Instant Messaging is a very effective way to quickly gain access to key players and coworkers in your organization without clogging your email inbox.
Chances are that if your company uses Microsoft Outlook for email communications, you probably use Microsoft Lync for your Instant Messaging (IM) needs. If the latter is true or even if you use Lync on a personal level, here are some “power moves” that can enhance your Lync experience.
Power Move One: Unlimited Size File Sharing
In today’s world is very common to work with high resolution video, pictures or large documents. Your IT policy may not allow transferring files over 5MB through email and that could be a problem. Well, Lync has a nice fix for that. Simply start a chat with the person or persons you want to share the file with and attach the file to the ongoing chat. This would initiate a transfer process that requires users to accept the transfer but, it does not have a size limitation as you would encounter using email.
Power Move Two: Live Polls
You’ve been there; you are running a meeting, ask for feedback and all you get is dead air. Lync has an awesome poll feature to get you some feedback on the spot. You are more likely to get feedback because it’s anonymous. The best part is that everyone can see the results as they are tallied in.
Once you have completed the setup, you will be ready to open the poll to participants and see the results.
Power Move Three: Whiteboarding
If we traveled 20 years back, your meeting would be face-to-face, in a room and you would use flip charts to draw up concepts and ideas. Fast forward to today (thank God!) and use the Whiteboard on Lync!
This Lync feature allows you and participants to doodle or make collaborative scratch notes on a digital whiteboard. This could be helpful is you are describing concepts or sharing ideas that would be better received with visual aids.
The Lync whiteboard is ready to use allowing participation from everyone in its various modalities. Meeting participants can use free hand notations, draw with digital pens, share images and symbols, etc.
Summing it Up
Microsoft Lync is a popular IM tool use by many companies. After reading this post you should be ready to achieve Rockstar status among your peers at the office by sharing large size files (when nobody else thought it was possible), running live polls (to truly get some participation in those dreaded conference calls) and sharing a whiteboard (let's call this one virtual brainstorming).
