IM Is Here. RU Ready 2 Try It?
Instant messages -- those cryptic little on-line conversations -- are traveling from teenagers' computers into businesses like yours.
Published July 2002
EMAIL THIS ARTICLE
PRINTER FRIENDLY
COMMENT ON THIS ARTICLESpecial Technology Report
In the late 1980s, Rhonda Sanderson happily moved her tiny public-relations agency from downtown Chicago to suburban Highland Park. The move cut her commute from 30 minutes to about 30 seconds: she'd set up shop in an office building across the street from her home.
But a decade later, Sanderson & Associates Ltd. was growing, and Sanderson found that the top job candidates -- recent college grads -- viewed her location as a distinct drawback. Having just escaped from smallish midwestern college communities, they weren't interested in launching their careers somewhere even smaller. "They wanted to live and work in the big city," says Sanderson.
Sanderson, a single parent, didn't want to uproot her high school-age daughter to move back downtown. Instead, she bought a small building in a trendy Chicago neighborhood and moved several of her employees there. After she had satisfied everyone's lifestyle demands, Sanderson had just one nagging concern: how would she, the suburban CEO who schlepped into the city just two days a week, stay in the loop the rest of the time? "I thought, 'Will I have to call them every single minute?' " she says.
As it turns out, Sanderson does talk with her seven staffers dozens of times daily -- but without picking up the phone. Instead they chat live on-line, using a free instant-messaging (IM) program installed by an employee. Today "it's fair to say we run the whole business on IM," says Sanderson, whose company, with revenues in excess of $1 million, specializes in representing national franchises such as Meineke Discount Mufflers and Back Yard Burgers. "Every [internal] communication is by IM. Everything. This arrangement wouldn't have worked without it." There's no playing phone tag, no wondering whether somebody got that urgent E-mail message, no delaying a response to a crisis. Sanderson is never more than a few keystrokes from her Chicago employees -- as long as everyone is near a computer. "I feel much more secure handling my office this way," she says of the constant real-time contact. "I feel the need to be connected to them."
CEOs nationwide are discovering what teenagers and twentysomethings, including Sanderson's daughter and staffers, have known for years: IM is an addictively fast, simple, and cheap way to communicate. There's nothing exotic about the technology. It's basically real-time E-mail, either in-house or over the Internet. But unlike E-mail, IM is, well, instantaneous; as soon as the message writer hits "send," the message pops up on the receiver's screen. And unlike E-mail, IM doesn't generate in-box clutter. Conversations usually vanish when they're finished (although programs increasingly allow one to save them), and users, because they control their lists of authorized contacts, are less likely to receive "spam," or unsolicited messages. The best-known IM programs are free; even commercial products are relatively cheap. Although an IM conversation typically involves just two people, power users may conduct several conversations simultaneously or create a chat room where any number of users can join the discussion. With some programs, users can even swap graphics, video clips, or voice clips. And unlike any other form of communication, IM monitors physical presence. With a glance at their contact lists, users can tell who's logged on and available right now.
Even though IM began as a way for kids to pass notes electronically (see "The IM Generation," below), it's clearly becoming a vital tool in businesses. IDC, a research company based in Framingham, Mass., says that about 40% of U.S. companies already use the technology. Jupiter Media Metrix, headquartered in New York City, says nearly 17 million Americans used the largest free IM services at work in March 2002, up from 10 million in September 2000. Gartner Inc., in Stamford, Conn., calls IM "the sleeping giant of the Internet" and predicts that by next year employees at 70% of all companies will use IM for business or personal communication. By 2005, Gartner says, at least 50% of U.S. businesses will rely on IM to interact with customers -- and most consumers will use IM more frequently than they use E-mail.
Naturally, IM works best in businesses in which employees are tethered to computers. Large high-tech and telecom companies like IBM and AT&T have used the technology for years. But it's picking up speed in less likely industries. For instance, manufacturers are beginning to use IM kiosks in factories to keep managers in close contact with floor supervisors. Retailers that have been using live chat on their Web sites for the past few years are beginning to use it in-house as well. Jennifer Convertibles in Woodbury, N.Y., uses IM to communicate with managers in its 200-plus stores nationwide. Rami Abada, the chain's president and chief financial officer, says the low-cost IM network, which replaced a costly voice-mail system, has saved the company $50,000 to $60,000 a year and eliminated 7,000 calls a week that were going into voice mail.
