3 File Sharing Methods For Your Business

I’ve been in the web design, graphic design and social media business for quite a while and I come across many clients that insist on meeting up just to hand me a DVD of their data. It’s fine if you are nearby or just happen to be on the way but it’s DEFINITELY not the way to go about when a journey to the client’s place and back takes 2 hours, not counting the amount of time wasted if you had to wait for the person in charge.

E-mail!!! Use it!!!

It’s quite funny how some clients insist on meeting up despite being active E-mail users. And what do they pass to me on the CD? A few word documents, and some pictures. WTH right?

E-mail is the most convenient way to share files. It was a bit difficult in the past when Internet connection speeds slow compared to today’s standards.

Attaching files to E-mail is way faster than burning to a disc, plus it doesn’t waste resources. All one needs to do is write a new mail, add attachments and click SEND. Takes only a few minutes, depending on your file size and upload speed. In my experience, it’s still faster than popping the disc into the system and waiting for burn to complete and after that, wait for someone to collect it.

Cloud Storage

My favorite way for file sharing these days, is via cloud storage services. My favorite provider is DropBox. Other notable providers are Google Drive and Box, of which I also have accounts at. Even brands like Asus also provide web storage services. 😀 I head that SugarSync is good but unfortunately it’s only free for 30 days.

Cloud services as such make it so convenient, no longer do I need to FTP the files to my server and distribute the download links. 😀

For Dropbox users, all they have to do is create a folder under the Dropbox folder and let the software synchronize it with the storage space. From there, just share the folder either from file explorer or from Dropbox website. The recipient receives the invitation to use the folder and that’s it, file transferred via synchronization on their side!

This is great if you have a lot of content to share. For example, I recently shared 6 folders that contained 79 images totalling 672MB in size to a client. I didn’t even have to hand-deliver the DVD as this was an urgent job. I just shared it on Dropbox and SMS the person in charge that it’s shared, and I went to sleep. 🙂

The great thing about this is that you can share the content with groups of people, so this works great if you think Joe the Designer, Moe the Programmer and Loe the Event Coordinator all require the latest photos for your upcoming collection.

OK so now you say you don’t have good Internet connection, and you don’t have a notebook to use Free WiFi networks at the local cafe. Fine – COURIER it!

Courier

No, not the font. Courier is a great choice actually, it still involves burning of content BUT at least you need not drag someone to cross town just to pick that up. Service providers are often busy people as well, having other work to attend to – sparing 3 hours to brave the traffic isn’t a favored option.

Courier fees aren’t expensive, best part is you skip the part about negotiating the best time to meet. All you need is an address and have it sent.

Conclusion

If none of the above doesn’t work for you – I think you need to re-examine your business’ information sharing structure. 🙁

In business, we should always look at efficiency when it comes to time and cost. By utilizing technology, you not only spare your time and cost (eg DVD and other writable media are costs), you also make life easier on your service provider, this means they can receive your contents faster and instead of spending time travelling to meet you, they could use the time to work on what you have commissioned them for.