Wednesday
Feb062002
228 - Instant Messenger Use at Work: Some Intereting TRENDS
February 6, 2002
#228- - - Feb. 6, 2002 - - - 42,922 Readers
*** Elliott Masie's TechLearn TRENDS ***
Training, e-Learning and Collaboration Updates
Published by The MASIE Center www.masie.com
Host of: Skills for e-TRAINERS Labs �" Feb & March
Host of: Business of Learning Conference - April
Instant Messenger Use at Work: Some Intereting TRENDS
Instant Messenger (IM) is a huge corporate tool, yet it rarely mentioned
in corporate productivity or learning plans. In fact, most IM usage is
not corporately provided or managed, but rather an informal system created
by users, self-installing software for AOL, Yahoo or Microsoft systems.
A recent study by Jupiter Media Metrix breaks out IM-user estimates into
home and work categories, and in a study of IM at work released in
November, it found 8.8 million AOL IM users, 4.8 million MSN Messenger
users, and 3.4 million Yahoo! Messenger users. Even more impressive is
that the total IM usage in the office more than doubled over the past
year, from 2.3 billion minutes in September 2000 to an astounding 4.9
billion minutes in September 2001.
PC Magazine carried a recent story about IM at work and indicated that,
“indeed, so many workers now run IM windows on their PCs during the
workday that corporate IT managers are getting worried about both the use
of bandwidth for IM chatting and the security issues inherent in IM. There
are worries about the way IM provides a hole in the security wall erected
by corporate firewalls, about employees' indiscretion in what they say and
to whom over IM, and about client privacy issues. In health-care and
securities firms, for example, there are federal laws about privacy and
confidentiality, and casual discussion in IM windows about patient matters
or trading in securities can violate those laws”
The MASIE Center has seen a dramatic rise in the use of IM in e-Learning
programs, to connect learners to each other and to provide easier access
to instructors. On a personal level, I use IM at work, instead of email
for about 80% of my “e” messages to my staff and to core colleagues.
Prior to calling my colleague, Wayne Hodgins at Autodesk, I will always
check to see if he is available and about 75% of the time, we just use IM
to carry on our dialogues, often stretched out while we multi-task on
other items.
One of the powerful aspects of IM is that it is “permission based”
collaboration, limited to those people that I authorize for access to me
as a “buddy”. Leveraging and scaling that in a corporate situation has a
number of challenges that organizations are just starting to discover and
tackle.
It would be a good time to both survey your workforce to measure the
extent of IM usage and to consider developing a policy to get the best use
of Instant Messenger. Here are some issues that you might consider:
* Choosing an official IM system for your company, that links into other
enterprise software.
* Develop a strategy for how your organization would most appropriately
use IM and what are approved and non-approved uses.
* Add IM usage tips to employee orientation and training
* Provide an IM model for extending e-Learning and e-Coaching
* Evaluate the impact of IM on collaboration and distraction in the
workplace.
We would love to hear your organization’s experience with official and
unofficial use of Instant Messenger. Can you drop me an line at
emasie@masie.com and we will summarize in a future TRENDS.
Upcoming Events from The MASIE Center (www.masie.com)
- Skills for e-TRAINERS - Feb and March - Saratoga
- Business of Learning Conference - April - Washington, DC
*** Elliott Masie's TechLearn TRENDS ***
Training, e-Learning and Collaboration Updates
Published by The MASIE Center www.masie.com
Host of: Skills for e-TRAINERS Labs �" Feb & March
Host of: Business of Learning Conference - April
Instant Messenger Use at Work: Some Intereting TRENDS
Instant Messenger (IM) is a huge corporate tool, yet it rarely mentioned
in corporate productivity or learning plans. In fact, most IM usage is
not corporately provided or managed, but rather an informal system created
by users, self-installing software for AOL, Yahoo or Microsoft systems.
A recent study by Jupiter Media Metrix breaks out IM-user estimates into
home and work categories, and in a study of IM at work released in
November, it found 8.8 million AOL IM users, 4.8 million MSN Messenger
users, and 3.4 million Yahoo! Messenger users. Even more impressive is
that the total IM usage in the office more than doubled over the past
year, from 2.3 billion minutes in September 2000 to an astounding 4.9
billion minutes in September 2001.
PC Magazine carried a recent story about IM at work and indicated that,
“indeed, so many workers now run IM windows on their PCs during the
workday that corporate IT managers are getting worried about both the use
of bandwidth for IM chatting and the security issues inherent in IM. There
are worries about the way IM provides a hole in the security wall erected
by corporate firewalls, about employees' indiscretion in what they say and
to whom over IM, and about client privacy issues. In health-care and
securities firms, for example, there are federal laws about privacy and
confidentiality, and casual discussion in IM windows about patient matters
or trading in securities can violate those laws”
The MASIE Center has seen a dramatic rise in the use of IM in e-Learning
programs, to connect learners to each other and to provide easier access
to instructors. On a personal level, I use IM at work, instead of email
for about 80% of my “e” messages to my staff and to core colleagues.
Prior to calling my colleague, Wayne Hodgins at Autodesk, I will always
check to see if he is available and about 75% of the time, we just use IM
to carry on our dialogues, often stretched out while we multi-task on
other items.
One of the powerful aspects of IM is that it is “permission based”
collaboration, limited to those people that I authorize for access to me
as a “buddy”. Leveraging and scaling that in a corporate situation has a
number of challenges that organizations are just starting to discover and
tackle.
It would be a good time to both survey your workforce to measure the
extent of IM usage and to consider developing a policy to get the best use
of Instant Messenger. Here are some issues that you might consider:
* Choosing an official IM system for your company, that links into other
enterprise software.
* Develop a strategy for how your organization would most appropriately
use IM and what are approved and non-approved uses.
* Add IM usage tips to employee orientation and training
* Provide an IM model for extending e-Learning and e-Coaching
* Evaluate the impact of IM on collaboration and distraction in the
workplace.
We would love to hear your organization’s experience with official and
unofficial use of Instant Messenger. Can you drop me an line at
emasie@masie.com and we will summarize in a future TRENDS.
Upcoming Events from The MASIE Center (www.masie.com)
- Skills for e-TRAINERS - Feb and March - Saratoga
- Business of Learning Conference - April - Washington, DC
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