A system and method for context-specific instant messaging are presented.
A user views a page of data that is segmented into regions. The user
performs a user action and, in turn, a message generator displays
context-specific phrases for the user to select based upon the region
that the user action was performed and a corresponding object type. When
a region corresponds to a meeting time, a context-specific phrase may
also be time-sensitive. When a region corresponds to meeting
participants, a context-specific phrase may include recipient
identifiers. The user selects one of the context-specific phrases, and
the message generator invokes a message session between the user and a
recipient based upon the selected context-specific phrase. The message
generator includes a link to the corresponding object such that the
message recipient may easily identify the context of the message.