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Do you use your company name as part of your display name?
- Figure: Display your company name
Using your company name as part of your Display Name has the double advantage or firstly branding,
and secondly, indicating to other parties that your IM account is for work purposes.
And be aware that MSN Messenger doesn't allow you to rename the
account... So use your full name. I say this because if you just
use "Peter", then I can't distinguish you from the 3 other Peters I
have. If you are unable to change your display name, validate your email.
Note: One of the common questions is "Where are you?"
You can avoid this by putting the square brackets where you currently are
eg. [SSW] or [Cisco Melbourne]
The other common question is "What are you doing?"
You can
also avoid this by putting the product name you are currently
working on eg. "SSW Exchange Reporter" in the personal message section of your
MSN name. This can be easily changed, without having to go into your options,
at the top of the MSN display.
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Do you use your personal message to share good news with your contacts?
Your personal message can be used to promote good news stories of recent work you have done. And if you have your
clients
as Instant Messenger contacts, what better group of people to share good news with.
Your personal message should be simple, to the point, and make sure you change it at least once a month!
- Figure: Use your Personal Message to share good news
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Do you minimise MSN Messenger distractions?
Dealing with distractions is a
fundamental rule to a successful project. MSN Messenger is a
great way to get distracted. Following these options helps you
to minimise Messenger distractions:
- Set your status to Busy - people will think twice before messaging you
- Don't display an alert when a contact comes online
- Don't play a sound when you receive an email. Remember - you
do need a sound when you receive an IM in case you're not
looking at your PC when it arrives...
- Figure: Minimise the Alerts you receive
If you run Outlook
to manage email you should also
minimise Outlook distactions
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Do you put Offline contacts in a separate category?
If a contact is not signed in, you don't need to see them. Otherwise, they become a
distraction.
- Figure: Show Offline contacts in a separate category
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Do you send unnecessary messages?
Sending an unnecessary Instant Message
is a distraction to the person you sent it to. Follow the
5 word rule; if your message
is less than 5 words, e.g. "Great work!" or "Thanks!", it's probably not required.
Exceptions to this rule, of course, is when acknowledgement of the IM is required.
We use IM in the office to notify that "John from F1 is on line 1." If the
respondant doesn't say "OK" promptly we have to get up and go find them so John
isn't left hanging on the line...
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Do you confirm important chats by email?
During the course of a chat a Client or manager may suggest a course
of action or a piece of work that they would like completed. It's
highly important that such chats are copied from the chat screen,
pasted into an email, and sent to the client or manager with a note:
"Confirming our IM chat this morning <snip from Chat>", and CC'ing
anyone else who is relevant.
Note to snip the relavent information only, especially when sending the conversation to everyone.
Having an email record is much more reliable than going through chat
logs when it comes to going through a project debrief.
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Do you know that IM interrupts? If you don't need it now, email it.
When somebody sends you an email, they are not in fact
interrupting you at all. You have made the decision to read your
emails, so email is in actual fact far more polite than IM which
is a complete nuisance.
IM is only to be used if they would like you to do something
NOW.
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Do you keep history of your IM conversations?
IM conversations often can be as if not more important than emails, because they are usually only
used for high priority issues or issues that need to be resolved now. Therefore it is very
important to keep history of all your IM conversations. They can often be used as a reference
point, or as a digital log of all the important issues that have been discussed. Infact, you
can be guaranteed that you will want to revisit something you have discussed before with
other employees.
The only exception to this rule of course is when youre using a public computer, in which
case privacy and security issues arise by keeping IM history on that computer.
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Do you investigate your question for two minutes before asking someone on IM?
When asking a question using IM, always start your conversation with "I have already investigated this problem for 2 minutes....".
IM can interrupt a person when they are busy, so make sure that you are well prepared and have tried to find the solution another way first.
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Are you guys noticing receive message form stranger
a few times every day?
Are you guys noticing this a few times every day like below?
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Figure: The message not from who is in you allow list
Click OK, and it is spam.
Just click: [x] Only people on my Allow List......
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Figure: Set only people on your allow list can send message to you.
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Do you send a confirmation message in IM to someone before you try calling them?
Always try to ping someone on IM first with "can I call you now?" , because they might be with a client, or in a session.
Do you set your display picture using a good photographic image of yourself?
Please set your MSN display pictures to use a photographic image of yourself. Avoid using built-in MSN Display picture.
As a guideline your display picture will be:
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Good
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Bad
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Personal
not default images that comes with Live Messenger or Windows
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Showing entire face
ideally, it shows head and top of shoulders close up. Not too far away.
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Recognisable
your face must not be obstructed with other objects or excessive head cover (e.g. ski mask)
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High quality images
not blurred, pixelated, washed out or over-exposed images
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An actual photo of yourself
not a cartoon, objects or family member(s)
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Do you make your phone number easy visible?
We use Instant messenger at SSW and it simplifies our communication a lot.
What we found very useful was:
- Searching in Live messenger for the name
- Getting there the phone number
- Possibility to contact the person on IM before calling them
Make sure you add the phone number to your IM description, it’s easy for people to directly call you!
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- Figure: To contact this people via phone I have to ask them for the number
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- Figure: Good example of showing phone number to quick solve issues
Note: Before you make phone calls,
see our Do you prepare, then confirm conversations/decisions?