Dragging myself into instant messaging.

Just don't tell people you wear dresses at night.

.....I'm serious, this actually happened in our organization, it was so damn funny.

for referencing. Both to CYA, and to jog your memory. Conversations can be printable, a bonus in my book.

You may find, also, that with fairly knowledgeable users, IM comes in handy for helping them work through an issue without having to physically be with them.

No visual cues is my biggest hangup with IM. That and lack of word definition. I sometimes begin a conversation with definitions that 'should' be held in common for the course of the conversation.

Etiquette? For the most part, I'd say that IM etiquette mirrors forum etiquette. Or is that the other way 'round?

If you're on the phone, and need to ask a person/group a question, IM can be a great tool. If you start adding custom status flags, it is also a good way to convey to others availability (@user desk, @lunch, etc).

If people start talking about setting up their IT fantasy football and what not, the effectiveness starts to drop precipitously. Not so much from a productivity standpoint (honestly, the same conversation could be held at a water cooler); but if the tool starts to get used for 'non-important' items, you start to get the 'boy who cried wolf effect'---people will stop looking at and responding to messages with a sense of urgency.

Also, make sure to keep chat windows organized, or minimize the # of people you chat with at the same time. If you're dealing with multiple people simultaneously, it gets easy to type the wrong message to the wrong person, or erroneously post a hyperlink. Failing to adhere to the first point (stay focused in usage) can make this one exponentially worse (giving the wrong person a tip on subnetting isn't so bad...pasting a hyperlink to the strip club where the guys will be heading after work is a possible catastrophe).

In other words, exercise what used to pass for common sense, and you should avoid any problems. ;)

We mostly use it to bitch or make fun of people. It's quite useful.

Geez, I make more money off that than my real job.

but I think NotSoChiGuy had alot of good points.. Great example you can set your "status", at lunch, or in a meeting, Do not disturbe, and most of the time you can create your own.

Every IT job I have had we have always used a IM enviroment, and its not that bad. Its a good way to send a quick comment or get information on the fly. I would say ALWAYS "record" all conversations! But those conversations can be edited with a text editor... so it can be altered, I take it as a grain of salt... So if someone says something off color to you, or rude ect... I would screen shot it! So you have two ways to prove what ever was said...

I tend to have a forgetfull memory, and often times I will IM someone asking for an Intranet address, an IP, or a quick how to... So in the future when I forget I can refer back to the chat log...

etiquette issues: It all depends on who you are talking to and what your relationship is.

One thing that can be a HUGE pit fall... just an example: While I was contracted to a massive company 300,000+ users (world wide) all using a messageing service... Well a nice little trojan horse infected one persons PC, then took the IM Service and sent messages to people (in their IM client) with a link. People clicked the link (people thought they could trust the link cause they new who sent it), and got the trojan horse (and so on and so on). That trojan horse carried a virus behind it, and you could find and delete the virus, but the trojan horse would then reinfect the machine... Most AV's coudn't pick up the trojan... Then eventually the virus would run a nice little regedit that would reboot the machine once you logged in... That virus spread SO fast, because people didn't think twice about click links... I would say with in 3-4 days, it infected close to 125 people min. At our location alone, and thats not counting all the other sites.... Thats a headake!!

I've been working in offices that rely strongly on IM for years now and use it occasionally when I have a quick question for someone. That's since many find it less intrusive than calling them or doing a face-to-face. It's usually a quicker way to get a response than through email.

Of course if I need a record of the conversation, or if the question or information is lengthy, than email works best for me.

Unfortunately, too many people use IM at the drop of a hat and the occasionally repetitive annoyance can be a pain.

Why do people feel compelled to have the last word in when IMing? sending back 'ty' or 'np' at the end when the conclusion of the conversation is obvious, bugs me. Then again, a lot of things co-workers do bugs me. ;-)

Another annoyance is when you're typing in Word or in an email and you realize that the last few words you typed went into the IM response window instead. All because you forgot to change the Windows setting to "Keep Windows From Stealing Focus."

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For me, picking up the phone is quicker than either.

Maybe it's my workplace environment. All company-wide resources (including Exchange) are at our headquarters at another site, and that site has more users than I do here. Usually they know about problems before I do. Anything other than Exchange, the guys at the other site will send out an e-mail across the company.

Another factor might be the overall age of our IT staff in general and me in particular. At least half of us have been in IT since before instant messaging and may not have incorporated it into our toolboxes, either personally or professionally. For example, I would never use it away from work; I don't have the hardware or software to do it.

I understand it's a communications tool. I'm trying to figure out if or when it would be useful or appropriate.

That's what I see all day long on Spark. It took me a few days to figure out the 'np'.

The standard IM shortcuts can mess you up if the person you are chatting with uses a different shortcut dictionary. If you are discussing anything that you might need to refer back to the log, take the extra seconds and spell things out. Trust me, you will be glad you did!

in my opinion. I have had to tell people to backtrack to 'sync' before. Especially if they are trying to say multiple things

I don't have the means to go face to face with my colleagues and superiors. So I tend to use all three:

Phone - when it's something that is lengthy and not easily explained or I know will require a lot of back and forth.

Email - for items that can easily be explained or asked without much confusion.

IM - For quick questions and/or need your attention now.

Just my thoughts...

-Tammy [_]3

I used to work at a helpdesk, and it would drive me absolutely nuts while I'm on the phone, and someone in the other side of the callcenter would yell out a question, which of course wasn't 1 person at a time, but several. I surfed around and found a really good solution - aniazPOPUP. It doesn't go outside of the network to foreign servers, it's completely in house. Anyhow, instead of my coworkers screaming for answers/help, they could simply, neatly and quietly broadcast a question and someone could answer. What was neat about this program, is that you can IM to individuals or setup groups and broadcast to the groups. What I like about messaging programs like this is that you can send a message w/o having to wait for someone to read email, the IM box pops up and you have a better change of receiving a response while they are on the phone than with email, at least this has been my experience. It fills a niche.

..my level of bias I display towards people who discount Macs in the workplace? ;)

Anyway....

I try to make sure that at work, I'm only using IM with people I work with. Because, I notice many places will allow people to have other accounts, like MSN, AIM, etc. which reduces productivity, and especially concentration. It's hard enough going through MSSQL logs.

Many people consider IM to be a place where it's easier to say whatever they want, but being very careful to say certain things on there, is as important as watching what you say in front of the CEO, or whoever signs your paycheck.

I consider it especially valuable when dealing with remote offices, because it's quicker sometimes, when I need a quick update on an LED or something like that.

That's just my thoughts.

If they show away or busy, don't msg. email. messengers often have "dings" when you msg someone. don't want to interrupt a possible meeting.

We're now using MS Office Communicator 2007, if the client makes any difference in IM use. I still haven't found a use for this tool. I suspect if I keep it installed, it will be for convenience of others.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/communicator/HA102037151033.aspx

Sorry, should have been more specific.

I'd also like to see this all tied in with Cisco UC, as well. I've "seen" it inside tech vans, but I'd really like to see it functional and in production off of Cisco's campus or demo vehicles.

Odd timing on my comment! The good news for me, is that we had a few projects approved. We'll be rolling out Cisco Unified Personal Communicator, soon. Some departments and outside entities we communicate with will not have the funding for Cisco. Presence integration with Office Communicator appears to be great, but I would like to see it in action.

Either way, I'm excited about my new development. I'll be getting some of those uber-chic high end Cisco phones, as well. :)

is so many people in the work force are horrible typers.

Between typos and taking forever for them to type in the simplest of statements, it is painful to use with many people.

It does save long distance charges, is more instant than email for the followup questions, but not as much of a pain as the phone ringing all the time.

Can also send someone a link.

Facebook.com has a build in IM system that if you are IMing a user when he is online and then goes off it pops up saying that the user is offline and to click here to send message. so you could just set it to send to email.

I'll just add a quick update. I still haven't had a reason to initiate a conversation via IM, and have had only two productive conversations started by other employees. One of those was while our phone service was down for scheduled maintenance. The other used Office Communicator's desktop sharing feature while we were both on the phone discussing a new program. There's nothing new about desktop sharing, and I don't consider using that capability to be using IM.