IM versus Email in corporate environment

September 29, 2005 10:14 AM

I would like to do a comparative analysis of the use of Instant Messaging versus email in my company's internal environment.

Can anyone recommend from personal experience and/or resources, reasoning that would demonstrate IM to be more beneficial than the perpetual chain of conversational email? For example, "thank yous". While polite, if there are thousands of "thank you" emails being sent, would you consider that of significant cost to the business? Further, people exchange emails back and forth as though it is chat...wouldn't it be better to do this on chat and not waste server space? Any thoughts in support of this idea, as well as the contrary, are welcome.

posted by mic stand to computers & internet (9 comments total)

Many companies are required to keep records of business communications. Chat systems designed for personal use, like AIM, Yahoo, MSN, etc., do not meet these requirements. Wasting server space is probably not an issue for most businesses, at least in terms of storing short plain-text e-mails.
posted by odinsdream at 10:16 AM on September 29, 2005

One good option would be to go to the websites of companies selling such products - ex Parlano or Lotus Sametime and look at their case studies. They spend a lot of time and money trying to prove the case you're trying to make.
posted by true at 10:33 AM on September 29, 2005

do not meet these requirements.

although many clients, like Trillian, can log all conversations locally.
posted by poppo at 10:38 AM on September 29, 2005

A good place to start.
posted by duck at 10:39 AM on September 29, 2005

In my company, we use IMs for informal acknowledgements and urgent requests. It might go something like this:

1) Project Manager emails change order docs to Programmer
2) Project Manager IMs Programmer to say "hey, I sent new docs, #1 needs to be done asap"
3) Programmer IMs in response saying "ok, give me 20 min"
4) Programmer does the change order work, notifies the PM via IM that #1 was done, and then follows up with an official reply later in the day via email

Having the email and followups on file is very important - we would never send project specs exclusively via IM.

Another example might be polling coworkers over IM about a meeting time. The final time, however, would be sent via email so as to have it on record.

The signal-to-noise ratio is improved, but I can't say it's a huge impact in server resources.

What has improved is communication in general across departments that have very different work styles. Basically, the coders hate to be interrupted by phone or in-person. And when they're on a roll, email might not be checked for a few hours.

So, IM is used as a compromise. Or perhaps as an adjunct to email/phone. But only among coworkers, never with clients. odinsdream explains why.
posted by Sangre Azul at 10:40 AM on September 29, 2005

Second true's suggestion or places like Gartner and their ilk if you have access.

As for your own analysis, consider these loosely organized thoughts:
*asynchronous of nature of e-mail vs.the syncronous nature of IM.
*IM can be distracting since it can break your train of thought if you are performing some mental activity. E-mails silently queue up behind the scenes (although those new mail notification sounds and popups are probably just as distracting to some people).
*Sometimes you need an answer right away, so IM is the right answer.
* don't underestimate IM's ability to let you multitask in meetings or coordinate things while your phone is tied up. This of course is a double-edge sword since it can distract your from the meeting at hand.
*Lastly, when you are seeking answers to an immediate question, you can spin up n numbers of synchnronous communications with people which you couldn't do with one phone line.
posted by mmascolino at 11:08 AM on September 29, 2005

I worked for an ISP and we used IM all the time. We started just using AIM but after a while they switched to a local Jabber server which allowed for better logging/tracking. It was great in a situation where you have to talk to customers on the phone because you can get ahold of other people in the office quickly and easily [if they're all on, which we all were] and ask things like "hey did you get that guys check?" and "is the truck roll still scheduled for tomorrow?"

It was extra useful when you had a customer on the phone and you needed to communicate with a tech in the field who had IM, you only had to talk to one person on the phone at once and you didn't have to have a terrible conference call where you had to mediate what both people were saying.

That said, I've been places where it didn't work well mainly because some people took to it and some people really didn't. Many people find it very distracting [my SO can't really chat with more than one person at a time and gets really flustered if we're chatting and someone else comes up on his screen] or they feel pressure to type faster than they do [it's hell on slow typists] or they don't like wading through logs as opposed to their comfortable interactions with emails. A lot of people use email folders and organization as to do lists and paper trails and IM is a bit more difficult to adjust to these things. Plus, of course, if you have people on a public IM network, or an in-house server where people are inclined to gab, it can really crush productivity because people spend a lot of time chatting instead of working. If people know you're keeping all the logs, this will mitigate it somewhat, but still it can be a timewaster even for people who aren't normally slackers.
posted by jessamyn at 1:16 PM on September 29, 2005

We use IM as a replacement for the telephone, not email. You might want to explore case studies in that area, particularly one referencing Skype (which does text chat too).
posted by krisjohn at 7:34 PM on September 29, 2005

Remember, the real cost or benefit of a technology system is the personal / social benefit. These days (i.e., cheap bandwidth, cheap harddisk, computers on every desk), there's not much of a cost difference between moving a few bits like this or like that. There is probably a tremendous social difference though. Note that in the accounts given above, IM does not replace email or the phone, it adds a channel for communication of a certain sort. But this sort is not defined by the technology, it's defined / negotiated by the people using it ("..then we follow up the IM thread with an email..." or "then the PM will send out the 'real' status update..." "when you're on the phone...").

Do you analysis in terms of the people using the system.

Will they get the software running quickly, with the right "phonebook" (including groups for "technology", "sales", "whatever-divisions-your-org-has")? Will they constantly divinde their attention so that, though they're communicating more quantity, they're communicating less quality (i.e., signal versus noise?) Will IM route information around people who need it? A fear in this vein is that it's easy for a PM to follow an exchange between two groups by either being cc'd as the exchange unfolds or by asking for one party to forward the mails as a batch afterward. Do you want groups to negotiate this on an ad-hoc basis? How will users access old discussions? Are old discussions relevant to current projects?

Synchronous communication is different than asynchronous. But it's not as simple as saying "ok, great, we're going synchronous!" and leaving it at that. Information and messages will need to be routed to those channels in the right way, at the right times.
posted by zpousman at 10:00 AM on September 30, 2005