[49121] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: How important is IM? was RE: How important is the PSTN
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jason Lewis)
Tue Jun 25 15:31:34 2002
Date: Tue, 25 Jun 2002 15:30:15 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Jason Lewis" <jlewis@packetnexus.com>
To: <chris@bblabs.com>
In-Reply-To: <ALECJLKGJPLDJKMJGGMFIEJJCPAA.chris@bblabs.com>
Cc: <nanog@merit.edu>
Reply-To: jlewis@packetnexus.com
Errors-To: owner-nanog-outgoing@merit.edu
> So my question for the group is, do chat programs (IM, IRC, yahoo) serve
> a substantial network support purpose or are they more of a distraction,
> allowing staff to communicate with friends, relatives, drifters,
> interlopers on company time?
>
I disagree. I have spent many hours in a noisy datacenter on IM, when the
phone was right next to me. It is difficult to hear and the IM allows me
to scroll back to see commands that have been sent. IM make collaboration
so much easier. I have been in a chat room at 3am with developers, techs,
VP's etc, and it was easier than a conference call.
Instead of banning, you should be looking into a secure IM client.
Several companies make secure clients that also link up to the major
players via a gateway.
IM isn't going away, I imagine you will see lots of backlash if you try to
ban it.
jas
