You're all on e-mail but when you send out working documents, everyone comments to everyone, someone doesn't get the attachments, someone's server is down, someone else didn't get the e-mail or actually got it but thinks there is more. Conference calls are getting really expensive and are basically very inefficient. Are you going to be reduced to faxing everything?
Fortunately Francine is a member of a new on-line service called Suite 101. She tells you to go look at an article by some guy who writes about small business. He gives you links at Changepoint , Hot Office , and Netscape allowing you to set up your own virtual office. But to sign up with these services is going to cost you and everyone has to spend time learning how to use the system.
Instead, you go with the recommendation in the article which tells you to set up your own virtual office. You just set up some new, password-protected directories on your web site, for example one for each team member, one common one and one without a password for general stuff. Then you get WS_FTP here if you don't already have it. This is a tiny, older program which handles file transfers to internet servers extremely well and is easy to use. Now you're all set.
You use WS FTP to up-load the contract and project documentation into the common directory. You and all the other team members up-load their stuff into their directories and keep it up to date. Everyone downloads the material they need when they need it. It's like sharing files on an office network.
One particular customer file contains sensitive material. Since this virtual office network is not secure, you encode the file before up-loading it. You can get any desired level of security this way.
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