IM Is Here. RU Ready 2 Try It?

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At StudentUniverse, a travel service in Watertown, Mass., that caters to college-age customers, agents often use IM to send questions to a manager, aiming to get an immediate response without putting the customer on hold. Customer-service director Phil Dobbyn credits IM for helping cut his staff's average time per call by 25% in just a few months. Finacorp Securities, a bond brokerage in Newport Beach, Calif., with revenues under $5 million, uses IM for everything from telecommuting to providing tech support for its on-line arm, Tradebonds.com. But IM's greatest value is linking salespeople to the firm's compliance officers to get fast answers to regulatory questions.

Some managers own up to swapping messages with one another during conference calls with outsiders. StudentUniverse CEO Espen Odegard occasionally uses IM to confer with his cofounder or his lawyer during sticky negotiations. Other executives cue each other during calls; in fact, AtomicPR senior account manager Misha Gulak used IM with Getsey during a phone interview with Inc, reminding Getsey about a point she thought he should make.

Instant gratification, of course, comes with a price. For starters, IM, like E-mail, can transmit viruses that existing security software may not detect. (For that reason, security experts recommend using virus-scanning programs that specifically cover IM.) But because anybody can download free IM software from the Web, tech staffers may not even realize employees are using it. And IM isn't always secure, as the CEO of a now-defunct California dot-com learned when he found copies of his private messages posted on the Web. In May, Microsoft warned that its popular free IM program, MSN Messenger, contained a serious security flaw that could leave users vulnerable to computer hackers. (The company provided a free on-line "patch" to fix the problem.) With that in mind, Tax Technologies instructs users not to transmit confidential client information. StudentUniverse's messages include their own version of the surgeon general's warning: "Never give out your password or credit-card number in an instant message conversation."

Obviously, any new link to the outside creates new opportunities to leak corporate secrets. For that reason, IM programs increasingly include monitoring functions that allow companies to capture or log transmissions.

Many IM programs -- particularly the free ones -- won't work with one another, meaning that if you have only Yahoo Messenger, you can't use IM to communicate with a client who has only AOL Instant Messenger. That's exactly why the American Homeowners Foundation, a publishing and lobbying organization based in Arlington, Va., stopped using IM last year. Initially, the foundation's directors hoped to use the technology to quickly correspond with the far-flung authors who write the organization's books. But they ultimately found IM more frustrating than useful, says vice-president Chris Christensen, citing the plethora of incompatible programs. Michael Osterman, an electronic-messaging consultant in Black Diamond, Wash., predicts that the industry will adopt a common standard within the next year or two.

In addition, some people find the barrage of read-me-right-now messages annoying or disruptive. "Your attention gets very fragmented. It gets in the way of good solid thinking," says Carl Stormer, StudentUniverse's cofounder and executive vice-president. "It's almost like white noise; you don't notice it till it's gone." Other executives occasionally shut off IM or change their status to "busy" or "do not disturb."

Managers at some companies worry that employees will spend too much work time using IM to chat with pals inside and outside the company. Others -- such as StudentUniverse's Norwegian-born Odegard and Stormer, who use IM daily to correspond with their families in Norway -- view it as a perk they can offer employees, as long as personal use doesn't get out of control. They also emphasize that IM isn't the right tool for every business missive; employees should still turn to E-mail when they need a record and to the phone for the personal touch. Finally, they acknowledge that IM sometimes provides solutions to problems that don't exist. For instance, employees at StudentUniverse admit that they sometimes swap messages with nearby coworkers rather than step next door or down the hall. Stormer says, "That is like taking the elevator to the first floor."

Yet even critics recognize the technology's promise. For example, ActiveBuddy, a New York City developer of IM products, offers free homework help, stock quotes, and sports scores; the company also created IM promotions for the band Radiohead, teen singer Lindsay Pagano, and the movie The Lord of the Rings. Other companies are exploring IM's potential for real-time auctions, travel booking, technical support, and stock trading. Meanwhile, the earliest adopters remain true believers in the technology's value. "Our development team is 5 to 10 times more productive in our virtual environment than in a traditional office setting," says Tax Technologies' Wenger. "It's disruptive," says Dane Madsen, CEO of YellowPages.com. "But so was the Internet and so was E-mail. You adjust."

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