What is the little Yellow Man icon in my Contacts??

[Elena]

some of my contacts within Outlook have a little yellow man icon on them.
Some indicate they are active (when I put my cursor on the icon). What is
this?? where does it come from? and how do I communicate (IM) with these
contacts when they show as 'Available'

 

[Diane Poremsky [MVP]]

click on it to bring up options - if you are signed in it'll let you send
them a message (it brings up the im window) or you can sign in from the
menu. the colors used are the same as used in IM to show status.