Grounding constraints and using Skype's instant messenger in open office

I work in a company where we have an open office with almost 15 people in it. We used to talked all our work related things to each other from over where we sit, but that was easier when there were fever people in the office. Now the communication can get noisy if everyone talks to one or other over their place. To reduce conversation noices in open office, as one reason, we started using Skype's instant messaging. Many of us also listen to music while working and it's sometimes easier to get attention with Skype than by shouting to others from where you sit. We chose Skype's instant messenger mainly because it saves the posting history and that's good especially for those who work part time.

Some of Clark's and Brennan's constraints for grounding, that are presented in Monks paper [1], fit in our situation at work. Here I'm going to view more which grounding constraints and how do them appear in our communication situations at work while using Skype's instant messenger in an open office.

Reviewability is definetely one good aspect of Skype's instant messenger. It saves the message history and it is easier for those who work part time to keep on track about spoken topics. When the conversations aren't too long, reviewing is easier.

Revising the text is also possible. In instant messaging written text is usually quite short and in our situation conversations consists of short questions, answers and comments. It's still good that it's possible to check what you have written in a hurry.

As we work in an open office I think that copresence fits in our situation too. We share the same physical environment and we can see at least who is present in that environment. It's also possible to see if someone is for example talking on a phone and that way we know that answering in chat might take a while. What we can't know is that what's happening on others computer screen and if we use chat with someone who's in a meeting for example, we loose the copresence. Things that also weaken the copresence in my opinion are music listening (ear plugs on) and obstacles in the office like computer screen.

Visibility fits in our situation at work when I see a reaction of my co-worker who sits near me. But that is only when I know that the reaction is about the chat message and not about something else happening on his/her computer screen. If we all concentrate to our own screen, we have no visibility in the communication situation.

Because we use only text based instant messaging, there is no audibility in our communication. Yes, that's how it usually is while chatting, but many times we point out things from the chat discussion by speaking. For instance if nobody has answered to a question, I can ask it out loud. And if I send a document over chat, I can call out that "hey, I put the document to Skype" etc.

Clark and Brennan state that simultaneity isn't possible in other than face-to-face conversations. That's true in our situation too if we think of instant messaging. If someone sends a message in the chat, it takes I while to read it and internalize what the message is about. Contemporality falls in the same gategory in our situation, I think.

Instant messaging has problems in sequentiality section. Usually we send messages about same things, but sometimes there can be many ongoing topics in one chat. We usually try to add ones name in front of the comment to whom we answer. If I answer to some old comment I usually copy the comment to my message and answer after it. That way everyone (should) know what I'm talking about.

Skype doesn't replace our daily meetings and of course there are situations when someone asks or informs something by 'shouting' from his/her work station. Also there are lots of normal face-to-face conversations, I don't think working would be very fluent without them. So no, we don't have a quiet office even though we use Skype's instant messenger :). And that's good because even though it's easy to just sit down in one place and not go to and fro asking questions, I still prefer face-to-face conversations when I really need to sort something out.

References:
[1]Monk, A. (2009) Common ground in electronically mediated conversation. Synthesis Lectures on Human-Centered Informatics #1. Morgan & Claypool publishers. Available via Tamcat: link