I've been telling PR types and others for more than two years where they can find me on various instant messaging networks and I'm surprised that the response has been so underwhelming. I almost never hear from someone via IM who's trying to reach me in a professional capacity, i.e. to wonder if want a press release, a phone call, or some information about their company. And yet, many PR types think nothing of interrupting me with a phone call. I would much rather deal with an IM message than a phone call, if for no other reason than I can archive my IM conversations and they can be searched easily later.
For the PR folks, I would think IM would be particularly helpful because I try to let people know, via my status message if I'm online, on the phone, or whatever.
My IM nicks (and all my other contact info, for that matter) is always correct at davidakin.com . I prefer Yahoo's IM service. My nick there is davidakin2372 but a lot of folks are on MSN Messenger and there, you'll find me by typing in dakin@ctv.ca. Just a few minutes ago, I finally took out .mac account and am running iChatAV on my Macs (no camera just yet is hooked up). On iChat, I'm to be found at jdavidakin .