Yesterday I spent probably 30mins thinking about the best way of putting really useful text into the displayed message of my availability for corporate IM. No point being funny! You then have to change it regularly, or it loses its impact. Must have information content – “I am in the office” is hardly breath-taking news. Should be useful and give direction of what the best way of communicating with me might be.
We now have presence awareness related to our corporate eMail system and this applies to our Contact (Buddy) Lists as well, so I can see what all my colleagues are up to, and they me! So Presence Awareness Messages such as … “I am busy so please eMail me” are informative and give an indication of how best I would like someone to contact me. “I’m away from my desk at the moment, why don’t you tweet me” – (apart from confusing 95% of my colleagues) would also be appropriate advice -if only I could persuade them to use Tweet as a message sent that way can be relayed on to my mobile via SMS without me having to give out that number. Finally “I’m available to chat” is the virtual “open door policy” that is much advocated for managers – I can still quickly respond, “just a moment”, or “give us a call”, or “meet me in the tea room in 2”.