3 ways to keep in touch online
Try these communication tricks to stay in touch and on top of things
If you're anything like me, life is constantly throwing you curveballs. For a long time, I felt like I was trying to connect up with friends and colleagues but missing them by mere minutes. I never knew who was online unless I was inside an instant messaging program, and I wasn't effectively communicating to others what my availability was, either. Plus, sharing documents and files was often a problem due to the large size of the items I needed to send and receive.
That's when I started poking around to see how technology could help me stay more in tune with people. In this article, I'll show you a few tricks that I've found for keeping in touch more effectively with friends, colleagues, and family: online status symbols, shared calendars, and online workspaces. Even when you're in different time zones and on completely opposite schedules, these three items can make it seem like you and your pals are right next door.
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Use online status symbols
I'm a huge fan of instant messaging. I can rattle off messages and get straight down to business, quickly and easily.
However, when I'm online, I'm usually working in other applications like Word or Outlook rather than watching my messaging program to see who's online. Here's a tip: You can add instant messaging addresses to your contacts in Microsoft Office Outlook 2007. When that contact sends you an e-mail—or when you place that contact in the To or Cc lines of an e-mail message—Outlook 2007 can show you whether or not the person is logged into the instant messaging system by displaying one of these symbols (available, busy, or offline):
. Then, if you want, you can send an instant message to an available contact directly from Outlook 2007.
To turn online status on in Outlook 2007, follow these steps:
1. | Click Tools. |
2. | Click Options. |
3. | Click the Other tab. |
4. | Select Display online status next to a person name under Person Names. |
Once that's done, and the next time the two of you are both logged on to a compatible instant messaging system (Microsoft Office Communicator, Windows Live Messenger, or Windows Messenger), you can right-click the person's name in Outlook and select Reply with Instant Message to start a chat.
You can send instant messages directly from Outlook 2007.
You can also send an instant message to someone directly from Microsoft Office Excel 2007 or Microsoft Office Word 2007. From within the document, click the Person Names Smart Tag, click Send Instant Message, then compose and send your message. To learn more about Smart Tags and how to use them, go here.
Share your calendar
Another way to stay in touch is to share your calendar. This option lets others see what you're doing, and they can schedule themselves right into your life without any exertion on your part. Essentially, what you're doing is publishing your calendar to the Internet (using a secure Microsoft site) and inviting others to use it. Here's how to do that:
1. | Open the Calendar in Outlook 2007. |
2. | Under My Calendars in the left pane, click Publish My Calendar.  You can easily publish your calendar online in Outlook 2007. |
3. | At the prompts, register to use the service. You only have to do this once. |
4. | Once registration is complete, the Publish Calendars to Microsoft Office Online dialog box will open. Specify the details for publishing your calendar.  Specify how you want your calendar published and who can view it. |
5. | Click OK. |
6. | When the upload is complete, send a sharing invitation at the prompt by addressing the message and adding your own personal note. |
7. | Click Send. |
Try online workspaces
A collaborative workplace lets you save, access, and share documents and files. Some workspaces are downloaded directly to your desktop, like Microsoft Office Groove 2007, and others, such as Microsoft Office Live Workspace, are located online so you can access them from anywhere.
I work on a lot of different projects, and recently started using Groove 2007 for one. I was reluctant to try it because I thought it would be complicated, but it turned out to be so simple that I am pestering other colleagues to set one up. It's not just for work, by the way—extended families can often benefit from this type of collaborative workspace, especially the discussion, calendar, and chat options. There are also quite a few other options available, such as the ability to display pictures, use drawing tools, report and manage issues, and much more.
The Groove launchbar, which shows you how many workspaces you have, notifies you of messages, and lets you invite others into your workspace.
The whole thing sets up in minutes, and now I just drag and drop files when they're ready for review. My colleagues and I communicate and collaborate with quick notes, and we've included others in larger discussions, too. The thing I like most is that I do all this from one place—my Groove workspace, shown below. I don't have to use multiple programs to get things done, which saves me time and aggravation. You can get a free Groove 2007 trial here.
A standard workspace in Groove. You can see who's online, enter discussions, participate in chats, manage meetings, place files into your workspace—and much more.
If you're using Microsoft Office, then you'll want to participate in the Office Live Workspace beta. It's sort of like an addition to Office that lets you access documents from a single online location, regardless of your physical location. Office Live Workspace works with programs that you already use (Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, etc.) and it's designed for anyone who needs a place to save and share documents.
Like Groove 2007, you can use it for pretty much anything—school, work, family activities, etc. Unlike Groove 2007, Office Live Workspace is totally free. You can pre-register for it now and help Microsoft test it before it rolls out officially in 2008.
In closing
As you can see, there are several ways to stay in touch with others using simple online tools. They've made my life a bit easier, and who knows, maybe they'll work for you, too.
 | S.E. Slack
S.E. Slack is a lifestyle and technology writer with more than 10 books to her credit. She co-authored Breakthrough Windows Vista and Office 2007 Solutions to help you easily use Windows Vista and Office 2007. |
