Recently my wife and I became “empty nesters” and I have been reflecting on some of the neat things my kids brought into our home besides the high volume and constant activity. A couple of things that our youth forced into our homes were MP3′s, iTunes, the social media craze, and phone texting. With some reluctance I accepted these and now many years later I gladly embrace them. My wife connects with my sons overseas through FaceBook regularly, we have our iPod piped into our sound system in the family room and I text daily with my daughter. I knew if I wanted to speak to my children I had better figure out texting. I never thought I would conquer the use of these tiny buttons though. I knew I would actually benefit from texting if I could put up with the trial and error. Eventually it began to get easier and now it has become common place. Now the benefits are obvious from a personal perspective, but what about texting in a business environment? When is it right for business, to text, email, and chat for inter-office communications?

Texting, email and chatting have become common place at our offices. I am seriously pondering the use or restrictions of these communications in my office. I not only have reservations about these communications but my initial deposition was very negative. I think for some, it has began to affect productivity. I now need to evaluate how to communicate with staff and keep them from abusing this privilege. Email has become a huge weight on my shoulders, so I don’t want every communication done through email. Texting is great when I am away from the office but not preferred while in the office. I like how we implemented better office communications in Office Tools Professional. We liked internet chat options, but we weren’t satisfied with many of the basic features. We wanted to have historical data and no internet traffic. Nothing existed on the market so our engineers developed an office messenger. It allows myself and staff interaction without opening another chat system that uses the internet. This way we can cut out unnecessary personal chatting and still have a connection inside the office. It also provides a secure way to communicate. No private messages leave our offices. If I am on the phone…beep… I get a message from the receptionist. Someone has a quick question…beep….they get my attention immediately and don’t have to get up from their desk.

Here are some guidelines when using interoffice chat.

• Don’t allow outside messengers like AOL, Yahoo etc.
• If restricting these is a problem use a firewall to block them
• Pick an inter office messenger that keeps history
• Use email for client interaction not staff when possible
• Use phone texting for key staff out of the office for immediate attention
• Be sure to review your office policies regarding chatting, texting and interoffice communication to improve efficiencies and productivity.