I find it a critical tool for productivity. We have people working together from remote locations and sometimes it’s absolutely the best way to communicate.
I use Skype to communicate with most of my clients. Most of the time it’s IM but I like that if we do need to talk or share my desktop I can just hit the button next to their name and we’re doing that.
There definitely are some people who seem to prefer email and will send 30 different one line emails back and forth instead of IM. I’m old enough to remember email addresses with bang paths and I still don’t get why they’d prefer email to IM for that sort of conversation.
Ironically I rarely use IM for personal conversations. I guess I’m old.
I love it. The company I’m working for right now uses it extensively and since I’m a multitasker by nature it’s wonderful to me. Between it, email, live meeting and conferencing it’s enabled the remote work program that’s in it’s second phase of testing. I can do almost everything I need to without ever going into the office. I use IM for mainly quick conversations - I do prefer email for anything where I need to deliver a greater volume of information.
IM feels more informal as well so it’s less like I’m establishing an audit trail (but I totally am) and more like a friendly reminder when I say “Hey when can I get your deliverable, you’re a couple days behind”
Huh? I just reiterated what you said and mentioned that I’ve heard the same from most people who feel like you do about it. There was no “dinosaur” involved. You’re reading meaning into my words that was not there.
And again, “the right tool for the job” is pretty much what I’m discussing. I never said the phone was never to be used; rather, some people find IM the “right” tool most of the time, and some people (like you and others on this thread) pick up the phone very quickly.
If anything, the one complaint I have about most (not all!) people who prefer the phone is their dogged insistence that “the phone is better!” Yes, it’s better for YOU, and I have no problem dropping IM for the phone if you like it better. But for me (and others), we do just fine on IM for many conversations. We find it less intrusive and more efficient. So no, the phone is NOT always better. If it’s your preference, I’ll work with you. But don’t tell me that your preferred method of communication is always superior to mine; it’s not.
Agreed. Complex things take too long to type and try to guide the other person through all of the key details. Verbally is much easier.
No one where I work uses IM. It’s all email. For stupid things that you can literally stick your head in someone’s office. I see these people all day long, yet I get nearly pointless emails from them on the blandest and most easily resolvable topics. (“Do you have a picture of X?”) I am literally five feet away from this woman and she sends me email asking this kind of stupid shit.
Oh, and grrr. 
It’s fine for small things. I’m IMing with people all day about work. What’s the name of that method? Where’s the documentation for this thing? Anybody seen this error message before? Where is everybody? Am I working on a holiday again?
We use open boards for general topics, and lots of personal IMs also. The trick is to keep it quick. Switch from the open board to private IM if a 2 person conversation starts. Switch to phone, email, or in person if the conversation gets complicated.
I love IM. My boss thinks it was invented by Satan himself.
It’s a communication tool. One of many and is just as valid as the phone or email or face-to-face when used properly.
I find it takes a little longer but frankly, some days the last thing I want to do is physically TALK to another human being.
As for dinosaurs, I’m 52 years old and some of my peers still can’t even spell PC. Arrrgh!
We’re a 24/7 global operation, and it’s indispensible for real-time communications - there simply are people you don’t want to be speaking to on a phone call to the other side of the planet, whether or not it’s traditional dialup or VOIP.
The automatic archiving is useful and we’ve recently morphed over to Mircosoft’s Lync, which makes it absurdly easy to launch application or desktop sharing from a chat. Just ask a user to click the “Share” button under their name. So much less painful than leading them through “Click start, then run, then type conf and hit enter, then click on the yellow phone and type 10.18.122…”
I can’t think of any situation where I’d rather use IM instead of email or talking with a person. I suppose if I had to discuss code with co-workers in another building (or country) it might be useful, but I can just walk over to them instead.
Oh, another thing I like about IM (at least the Skype version), there’s no limit on the size of a file I can send someone. The QA department testing my code drop screenshots into IM chats with me all the time.
Yes, this is my experience as well. This is an office IM conversation I had yesterday with one of my section editors:
Me: The p17 story is short by about two lines
[seven-minute delay]
Editor: You could add this to the end of the intro
Editor: [text]
Editor: enough words?
[five-minute delay]
Me: Is it possible to get 10-15 more words in this paragraph:
Me: [paragraph]
Me: Sorry, the para breaks are in weird places in this article, it’s making it harder than it should be!
Editor: To be honest, you could just use the same text I gave you and put it at the end of the global implications bit
Me: lovely
Me: Thank you!
Editor: Sorry again for the delay!
That would have taken substantially longer either over the phone or in person (is he going to dictate to me while I type?) or by email (we had too much back-and-forth about where the text needed to go). As it wasn’t urgent (if it were, I could have called and prompted him), it didn’t matter that there was a brief delay while he presumably finished up whatever else he was working on. If I’d done it in person or by phone, I would have interrupted his workflow and concentration for something that didn’t actually need to get done rightthatsecond.
I could also play around with the layout without having him stand over my shoulder, again wasting his time, before determining the first option wouldn’t work and I needed more words in a different place.
Which is not to say that I don’t sometimes swing by people’s desks with complicated questions or instructions, particularly things involving layout where it’s nice to have a physical paper we can gesture at and mark up. But I don’t really get antipathy towards it - it’s an effective, efficient communication tool.
I’m an English/History major among a bunch of Science/Engineering types and frankly, they don’t do well with written communication.
We work on the ICP, we use ICQ to send IMs, we have a Sampling Database and a Remediation Database, we have the server, individual hard drives, and email. You would not believe how often people mix up the aforementioned things when they discuss them.
It’s way easier to talk to someone than to parse shitty writing that’s probably referencing the wrong thing anyway.
I work for a big multi national corporation at the main campus these days (although I previously worked remotely for about a decade from China).
I have found that IM is unparalled for getting “no” as an answer. Espcially if dealing with legal, policy, operations or any of the “support” functions. It is just so easy for people in those roles to take the easy way out by saying no over IM (and email is not much better). Whereas talking face to face almost always results in a maybe, suggestions on how to try again that might get approved, referral to someone else that actually might help, or even a yes.
Again, right tool for the right job.