The Swift Rise of IM in the Workplace

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The Swift Rise of IM in the Workplace

Gartner, Inc., a leading information technology research and advisory company, recently predicted that 95% of global enterprise workers will use instant messaging (IM) as their primary method of real-time communication by 2013. The company also forecasts that the worldwide market for enterprise IM will jump to $688 million by 2010 (up from an estimated $267 million in 2005).

In other words, IM is here to stay—and it’s increasingly replacing existing forms of communication such as telephone calls, email, video conferences, and face-to-face meetings.

Instant messaging saves money, time, and stress in many ways:

Save Money: Since obtaining and using most IM software is free, you don’t have any startup costs. Also, most IM software supports voice/video technology, which means you can savae money on long distance phone calls and traveling to meetings. If you have employees or clients in far-flung geographic areas, the related savings can really add up.
Save Time: IM sessions, which ordinarily take place between two people, have been found to be much shorter than telephone conversations; they tend to stick to the point (save time). IM software programs also offer a conference or meeting setting, which allows people working on a project to meet in real time, no matter what their physical location might be (saves travel time). Answers tend to come much quicker than with other forms of communication (saves time).
Save Stress: A 2008 study published in the Journal of Computer Mediated Communication (Garrett and Danziger) found that workers who used instant messaging on the job reported less interruption than colleagues who did not. Interruption = Stress, so the less of it, the better. Also, with IM, answers can be nearly immediate, saving the frustration that often comes from chasing down an answer by phone, email, or in person. Frustration = Stress, etc.

Here are some of the ways people in business are actually using IM in the workplace:

I’ll start with myself. I’m located in California, and I’ve been using Skype IM for more than a year to work with the London-based CEO of a music/social networking site—I do content and editing. We tend to chat when it’s early morning my time (afternoon in London). Once in a great while we exchange an email, mostly to send large files, but other than that it’s chat all the way. It’s very convenient to interface that way—and I’ve really come to appreciate the fact that, with chat, a record of a conversation is automatically saved. If I forget a detail, all I have to do is scroll back to the conversation. Since I don’t have to report in via telephone, I don’t need to bill my client for long distance calls, which saves my time. Also, if I have an urgent question, it tends to get answered immediately if she’s at her computer.
The CIO for a New Jersey software company uses IM daily with employees abroad. One day during an IM chat, a European manager casually mentioned a flaw in technology support. Through “normal,” non-chat channels, news of the flaw might never have reached someone at her level. After using IM to check with other managers scattered around the globe, the CIO decided the problem was serious and appointed someone on her staff to fix it. As the CIO told a reporter, “Sometimes through proper channels you don’t always get the truth.”
A Silicon Valley-based software developer, Dennis Allison, uses IM to collaborate with other programmers at remote locations to fix bugs. “It’s more effective than the phone,” he says, “and leaves an audit trail of the bug discovery and correction process.”
Shelley Rogers, the president of a San Francisco-based non-profit organization, has found IM helpful in holding spontaneous meetings with Board members scattered across the Bay Area. “Sometimes we need to make immediate decisions that can’t wait for a scheduled meeting,” she says. “So we get in a chat room, decide what we have to decide, and go our separate ways. Quick, easy—and best of all, no dealing with traffic!”
Extend that idea globally, and you’ll see that it’s possible to hold meetings with people anywhere. The Wall Street Journal once cited Greg Vigil of Gates Corporation, a Colorado manufacturer of automotive and industrial rubber belts and hoses. On a trip to Scotland, Vigil found himself in a product-development meeting when he noticed on his laptop screen that the company’s technical director for Asia, Guenther Heinz, had become available via instant message. Vigil asked Heinz to join the meeting. “It was late in the evening in Tokyo,” the article stated, “but Mr. Heinz agreed to join the discussion by telephone, outlining products and technologies his team was developing in Asia… That spurred ideas for products in Europe and North America. Following up on the chance interaction, Mr. Vigil will soon travel to Japan and China to meet Mr. Heinz and talk further.”
Rick Rondell, who runs a small Midwestern investment company, told me that he “uses IM to share comments with other members of my team when doing a Skype video conference with a client. It’s very helpful to be able to prompt people with supporting information while they make a presentation.”
Then there’s the software exec in London who told me that his company maintained “ten teams in the UK, ten in Spain, and two elsewhere in Europe. We use IM extensively—we prefer G-Talk—both inter-office and across geographies.”
And last, there’s the grandmother who exchanges chat on coffee breaks with her grandchildren who live far away. She helps them with their math homework.The IM system is used to send questions and answers:

1 + 1 =

is returned as

1 + 1 = 2

Smart kids…who learned to IM before they could add 1 and 1!

For more info about IM, refer to our Guide, How to Get Started With Instant Messaging.

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