Introduction: Why Instant Messaging Management?

Overview

This book addresses the potentially costly business and legal challenges instant messaging (IM) brings to the workplace. Thanks to IM, employers (many of whom remain challenged by e-mail rules and risks) now face even greater electronic communications’ problems, as IM brings to the workplace new legal and regulatory issues, and challenges management to reevaluate security, technology, and employee productivity.

Long popular with Internet-savvy American teenagers, one-fifth of whom use IM as the primary means of communicating with friends, ^[1] and widely used by businesspeople abroad, instant messaging is now gaining a solid foothold in the U.S. workplace. It is estimated that about 40 percent of organizations now authorize IMuse for business, with another 9 percent planning to begin using IM in the future. ^[2]

As IM gains popularity as the best way to communicate urgent messages, industry analyst Gartner Group predicts e-mail usage will drop 40 percent by 2006.^[3]

^[1]Jake Wagman, ‘‘Instant Mess,’’ St. Louis Post-Dispatch (May 25, 2003), B1, citing a 2001 Pew Internet and American Life Project report.

^[2]Michael Osterman, ‘‘More IT Departments Turning Against IM,’’ Network World Messaging Newsletter (April 1, 2003), www.nwfusion.com/newsletters/gwm/2003/0331msg1.html.

^[3]Brian Deagon, ‘‘Top Brass Slow to Embrace InstantMessaging Technology—Explaining IM Benefits,’’ Investor’s Business Daily (July 2, 2003).