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Sametime and IM, business necessaity for some, IM a bother for others?


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From CIO Decisions today comes a story on Sametime in use to save lives and how one company banned it since they could not copy everyone on the team every IM message as the corporate policy stated.

But the IM experience is much different at IntelliCare Inc., a medical services company that considers instant messaging mission-critical. The Portland, Maine-based company's staff of nurses field medical questions and monitor patients through a nationwide network of call centers.

 If a nurse is monitoring weight for a patient with congestive heart failure through a scale hooked up to the telephone and has a nagging question, she can IM an expert colleague and get advice. If she is fielding a call from an anxious parent about a child's illness, she can bring a pediatric specialist in on the conversation in real time.


Now look at the flip side which sounds more like bad IT policies and management to me..
Then there was 5W's company directive that all the members of an account team be copied on every correspondence -- not possible when using IM, which frustrated account managers.


How about simply logging and then making the logs available for searching or sorting?  Makes much more sense than banning doesn't it?