IMing-- The Cyber Equivalent To Gathering At The Water Cooler

For various reasons, I finally took on the IM (Instant Message) and chat portion of the internet this week. I hadn't exactly avoided it before. I simply never had many people to chat with.

Prior to this, the only exposure I'd had to modern chat (as opposed to the ancient versions over 10 years ago) was seeing my daughter's chat sessions become an integral part of her existence. Mind you, she only chats with her friends from school all of which, because we live in a rather rural area and none of them drive yet, are stuck at home and have discovered this as a kind of party-line way of staying in touch. Since we got a cable modem, this also frees up the phone line so I have no problem with it. It actually seems like a great improvement over the solo -- and extremely extended -- telephone conversations of my teenage years.

I have had an account with AIM for a long time-- but always forgot to open it/initialize it, or keep my "away/here" msg current. I had even gone so far as to suggest to my downlines that we use an IM to discuss various parts of marketing. For reasons unknown, however, that never seemed to happen.

But recently, because of the problems with email, as well as the urgency of some issues, IM-ing is becoming more commonplace and, at least among the marketers I know, more viable. Still, it may also prove to be yet another distraction from productivity. So far this week I have caught up with several old friends, made a few new ones and, despite trying to use it for business, seem to forever find myself in long conversations with others.

(I'm not sure I'm complaining so much as making an observation.)

One chat, which began as a frantic search for information, ended with a highly amusing discussion on the linguistic differences between various cultures and the effects in international business and by the end, I was laughing so hard I had tears streaming down my face while my kids were shooting me those "this is how you work?" looks they get whenever I'm enjoying my work a little too much.

I also caught up with an old writing buddy/penpal I've known for over 12 years but have never met when he happened to sign on and I couldn't resist saying, "Hey!"

Since Wednesday, I've tried to limit these little chats to business but I confess, it makes working online much more social. Hey. We all need a trip to the water cooler occasionally.--mo