Comments on: Gartner’s Government Hype Cycle

By: Che Tibby

Che Tibby — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 21:25:10 +0000

i agree, but trying to convince a senior manager who’s edgy about blogs to adopt something that is easily depicted as a time-waster is difficult at best.

By: Jason Ryan

Jason Ryan — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 06:43:50 +0000

Mmm, nice comeback – but I'm not buying it. Advantages of IM over the phone:

you can see if they are available and keen to chat
you can send links and other (small) files
you can cut & paste text
you can do other stuff mid-chat...

By: Che Tibby

Che Tibby — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 22:43:52 +0000

i tried floating the IM idea here. Someone said, “if it’s for informal chat to free you from email, why not just phone them?”.

i had no reply.

By: Jason Ryan

Jason Ryan — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 20:31:37 +0000

Look at email - count the number of emails you receive in the day, sort the substantial stuff from “the rest” and I bet you’ll have less than 2% of the total. IM is the same only faster.

Exactly: faster, and opt in. I can decide not to accept a chat, or if I do accept, I can bail and burn it once I am done: instant and disposable…

As for documenting unwritten thought processes, I pity the person that requests full disclosure of the stuff I think about during the average working day: sort of like Kafka on Xanax.

By: Mark

Mark — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 07:24:14 +0000

Also, regards the OIA, you can also be asked to document conversations that have never been written down in order to respond, or even the unwritten thought processes that went into a decision.

By: Mark

Mark — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 07:22:43 +0000

When I think of all the absolute rubbish that has gone over the various IM channels I’ve been a part of (going back to IRC and even earlier to bulletin boards [hardly instant]), versus the matters of actual substance that have occurred on said channels - rubbish wins hands down. In the business environment, it comes down to interruptions. As you know, Jason, we used IM witin the team and the wider unit, but it was mainly for subversive counter-comment when some managerial type would brush past pontificating. V. satisfying but counter-productive, really. If the technology is there, it will be mis-used. Look at email - count the number of emails you receive in the day, sort the substantial stuff from “the rest” and I bet you’ll have less than 2% of the total. IM is the same only faster.

By: Jason Ryan

Jason Ryan — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 01:10:29 +0000

Your point is a good one Andrew. What I was angling at was the selective use of IM to deal to most of the mundane, process oriented communications that take up an enormous amount of our time. If the conversation takes a more interesting turn, you always have the option of saving it to the corporate record (as you would an email).

The difference is that you eliminate the need to manage a whole class of your comms (all the cruft, essentialy)- close the window and it is gone.

As for OIA requests, this sort of information should always be discoverable, irrespective of the channel. You can be asked to hand across handwritten notes…

By: Andrew

Andrew — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 00:10:03 +0000

Just a quick fly-by comment without having read all of the post in depth, but…. one problem I can forsee with wider use of IM within government is the informality of communication being even greater than email. When you consider the trouble that informally expressed emails can cause government when an OIA request is received, can you imagine what’ll happen when people OIA your IM chat history? (can we say ‘Lying in Unison’?)

By: SoSaidThe.Organization

SoSaidThe.Organization — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 23:38:45 +0000

[...] Network of Public Sector Communicators notes that, in the most recent version of the Gartner Hype Cycle for Government (released last [...]