IM Good for Productivity, Even if Bad for IT
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Is instant messaging an IT irritation, a distraction or an excellent productivity tool? It depends on who you ask. For IT departments, IM is often seen--and rightly so--as a huge security hassle. Users may want it, but it means extra work for the techies who have to clean up the messes it can leave behind. In short, their ideal answer to employees who wish to use it would often be "No." They'd get little argument from most managers, who see IM as a distraction--something their employees do when they should be doing their work. But a new study discounts at least the latter view, finding that IM actually improves workers' productivity. The study, conducted by researchers at Ohio State University and the University of California, Irvine, randomly surveyed individuals by telephone who were employed full-time and used computers in their offices at least 5 hours a day. Nearly 30 percent said they used IM to "keep connected with coworkers and clients." The study theorized that because IM allows users to flag their availability--to let people know when it is and is not okay to bug them--and it is considered socially acceptable to ignore an IM message when one is busy, it can improve, not hinder, productivity. "IM provides a means of obtaining task-relevant information rapidly and with minimal disruption, allowing a worker to ask clarifying questions without the expectation of engaging in a longer conversation. Alternatively, it can be used to participate in a sustained form of low-intensity collaboration..." wrote the researchers. What any of this means for the IT workers who must deal with the security aspect of IM is unclear. What is clear, however, is that IM is becoming more and more acceptable in the workplace, and in the end, it will be up to IT to find and implement solutions to the threats it poses. |
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Comments (1)
The problem up to now is that most enterprises had no idea how to use the advantages of IM to spur productivity. In most environments IM is a separate nuisance to productivity rather than an enabler of it. Part of this problem should have blame put squarely on the part of business software developers who haven't seen the need to integrate IM in their core application designs. Why for example would a software provider creating HR or CRM software take the effort to integrate collaboration? The short look doesn't present any benefit but the longer look shows a potential gold mine. If IM were integrated across a businesses applications it could be used to provide continuous business visibility to entire departments and individuals across business roles. IM could be used to create ad hoc meetings and group events between members in the company with access to different applications. IM could be used to interface employees with external partners by enabling presentations seamlessly set up without bothering IT. IM could be used to directly interface customers to the employees to allow direct customer service while at the same time allowing managers to gain metrics on the usefulness of these programs and take advantage of trends revealed by the tight interaction.
To do this however requires integration of IM into the business fabric that doesn't exist, new applications are separate fiefdoms and though separate IM programs can be used in conjunction they only multiply the security concerns of their use and may not provide the management capabilities that a true enterprise integrated IM system requires. Another big ommission is efficient cross application workflow across collaborating employee groups, businesses should be able to create ad hoc workflows that model their business processes in a fluid and rapid manner and have collaboration between the members implicitly provided. Notification of events between employees and on business objects should also be provided in a natural manner that models business processes and that is missing in all existing products. Imagine knowing when a business object managed by some of your employees is changed in specific ways, or knowing who sent a request to perform a given action on an object at a given date and time and being able to communicate in real time with those individuals.
I've designed just such an integrated business IM application, it seamlessly ties business applications developed on a robust platform together without ever requiring any integration code. The collaboration component is implicit, just as security is implicit across all applications..whether they be HR, CRM, or any other business process application. I'll be releasing the product (my blog linked to my name, will provide updates of the release) in the coming months and it addresses precisely the productivity gap induced by traditional IM in enterprises that is mentioned in this article.
Posted by david saintloth | June 17, 2008 2:23 PM