Most of us still use email to send each other files, but it isn't always the best choice; particularly when the file is very large. Be sure to consider these alternatives to email when they suit your needs.

Sending a personal file to one person:
If the person is in one of your Sametime communities, consider using Sametime's file transfer capability instead of email so that the file is never stored permanently and you get instant confirmation that the file was received. If they aren't on Sametime, use one of the methods below (and give them my name so I can sell them Sametime).

To share a file and make it discoverable to other internal users for their use:
Publish the files to Connections Files to make them part of your internal social network. Using this service provides the added benefit of being able to restrict file privileges, organize your files into collections, link them to your profile, tag them with keywords to make them discoverable, and see how many times files have been downloaded. It also let's others recommend or comment on the file, subscribe to your files feed and receive automatic notifications if the file ever changes.

Sharing a file with person(s) external to your organization:
At your request, your support team can create a personal file repository for you on your Lotus Quickr server. You can publish files to this repository and send links to the files via email. The benefit is that these documents can be accessed via the link without the external user having to log in, making them very easy to share. Internal users can also browse your list of published files (but you can also share files as unlisted so that only users who have the link can get to it).

Publishing files to a shared public repository:
Using Lotus Quickr, you can also create a shared public file repository (see an example at quickr.gbs.com/files) and set it up so that anyone inside your organization can publish files to this place and send links. By default, files placed here will be accessible to the public, but  you can explicitly restrict readers and/or authors (see below). The benefit is that external users may access this place and browse through all of the content to learn more about your organization as they would an official web site. This is very useful as a company resource center.

Sharing a file with external users, but requiring a password:
For stronger security, you can (log in and) publish a file to a place on your Quickr server and (without any assistance from anyone in IT) create a user and password for the recipient(s) in the Members section, then restrict the file(s) to only designated users.

Backing up your important files:
It used to be that we used restricted network drives to backup important files. Or maybe you use a personal offline file backup solution. With the solutions above, you can easily backup your important files to a location that is itself backed up daily and that you can access from anywhere that you can get online. Be sure to select the appropriate option based on the confidentiality of the file.

Making it even easier:
Installing the Quickr Connector can make using these options even easier by integrating directly with Notes, Symphony, Windows Explorer and (if you still live in the dark ages) even MS Office. You can download the Quickr Connector here.