h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Instant messaging has revolutionised the workplace. It's now become the communication medium of choice for many office workers, as you're far more likely to get a quick response than if you send an e-mail.

It's not unusual for me to have 15 or 20 windows open now with various technicians, managers, clients and users.

I think there may be a collaborative guide entry in this. Can I ask for your experiences, tips and etiquette for using IM at work? Also, what gaffes have you made by typing the wrong message in the wrong window!

Icy

Before I retired, there was a movement to consider IM, but it was rejected. We had ample access to the telephone, and most of us were on one floor in one building. We could even see most of our co-workers. Why add a complexity that wasn't necessary? Okkham's Razor?

My last job was in a very small department (25 people all sitting together) and they preferred to use IM to chat to each other.

But yes, it wasn't necessary. I think they just found it a convenient way to bitch about each other without being heard.

I work in a small team of 4. We are mobile, and spread around the county. We use BBM extensively. It enables us to communicate between individuals OR set up a discussion between the group.

Sometimes, even appropriately.

PP.

we have an in-house instant messaging system and I'm like Icy, I often have more than a dozen of the things, often with our HQ in Korea (so it shows me their names in Korean which is ok now I can read them but for some of my colleages it leads to interesting blunders)

We used to use MSN messenger to speak to our customers in Turkey because it was quicker, easier and much cheaper than using the phone, and several of us used it to talk to each other in the office (large, open plan with about 30 people).

Sometimes it would be amusing if there was a verbal altercation, comment or something - there would be about 3 seconds of silence then the MSN-Thunder would start as we all discussed it and hammered away at our keyboards.

I find it very useful to talk to foreigners via messenger, it is a little less formal than email and a darned sight quicker (as long as they react) and much easier for me to understand them if their spoken English isn't good, and most likely it is easier for them to understand me because I do tend to speak fast even when I'm trying not to.

You can also invite other people into the conversation - and the use of emoticons and little gifs can be good for that informal feeling of having a chat by the water cooler.

I'm a big fan of them

Can't see this going down well at my company. The new management believe knowledge is power so compartmentalise all the departments and control the information flow tightly. It's not unknown for a desk to be empty for a few days before learning the occupant left the company "by mutual consent"

We use Googletalk at work... Not generally for chatting, but it's a great way of sharing hypertext links, rapidly transferring documents and asking your colleagues questions.

I hadn't heard of Googletalk before. Is it related to email?

It's built into the gmail webmail interface, but they also had a standalone piece of IM software that can run it independently, which they officially retired last year, but we still use. It allows anyone with a gmail account to chat, exchange files, audio/video conference.

I've used MSN Messenger, then Skype at work places, the last placed moved away from Skype to an internal IRC chatroom.

The thing is, when I joined they were very much against it, because they'd seen in their previous jobs where side windows would start up and be purely nasty gossip, and cliques would form very quickly.
But then, as the company grew, and more people wanted to use it (to chat and form cliques) they gave in and started to allow it. Which was a shame actually, because it wasn't monitored at all, not as in check what people were saying, but how they were using it, so the cliques formed quickly and the company became a much less nice place to work.

On the other hand, we couldn't run h2g2 without it
Volunteer teams and team leaders are available all the time in skype. Not everyone at once, obviously, but still.

My wife uses FaceTime on her I/Pad to keep in touch with her two sons and her daughter, we find it's a great way to see the G/Kids as well.

I've even used Face Time on my I/Phone, to show my wife an item in a shop when we were looking to buy some new bed side cabinets. It's a lot better then trying to describe an item over the phone, as us males are hopeless at such things

I would just say,....they are brown, with three drawers, and about two feet high?

Smudger.

We have the facility at work, but I don't use it. I deal with enough distractions and interruptions, so I don't particularly want IM messages popping up all the time. If anyone wants to talk to me, they know where to find me.

I've never used instant messaging, neither privately nor at work, except once, when planning the first hootoo meet I ever went to. I communicated with Bossel.

It's not activated at work, although I think there's something in Lotus Notes (), which is our e-mail program. We can send messages on our order processing program, but if I need to say anything to anyone, I like to have a written record of it, so everything goes via e-mail.

As said, we do use Skype for the volunteer teams, and we couldn't run this site without it.

There's a general volunteer chat window, and then each team has its own chat window for stuff related to that team. Because we're spread out over the world and time zones, there's no way that everyone can be online at the same time to discuss things, so having the chat rooms open all the time means that anyone can log in when they're about and catch up on what's been going on.

Of course, for anything where a slower, but more structured discussion is needed, we move it off to email. But for quick brain probing, Skype is very good indeed.

We don't use the voice/video side of it, just the text messaging side.

our offce iM can be set to automatically record everything - which is another reason I prefer it over the telephone

I don't think it is a bad thing, Pastey - but it isn't the right tool for the job I do. It is a great tool for helping groups of volunteers who are in far-apart places. As you said, a site like this couldn't work without IM. A lot of my job involves face-to-face talk, and it can't really be done any other way.

We're not allowed use IM, twitter, facebook, any sort of social forum or personal e-mail at work.

Yes, I think it does depend on whether it is the right tool for the job, too.

An IM system was introduced in my workplace, but I never used it. The main problem was that most people's computers were so old, the extra software didn't work as it should have done because it had a tendency to overload the processors for starters. Even if it had, though, there wasn't a clear need for it, as if we wanted to talk to someone we didn't sit next to, we could use the telephone if not e-mail. The powers that be suggested that more people could use it for working at home rather than sitting in their team, but teams weren't keen on that.

It is a definite advantage for communicating with people who aren't in the same location, though - kind of like e-mail but much quicker and more interactive. I get on well with text, so I find it works well for me and I feel part of the team even though the team members aren't all sitting next to each other.