There are many options in the landscape today for Intant Messaging clients.  Ranging from traditional options such as AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, to more contemporary applications such as Skype and Microsoft Office Communicator, there are many choices for instant internet-based communication.

Here at NSI Partners we have decided to use one of several popular IM aggregation programs called Trillian. This class of application is designed to link to multiple accounts or profiles with one or more popular services, including all those listed above (AIM, Yahoo, Live/MSN).  New versions of the Trillian application can even link to Facebook, MySpace, and a host of other social network/chat services.  There are, of course, some disadvantages to activating multiple IM/social network clients with an active application such as Trillian.  For one, simply wading through the potentially giant list of contacts and updates, as well as managing “presence” or “status” for each of the various services can become tedious quickly.  If I am using one of these network profiles, such as AOL, to communicate with all my co-workers, I run the risk of getting distracted by friends, family, or other contacts from one or more of the other services depending on my presence/status/availability.  Programs such as Trillian do a decent job of making the management of my status with various services somewhat streamlined with its user interface.  But at some point, I only want to stay logged in with one service – the one I use to talk to co-workers.

There are advantages to using a single, dedicated platform that is singular in its profile/account focus but provides other features not available with programs such as Trillian.  For example, Microsoft’s Office Communicator, though not as pretty or “new web” friendly as many other clients, is great at doing what it is designed to do — connecting staff in a company who are in one or more physical locations with a chat client.  This particular chat client can do other things as well that integrate with other Microsoft technologies, which offers businesses some features not available with other IM clients.  For example, “presence indicators” in the IM client can also pull information from the organizations’ Exchange server (assuming they have one), and provide Calendar information about staff.  So rather than just being listed as “Away”, I might show up as “In Meeting — Next Free in 1 hour”, based on what information I choose to share.  From inside Communicator I can also right-click on another user and initiate a voice or video chat, or a Live Meeting session, if my organization uses that software for collaboration.

The client or application that will work best is the one that meets all our instant-communication needs, both internally among the staff, as well as outward-facing to clients, partners, vendors, etc.  This is one area of application development that has dozens of options which are always changing, so it can pay to review the options from time to time.  In the end, though, as long as I can send an instant text message to a co-worker who is located several miles or states or countries away from me, and we can engage in quick conversation, I am a happy worker

But all of that involves money and training, and we’re still coming down the various learning curves. Want a really simple solution to improve things when you get too many emails and voicemails? Jessica has helped me out with my overloaded inboxes for a couple years now, mostly by sorting things into various folders and drafting responses for my review. But lately, she’s started to file all the emails and voicemails and send me a single digest that contains a Punch List of everything I need to do. She includes where the original communication is filed if I need to see it, but most of the time I don’t.

It’s simple, but brilliant. It’s really cut down on the time wasted going through overburdened folders and trying to reorganize, search and re-sort. Wish I had thought of it years ago. The big technology improvements are important and necessary, but it’s great to find a low-cost time-saver every once in a while!