Windows Live Messenger — Collaboration tools unleashed
Adam Calvery, VP, Appraisal Products, a la mode , inc.
All right. Listen up folks. Windows Live Messenger is the best communication and collaboration tool to come along...ever. And it's not just for the kiddies either.
For many, the term Instant Messenger, or IM, invokes images of teenagers chatting about who's going to the sock hop this weekend, or multi–tasking college students talking about where the party du jour is happening while attempting to cram for chemistry mid–terms. Personally, I knew Live Messenger was the real deal when my grandmother sent me an Instant Message along with pictures from her 97th birthday. Did I mention it's not just for the kiddies?
Live Messenger is part of a larger "Live" initiative Microsoft is pushing, such as Live Local, Live OneCare, Live Toolbar and other Live applications. But for this article I'm going to stick to Live Messenger and its collaborative power specifically as it relates to appraisers.
So what is Live Messenger, and why should you care? Live Messenger (LM) is a program for chatting via your keyboard, via video with a web cam, making Internet phone calls, transferring files, sharing single files, and sharing lots of files at once. In short, it's perfect for collaboration. For these reasons, it can be just as important to your daily workflow as e–mail and cell phones. It makes communication and collaborating with peers, remote co–workers, and even clients instant, much easier, and with a webcam can even be face to face.
Chat
Live Messenger lets you easily create contacts to communicate with others using it. Once you have a contact in your list, just double click on them in the LM window and type them a quick message. This is the most basic way of communication and collaboration that LM offers. Whether you have other appraisers in your office or appraisers working remotely from their home, rather than picking up the phone or shouting across the office, sending them an Instant Message (IM in Internet speak) asking "Where are you at on the 123 Main Street report? I've got the client on the phone asking about it" is, well, instant. If they're online and signed into LM, their icon is green. If they're not signed in their icon is grey. And if they're away but their cell phone has LM you can send type them a message they get as a text message. It's dirt simple and very useful.
Video chat
Webcams cost less than $100 and are nearly plug and play. Plug it in to a USB port on your computer or monitor, install the software from the accompanying CD, plug in the microphone and you're now video enabled. The technology has come along so far that you don't need a Masters in Computer Science to set one up anymore. As we all know, there's nothing like a face to face communication to get your point across. Video chat lets you talk face to face with another LM user with a webcam FOR FREE, whether they're in the next room (how lazy can we be?), across town, or in Tokyo. If you're not the fastest typist or have a complex appraisal question best handled face to face, you can't beat video chat. But when it comes to collaboration, we're just getting warmed up.
File transfers
Live Messenger makes attaching files to e–mail seem like archaic technology. Have a PDF, contract, Internet link, Word doc or image you need to get to someone in your LM contacts list? Double click on their contact entry, and where you'd normally type, just drag the file into that area and drop it. They get asked to accept the file, and once they do it's added to their My Documents/My Received Files folder. Once the transfer is complete, they can just double click on it to open it up for viewing. It's child's play.
Sharing Folders
This is one of the best collaborative tools in Live Messenger. Sharing Folders is a unique folder shared by you and one of your contacts. Each of your contacts has their own Sharing Folder on your hard drive, and any files added to the Sharing Folder are synchronized in real time. So, if you need to send a fellow appraiser 20 photos you took out in the field, several .ZAP files you've got for them to review or anything else, just right click on the contact in your Live Messenger window and choose "Open Your Sharing Folder." Then drag and drop files into the folder or click the Add button at the top. Not only are these files synchronized in real time, but it's firewall and anti–virus program friendly.
Remote Assistance
In this day and age when so much of our work is done on a computer, it's really handy to be able to look at someone else's screen at the same time they're looking at it to offer comments, assistance or reviews. Obviously that's impossible when you're not physically in the same place. Remote Assistance solves that problem. Right click a contact in Live Messenger and choose "Start an activity." Then choose either "Request remote assistance" or "Offer remote assistance." This lets you share the screen with your contact in real time. This is a fantastic tool for appraisers with trainees or for peers because you can type on their screen, pull up web pages, work in WinTOTAL or anything else, right on their computer. You can save a lot of time because you cut out the back and forth nature of sending files for review or having to type up an e–mail explaining what you're looking at or trying to do. It's a fantastic tool, and again, it's firewall friendly.
It's amazing at how far technology has come in 10 years. Think about it. Ten years ago sending a PDF to a client wasn't even a thought. Digital cameras were relatively new, e–mail was just coming into prevalence, cell phones were clunky, and the jury was still out on whether or not the Internet could be a viable business tool. Now, the Internet is a two–way means of communication and is an indispenable interactive medium. E–mail is on its way out, digital cameras are cheap and fit in your pocket comfortably and you can browse the Internet from your local coffee shop. We're mobile, and technology is much easier to leverage to help you save time, communicate on the go, and collaborate in real time from disparate locations.
My conviction that Live Messenger is powerful, useful and "for real" is bolstered by several appraisers I know that use it daily right now as an integral part of their day to day operations. One I talk with often works in a three–man shop based in Rhode Island. Bill Furney of A–Tech Appraisals works in real time with his fellow appraisers using video chat, transferring files and regular chat to stay in sync all day long. My point being that it's a real tool used by real appraisers to make them more efficient on a daily basis.
To get Live Messenger, click here. Being a "software guy" in today's world of instant information overload, finding a handful of places for information on software, emerging technologies and industry news is vital. I know it's the same for appraisers. I highly recommend visiting Paul Thurott's Supersite for Windows from time to time when it comes to getting a good overview on all things Microsoft.
As we move forward with WinTOTAL and XSites, the need for greater built–in collaborative tools is obvious, and we'll be using the a la mode labs to explore ideas for collaboration. I'd love to hear how you envision collaborative tools in our products, and what you'd use them for.
