personal communication, and has moved in to corporate life to play a key role in enabling teams to work more effectively and efficiently. While that sounds almost like a marketing pitch let’s look at some of the key indicators of whether instant messaging has a place in your business. Here are a few of those key indicators in no particular order.
· If your business is organized into teams; especially geographically diverse teams.
· If you business is highly transactional and if those transactions require cross-organizational cooperation.
· Any business that is decentralized with remote workers spread over many time zones.
· For businesses utilizing offshore resources instant messaging reduces language and accent frustrations.
· Any business that requires near realtime communication between employees at any and all levels.
Of course many business owners and managers have some just concerns about allowing instant messaging in the office. Chief among those concerns is that of lost productivity to personal conversations both internal and external. Early in the popular adoption of instant messaging there were very few “private” instant messaging networks. Thankfully today there are many choices. Most choices for instant messaging are delivered through “Unified Communications” platforms. Microsoft Office Communication Server or “OCS” is one example. However many companies today simply choose a standard instant messaging network (MSN, AIM, Skype, Google Talk) and a standard user naming convention for new employees and share “buddy” lists. With this form of communication commonplace the adoption of instant messaging is exploding in the workplace without the degradation in productivity that was previously feared.
What are you using internally for IM?
