A blog looking at business communication, knowledge management, scripting tools, OS technology news and other things of interest to mobile tech workers. As I find interesting news this will also contain pointers to thoughts related to configuration managment, change management and general software development.
My company is also using IM, although the fustrating thing being on the road is that it is often difficult to get through firewalls etc. The benefits tho are huge. Email traffic does go down, issues are solved, clarified faster, and there is a record of the conversation that a cell phone call wouldn't leave if your IM tool has history. We've even used IM to deploy software patches to field. Instant patching ...
If everyone were on the same IM platform I think the benefits would be huge. While IM can be a distraction, I think the benefits outweigh the disadvantages.
The cycle of quesiton / clarification / restatement of question / answer is much tighter due to the speed of IM.
Targeted communication - I can tell who is available so I don't have to span a whole group of people.
The private, always on IRC channel is an intriguing idea ... If there was a way to secure it for road warriors that might be the way to go. I've noticed that groups that use blackberry devices with access to inhouse email tend to use them in a very IM centric way as well. Trouble is, there is no presence indicator to speak of so it isn't quite as good.
Pixilated Jon is looking for a more intelligent and useful URI / link management tool. I also initially set this up as a personal wiki but found it too tedious to enter new links in. The requirements outlined in the post are a good start. They are:
Requirement 1: Actioning a 'store this URI' should be cheap.
Requirement 2: Bookmarked URI's should have meta-data associated with them.
Requirement 3: Provide effective search filters.
I've had the same struggle and am now adopting a running mind map in Freemind that allows me to visually manage pointers to important URIs so I can find them easily later. Freemind doesn't seem to have filtering tho which would be cool. I have found the visual grouping of links extremely helpful.
Alternatively, Wirearchy is pointing to a tool called Onfolio that is plugged in directly to IE that looks very much like what you are interested in as well.
Thanks to wouter for the pointer to del.icio.us ... social bookmarking. Very neat. It has a personal rss feed so you can keep tabs on things even when you are offline. Its seems a little slow, but a great idea nonetheless.
I noticed that Mossberg in the WSJ reviewed Onfolio and was quite impressed. You can read the article here (Warning subscription required) or in this alternatate site ... no sub required.
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