CRA Inc

15 Jul 03 @ 2:47 pm

Blogs in the Workplace

The New York Times‘ recent Blogs in the Workplace discusses blogs as an alternative to email, instant messaging, etc.:

For several years Mr. Tang viewed this daily surge of e-mail messages as an unpleasant but necessary part of his job managing a team of eight engineers. Then, a few months ago, he began using an alternative to e-mail, a Web log.

[…]

At Community Connect, Mr. Tang’s engineers use a service called LiveJournal to post updates about tasks like fixing server computers or configuring software. Hitting the upload button sends the text to a private site, viewable by the authors and their managers, including the date and time of the postings and, often, links to relevant Web pages.

“When I want to know something I check the Web log,” Mr. Tang said. “It saves me the trouble of e-mailing people or yelling across the room to get a status update.”

[…]

“People are starting to use Web logs to archive data that would have otherwise been lost,” Mr. Tang said. He noted that much of the company’s internal communications had been via instant messaging — and was lost as soon as the correspondents closed their chat windows. Now, though, employees are starting to post transcripts of relevant discussions on the Web logs, he said.

posted in category(s): Tools in Practice