Perhaps five years ago, texting was mainly for teens. Now days, everyone texts. All ages for all reasons. I text with my mother, my sister, my wife, and my friends on all things from quick thoughts to photos.
But I never used to text for work. Something about it just felt wrong.
And then the last six months, I’ve started to get more work-related texts.
- Waiting for a standing weekly work meeting with my boss and he texted me “running 5 minutes late.”
- Then I noticed a few outside partners we are working on projects started texting me. Sometimes was a simple “running late” or “call me” but other times was a specific project task or question usually done over email.
- A few weeks back, we had a GovLoop team offsite where we discussed after-hour emergency communication. A large majority of the team preferred text as the 1st mode of communication instead of email or a phone call.
I think there are a couple factors affecting this. First, we all get so many emails that it’s easy for emails to get last. Second, the rise of Bring Your Own Device and newer model smartphones are pushing this any more as we are used to texting in our personal lives.
So I’m curious
Do you text at work? If so, with whom?
How do you use it? Questions? Notifications?
When do you use text versus email?
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(Attribution – Innovation Photo – Creative Commons – Flickr Dan Zen
We use texting, enterprise Instant Manager Lync, BlackBerry Messenger for any just-in-time conversations and transitory communication. It is a new technology for the work environment, still working out the shorthand/spelling opportunities and challenges. There may be some things you may not necessarily want to have in your work email – having life of its own; IM and texting give you a bit of a free hand. (Until, of course, the Freedom of Information requests start exploring that)
Interesting post, Steve! Just finished reading this article on Slate, from a tweet by Gadi Ben-Yehuda: Why Email Will Never Die.
And for the record, I do text my boss, but usually only when I’m doing webinars, and he’s not in the room but wants to know how many folks are on the line.
Monika – good point. Will be interesting on how FOI plays out w/ IM and texting