Instant messaging is not new. Neither is the online chat room. The CompuServe “CB Simulator” in 1980 was probably the first Internet application that we would recognize now as instant messaging. Internet Relay Chat (IRC), the ancestor of today’s chat rooms, dates from 1988. Now add the more modern increase in the use of mobile devices, mix in some annoyance with email spam, and suddenly the venerable old chat is a hot business communication application. When you remember that many of the people now entering the workforce grew up using their phones to message friends, that’s not really a surprising development.
- Why these startups think chat apps are the next big thing in workplace collaboration (GigaOM | Jonathan Vanian) “The idea is that workers are now spending their days immersed in the world of the chat box; a sort of modern-day equivalent of the office water cooler, where ideas and jokes can be shared, but also — thanks to software and the ability to link up to the storage-service providers — the place where documents can be stored, indexed and able to be easily accessed. According to a recent Gigaom Research report by Stowe Boyd, this idea of contextual conversation ‘is likely to become the dominant social motif of the next generation of work-technology applications.’”
- Why enterprise mobile messaging is the latest startup craze (CITEworld | Matt Weinberger) “In libraries, coffee shops, and anywhere else where workers are not in front of a computer all day, text and IM is the smartphone-friendly mode of communication of choice. That means that coworkers need to befriend each other on their personal social networks, or else swap phone numbers, neither of which makes for a healthy or comfortable life-work balance. It’s a lot easier when you empower those same front-office workers with a tool where they don’t need to know the phone number of the person they need to talk to.”
- Beyond Google Hangouts: What these chat apps are doing differently (HSI blog | Ryann Rasmussen) “Many of the chat startups mentioned here [Slack, HipChat, Flowdock, and Convo] are still in their infancy, but they’re already making a splash. Inspired by everything from small businesses to giants, these chat startups are looking at the workplace from every angle. Larger companies like Rally, Atlassian and Microsoft are purchasing these startups, a testament to their potential in offices around the globe.”
- Slack is killing email (The Verge | Ellis Hamburger) “There’s something intrinsic to communicating with a larger number of people that’s going to be difficult to manage, especially given the amount of information we get. Email has gotten worse over the last 10 years or so. Ten years ago, 50 to 60 percent of email was from another person, and now it’s 8 to 10 percent. The other 90 percent is from a machine — email marketing, receipts, new Twitter followers, Facebook comments, check-ins, monthly statements, blah blah blah.”
Articles from Ohio Web Library:
- Instant messaging cuts workplace interruption. (USA Today Magazine, August 2008, p1-2)
- Instant messaging as a task-support tool in information technology organizations. (Journal of Business Communication, January 2013, p68-86 | Pilar Pazos, Jennifer M. Chung, and Marina Micari)
- Nature and nurture: The impact of automaticity and the structuration of communication on virtual team behavior and performance.(MIS Quarterly, June 2014, p521-A4 | Valerie L. Bartelt and Alan R. Dennis)
