I've been using IM since the early days of ICQ. It was a lot cheaper for a poor college student to chat online with their college friends during breaks than it was to call long distance. We still talk once in a while using AIM.
There are so many good things that you can do with IM. I like the idea of a virtual reference desk. Or how about live chat troubleshooting for your computer (if you still have another computer to get to the Internet)? You don't have to juggle the phone and the keyboard. You can chat up a person sitting in a lab four buildings away from their desk and pick their brains for answers to your questions or problems.
There are also bad things you can do with IM. The fact that it isn't secure against hacking and viruses irritates me. Also, I worked for a boss a few years back that used the IM program as a spy tool. If you weren't logged on to it, that boss assumed you were not at work. It also takes a degree of anonymity on the Internet.
As for webinars, if they are well done, they are an excellent tool for information distribution. With $4 a gallon gasoline, who wants to run to the Twin Cities for a two-hour training session that's all done in Powerpoint anyway? I did not attend one of the Minitex or OPAL webinars today, but I've done other webinars in the past so I'm familiar with how they work.
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