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Address your corporate communication needs with workplace instant messaging

August 25th, 2006

Instant Messaging (IM) is becoming the communications medium of choice for many businesses today. You've likely used one IM application or another for personal means already, but your corporate needs are different and more complex. How do you organize your various groups of business contacts to make communicating with them as easy as possible? How do you create the veritable "paper trail" that's often essential in making many important decisions? By taking advantage of all the features your IM program has to offer, you'll be able to address each of these corporate communication needs in one fell swoop.

Note: For the purposes of this article, we'll assume that you've already set up your account with Windows Messenger (www.microsoft.com/windows/messenger).

Create and organize contacts for streamlined communication

With your Windows Messenger account up and running, you're ready to take advantage of one of the most timesaving and organized means of using IM progams in the business environment - creating and managing a contact list.

To start up Windows Messenger:

1. Click on the Windows Messenger icon in the notification area of the taskbar, or you can access it from the Start menu's All Programs submenu.

2. Click on the Click Here to Sign In link, select the .NET Messaging Service check box, and then click OK.

3. Enter your email address and password for your .NET Passport. Click OK.

To create your contact list:

1. Click on the Add A Contact link located along the bottom of the Windows Messenger window.

2. In the Add A Contact window, select the By E-mail

3. In the next window, type the full .NET Passport address for the contact name.  Click Next.

Note: The user must have a Passport account (for example, Hotmail or MSN) in order to communicate via Windows Messenger.

4. Click Next twice to add another contact. Repeat this for each business contact you want to add. When you're done, click Finish

With your contacts added, you can now see whether they're online.  You can also easily create groups in which to organize your contacts.

To create categories of contacts:

1. Choose Tools | Manage Groups | Add A Group.

2. Type the name of the group and then press [Enter].

3. Drag and drop contact names into the groups you've created for optimum organization and ease of use.

If you ever want to delete a contact from your list, simply choose Tools | Manage Contacts | Delete A Contact. Select the contact name, and then click OK.

Send and receive instant messages

Now that you've seen how easy it is to set up a contact list of all the business associates with whom you need to communicate, it's time to start a conversation. When a contact signs on to Windows Messenger (or MSN Messenger), their icon color changes from red to green, and (Online) appears next to their name. You can initiate a conversation with any online contact. Click on the Send An Instant Message link, click on the name of the online contact, and then click OK. The Conversation Window now appears.

Type your message in the lower pane and then click Send. As soon as you click Send, the Conversation window appears on the contact's screen. You can now chat back and forth in real time.

Save a conversation for later review

One of the perceived drawbacks of conducting business with instant messaging programs is that you can't create a trail of correspondence that you can return to and read anytime, as you can with email. And in a business environment, this can be a vital component of backtracking, should a problem occur with a project. But the instant messaging programs of today allow you to do exactly this, and with minimum effort.

To save a conversation

1. Choose Files | Save As

2. Browse to the location where you want to save the conversation. In the File Name text box, enter a name for the conversation. (By default, the conversation is saved as an RTF (rich text format) file.

3. Click Save.

The conversation is now saved as a file, which can then be opened by any word processing program or text editor.

Become the talk of the town

As you've seen in this article, communicating via instant messaging is a fast and efficient way to do business. Whether you decide to implement a consumer-based IM application or a full-featured enterprise IM solution, you'll find that the technology is exploding with options.

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