Microsoft Live Messenger is an application environment where you have the ability to do instant messages or ‘chat’, share files with another person or team, participate in live phone and video calls.
Many organizations are using messenger type application to help increase communication, not only with their own organizations, but within their external client base.
We recently upgraded to the latest version, and spent a bit of time ‘playing’ with the various new features to try to uncover what benefits, risks and rewards would be uncovered in using this type of application.
New features and how they work
SWL – Microsoft’s latest Instant Messenger program has several new features that we are finding useful, especially the ability to Share Folders.
In a small organization, that is as virtual and distributed as ours, the problems associated with secure document management can be formidable. The best solutions are generally only designed for large enterprise organizations and too expensive or cumbersome for us to consider at this time.
There are several Hosted Services that we use for larger projects (i.e. www.eRoom.net ) that provide extensive document and schedule synchronization between our consultants and the client resources. Generally, they are too expensive to manage and maintain for our smaller projects, or for regular day-to-day communications between the various Fox Group team members.
When we upgraded our systems and started using Windows Live Messenger, the “Sharing Folders” feature stood out as one we needed to try.
Because IM works Peer-to-Peer the act of ‘Sharing’ folders and files means that they are duplicated on both PCs, and only on the two PCs that have set up the ‘Share’.
You set up the ‘Share’ by right clicking on the contact and selecting ‘Create a Sharing Folder’ or just drag a file onto the contact icon and the system will ask if you want to set up a Share.
This involves the person you want to share files with accepting the systems automatic invitation. Once the ‘Share’ is set up you just drag and drop files onto it and the system will automatically synchronize both PCs to keep them up to date. The system also notifies the other party when you have made a change in the ‘Share’.
The synchronization process, even for large files, works very quickly. If one or both of you are ‘off line’ then the system will synchronize as soon as connectivity is established. Obviously, this all works much better if you routinely connect to the Internet via high speed or are on the same LAN/WAN.
Benefits of using Live Messenger
Many of us have been using IM (Instant Messenger) for awhile to allow us to communicate in real time between each other or with our clients, whether we are in our distributed home offices or at client sites.
We find that using the IM applications has had some interesting and perhaps unexpected benefits including:
Ability to transfer information easily and securely been each other real time.
Ability to quickly have a teleconference or video conference using only the high speed Internet access.
Have casual ‘water-cooler type chats’ or get feedback, opinions, and support while participating on conference calls, similar to if you were working side by side with the person.
The ‘real time’ nature of being able to communicate even though distributed has enables the team members to bring up issues or concerns with us as senior leaders, get opinions and feedback from us, and be able to resolve an item before it develops into a major problem.
There is a risk that the service may be down from time to time, or you will not have access to high speed internet needed to use the service. The level of risk is manageable, because of the built in multi-computer redundancy for your shared files, and you could always update each other the slow old fashioned way…. with email attachments.
Another concern will be from a company network security perspective. The easy peer-to-peer direct file transfers bypass the corporate network file and email servers with their Anti-Virus protection, and assorted other ‘Security’ programs.
Just one more loss of control for the controllers, along with Skype type Peer-to-Peer Telephony, and maverick Wireless Hotspots to worry about!
Being a free (sort of) service, we wouldn’t recommend you put yourself in the position of depending on it 24/7, but it’s been quite reliable so far.
RJF – This type of easily accessible application enables small distributed organizations to share information quickly and easily. It also means that companies can share information with their customers or suppliers without having to set up VPNs, modify firewalls or opening up their corporate networks.
From our testing and analysis, this is the first real ‘business-beneficial’ application that drives the need for multi-media-enable PCs with the appropriate hardware and software available to use the voice and video applications. It will also drive the need for better synchronization of files and archiving information from local PCs to central corporate server storage.
SWL – The benefits and true risks only reveal themselves when you are working with this technology on a day-to-day basis, but we believe the benefits are substantial and worth considering for virtual, distributed teams.
Roberta Fox is the president of Fox Group. Stephen W. Lawson contributed to this article.
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