IM in the Workplace
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A recent study from UC Irvine and Ohio State University found that workers using IM software reported less interruption than those in their cohort who didn't.
This contradicts a widely held belief that IM is simply a distraction and does nothing other than provide a vehicle for workplace disruption.
Now then, in my IM heyday "broadband" was just becoming a thing. Suffice it to say that I'm really not a fan of messaging and this includes email.
It is my personal belief that there is no such thing as an 'emergency email' and I certainly had an even lower tolerance for pop up apps with someone wanting to chat and I fear this has spilled over into social networking in general.
My interests are the work at hand and setting aside time for SMS modalities amounts to technodrivel and I pretty much avoid it all anymore.
HOWEVER, I am not so jaded that I cannot see the value of a little text interaction in the workplace and even offered to write such an app for the enterprise I support.
One of our self appointed charge persons scoffed at the idea and said it would use too much bandwidth. This was okay with me too because it wasn't going to be something I clung to or anything.
I do note that enterprises with assigned cellphones will have text messaging by and large and that is a full fledged implemetation.
However, this is not IM by the classical definition which includes a desktop app with scrolling and notifications in real time.
So the moral of the story is text messaging will either be a part of your operation or not and that decision appears to be more subjective than objective in it's origin.
Suffice it to say that if you get IM you'll likely be in the minority because the recurring theme I kept hearing is "subject to abuse".
If this indeed is the case than you're better off without it anyway and It's just another aspect of your existence they can monitor and record.