As promised in my last post, here are a few examples of how I use IM:

I often provide “intermediary” tech support to a particular client – I help my client work with his hardware vendor on installations. So it’s very handy to be able to IM the client’s vendor, join my client contact into the chat, and hammer out lots of technical details..together.  It beats making a conference call and having to take notes because, well, the IM transcript is saved and the conversations ARE the notes.

Instant Messenging is also great for reaching a group of people, quickly. I start an IM to one of our programmers, and add the other three to the chat session, asking “Any objections if I restart the development server now? Just applied ANOTHER Microsoft patch…” If I don’t get a response from all four, no restart. It's an easy way to quickly make sure a group of people is available and on-board with potentially disruptive server activities.

A third way I find myself frequently using IM: I ask my hardware vendor, do you guys carry this particular RAID card and would it work with this particular motherboard, followed by a link to the product page for that particular motherboard. He clicks the link, checks the motherboard, and replies back with a link to a different mobo that would meet my needs.

An AE is on the road, and it’s late at night. Of course I’m awake in my basement working on my computer. The AE would never call my home at midnight with a quickie tech support question, but if she sees I’m online anyway it makes it a little easier for her to ask for help without feeling like she’s imposing. And believe it or not, it makes it easier for me. Otherwise, I’ll end up trying to provide support 8-hours removed from the incident, by email, which she may not even get a chance to read until the FOLLOWING evening when the day’s trade show activities are done. I’d rather take five minutes of time to fix the problem than go all of the next day wondering if our AE is doing OK with her laptop.

Downsides? Of course. I don’t doubt that there are a few in our organization who probably spend a few too many minutes engaged in personal messenging, but the trade-off is worth it. Besides, if somebody wants to waste time at work, there are plenty of ways to do it without instant messenging. I’ve seen some email threads of departed employees that prove it.

There’s one other downside, however, which I only recently discovered. It’s nothing to keep me from using IM. But it is something that must be considered (and potentially mitigated) if you decide to add IM to your aresenal of communications tools.  As soon as I figure out how to talk about this downside without outing the people involved, I'll post back here again.