To print: Click here or Select File and then Print from your browser's menu

This story was printed from silicon.com, located at http://www.silicon.com/

Story URL: http://comment.silicon.com/0,39024711,10006261,00.htm

“You there?” IM users remember - the firewalls have ears
Would you let 'Studbroker' or 'Bicepstoobig' deal with customers?

By Simon Marshall

Published: Friday 03 October 2003

Is IM all about idle chit-chat? How can companies harness its power instead of face embarrassment? Simon Marshall explains...

No other communications medium has spread through the business community with such vivacity as IM. Analysts believe that of the hundreds of millions of IM users around the world about a third are business users. But don't tell that to chief executives. Most don't believe it even exists in their organisations.

"Myth number one about instant messaging is that bosses say 'There is no IM use in my company'," comments Francis de Souza, CEO of enterprise messaging firm IM Logic. "I spoke to a CEO of a global business recently with 80,000 staff all over the world. He said he knew what IM was – his daughter used it – but there was no use of it in his company. He was adamant. He called me back a couple of weeks later," he explains. "He started investigating, found out that wasn't the case. He stopped counting at 20,000."

This story is increasingly common throughout UK firms. Anyone with internet access can download a public IM system like AIM, ICQ, MSN or Yahoo!. Barring them will not work outright, nor will blocking a port on the firewall, it seems, because they will find another client somewhere on the internet.

Instead of railing against IM, companies will have to face facts – it's here to stay. The first step in controlling its use is to work out what people are doing with it

The recent financial scandals that ripped through corporate America prompted regulators to take a much tougher stance on company communications both internally and externally.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires companies to keep records of all transactions over any communication media including instant messaging as do new NYSE and Nasdaq regulations regarding any communiqué, transactional or not. This is forcing many US companies to implement management tools whether people are using instant messaging with permission or not. It can't be long before these kinds of regulation are also introduced in the UK.

Fortunately there are a number of commercial applications that can log and archive IM conversation that work with the free IM giants. Once an auditing system is in place, it can be used for more than just compliancy. Any commission, briefing, transaction or request can be logged and accessed by the user. It might not be as searchable as an email inbox but archiving software is improving.

Archiving also offers IT managers a means for watching what goes on. It's then that the great productivity debate will begin – many departmental managers will perceive IM as waste of space and of employees' time. But, of course, this same criticism is often levelled at email.

Recent news that mobile phone distributor Phones 4U had banned employees emailing each other in a bid to return at least an hour's extra productivity to the day smacks of an overbearing 19th Century cotton mill proprietor. While this is a particularly zealous response to personal use of business communications, the sentiments are being echoed by numerous reports and industry conferences.

Instant messaging is, understandably, provoking a similar response because it's such a simple form of communication.

Protagonists argue, however, that the initial excitement of a new communications tool soon subsides. Over 180,000 IBM employees have voluntarily downloaded an IM client – usually one of the public ones – with around 100,000 employees logged on during the working day. According to Mark Kenyon, regional director at IBM Lotus, IBM has not found the need to send staff out on extensive training sessions on how to use IM or appropriate use. Staff learned best practice as they went and IM is not widely abused.

"We've never really done any IM training here at IBM, we've not needed it," explains Kenyon. "When people first start using IM they have a flush of enthusiasm and overdo it a little but that soon recedes when they realise they need to get on and work."

So instead of letting IM happen to them, managers need to shackle the beast. Fundamental best practice policies should be issued stating what not to say in a conversation and why users should avoid attaching files to messages.

"It will take time for people to work out how to use it," says IM Logic's de Souza. "Just like any social interaction model, it needs developing."

What shouldn't be left in users' hands is their choice of screen names. "We've found people with screen names like 'Studbroker' and 'Bicepstoobig' dealing with customers," says de Souza, who in the past headed up Microsoft's real-time collaboration group. "This can do a lot of damage to the company's brand – and sometimes it just gets offensive."

To some companies, IM is being embraced fully as an essential way of working. "The virtual working model which we've adopted means that instant messaging is vital to our business," says David Horwood, co-founder of ihotdesk, an IT services firm that makes a virtue out of its virtual status. "Many of our people work from home so we don't see each other in the office every day. We use Net Messenger as a tool to allow our people to talk about work and, just as important, as an informal method to chat about how their weekend was."

In the IT industry, where the majority of staff are tech-savvy and, although arguable, tend to have a greater sense of job satisfaction, IM abuse is less common. "Time wasting via instant messaging isn't an issue for us. Above all it's a question of corporate culture and attitudes to time management in general," argues Jonathan Klinger, VP of global marketing at location services company Webraska. "If people get a kick out what they do, they don't waste time in idle chit-chat whether on the phone, by the coffee machine or exceptionally long lunches. Introducing IM to a company shouldn't change that."

For most companies though, it's almost inevitable that instant messaging will initially be a drain on workers' time, as was email in its nascent days. The challenge for corporate IT managers, and department heads, will be giving users enough time to come to terms with yet another communications technology.

Proponents argue that the time lost in personal conversations via IM is easily outweighed by the increased productivity it can bring. "Employee productivity can be increased as instant answers are available and presence awareness saves people making unnecessary phone calls or trips to people who aren't at their desks, thus reducing phone calls as well," argues Christine Smith, product manager of Unipalm's Ebusiness division.

Business communications are abused when there is a lack of job satisfaction. Challenging, rewarding work tends to keep employees' attention at the job in hand. Dull, demeaning, repetitive or unrewarding work will always drive employees to finding novel ways of distraction, and instant messaging with friends inside and outside the organisation will inevitably be one of them. The onus should be on tackling the cause rather than the effect.

"You can't stop IM uptake," says Guy Bunker, chief scientist at software firm Veritas. "Once the toothpaste is out of the tube, it'll never go back. If it keeps people at their desk typing then it's got to be better than them slipping out for cigarette breaks."