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Instant Messaging Mistakes

If your company is kind enough, or wise enough, to add Brosix to their repertoire of tools then please be sure to use it wisely. I asked a few weeks back for readers of this blog to submit their favorite instant messaging stories – and I went beyond that and asked users of different websites and my own friends.

A common strand emerged – avoid instant messaging the wrong person. One of my friends had IM’ed his then girlfriend complaining about her, needless to say she was not his girlfriend for very much longer. Several of my former political campaign coworkers shared stories of IM’ing the wrong person – including someone who IM’ed a reporter before realizing her mistake and someone who IM’ed their boss an explicit link.

So in other words – MAKE SURE YOU ARE MESSAGING THE RIGHT PERSON. If it is a common mistake among my friends and others I spoke with I am sure that it is a common mistake in general. After all you only have to click on the wrong name, not really pay attention, and click enter on a message which you can’t take back. The mistake also happens when people are juggling among different open messaging windows and that is a mistake I personally have made more than once.

Another mistake that was mentioned was a person being too casual with language and cursing. That is typically a corporate no-no, even via instant messaging.

As with everything the cautionary tale is to just be careful when using IM!

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