Using Office Live Workspace is starting to make me wonder if I can forego e-mail altogether. Well, maybe I won’t go that far, but I’m starting to wonder:  is e-mail now over-rated in the digital age?   

 When I’m working with a team of people on a project, each person has their own set of comments or feedback. Documents get sent by e-mail back and forth. Then I have to review each edit and either accept or reject the change. Sometimes there are multiple changes from multiple people and keeping tracking of each change can be difficult. My other problem is that there have been those times when I get the annoying messages that my mailbox is almost at its storage limit due to multiple large files. I then spend time sifting through my e-mail and trying to decide what to keep, what to permanently delete, and what to save. Wasn’t e-mail in the beginning supposed to increase productivity?  

Since I started using Office Live Workspace, I have found that these small, everyday challenges have started to slowly disappear. By having everyone share one working version that’s kept in one place, I don’t have multiple versions, multiple changes, and I don’t become victim of losing track of which version I am working on.  I also haven’t had a “mailbox over the size limit” message in several months since I don’t have as many e-mail attachments! I’m using my workspace in so many different ways now that I don’t know how I got along without it before. J

I guess the last question is: What do I use it for? Obviously I use it at work to coordinate feedback from stakeholders both within the workspace team and outside vendors on projects that I manage. Outside of work though, I run our neighborhood “community spirit committee” and plan and manage all of the events. There are many things that require help and input from other people, and by storing all of the event related documents, each member of the committee has access and can make updates at any time from any location.  At home, we use it to track our monthly budget and of course I have my “honey do” list for my husband. One of my neighbors that I introduced to Workspace is now using it to track the snack schedule of her son’s little league team. As with all new things, it has taken some training and reminding of people that I work with – but now that they have gotten used to the concept of an online shared workspace, all of us stay much more up to date and can focus on other things.

Several people have shared their stories of how they use Workspace in the community, and I wanted you to see how a couple used it to plan a wedding and a move to London. And then there’s the story of how a small business called Mind Dragon has been using it throughout the company to keep everyone on the same page.

After all this talk of sharing a workspace and working with others online, if you need a quick tip on how you can start sharing – here’s a quick how-to video that we created that will show you exactly how to share an individual document or how to share a workspace.

Get started today with your own workspace or log in to your workspace to start working with others on your family projects, fun trips, or “honey do” lists. Happy sharing!

Nicole Richard, Marketing Manager