Collaboration
by Volker Weber
What is IBM's favorite means of collaboration? Hint: It is not email.
It's conference calls.
Comments
The mobile phone... Held up between shoulder and ear, whilst drinking coffee from overpriced IBM location coffee bars...
Sametime
LotusSphere?
Sametime will be the official answer. I bet it's paper memos. Or the coffee machine / bar. I've never seen a place where more collaboration actually happens than that where people drink their coffee.
Oliver, most of the guys I met from IBM are mobile workers. They can be happy if they meet someone from IBM at the coffee machine - usualy they meet their wife/husband there :-) Meanwhile the unofficial IBM meeting point in Berlin is my office - and this is where collaboration happens accidently :-)
Alexander is right - IBM has a huge mobile workforce. In fact, I don't think anyone on my team, nor anyone I know (except for the boss two positions above me) works from an office - we're all mobile.
For me, it is Sametime, followed by email, followed by the telephone, followed by Sametime Meetings (web conferencing). Phone and web conferencing are almost tied - because they are almost always used together.
That has been one of my biggest surprises since returning to IBM/Lotus - their embracement of mobile workers, and their wholehearted support and encouragement for the mobile worker. IBM "gets it" about a telecommuting/mobile workforce, gets the ROI, and gets the benefits - for both itself and for its employees on many fronts.
So, from my perspective in IBM-land, there is no way it is the coffee machine. More like the chat window, I'd say.
Fax and SMS :-)
No wait, it's Workplace!
Although in all seriousness (is that a word?), for Volker to be asking this question there has to be a stranage unexpected answer, so my official guesses are:
Email
Office Documents
Telephone
NetMeeting
Blogs
Oh wait, it's internal Newsgroups
I have worked for 3 different IBM countries (FR, CH, and US). And I interact with IBMers from all over EMEA on a daily basis. I would think that our primary means of collaboration are.
1- Sametime
2- email
3- Conference calls (sometimes with ST Web Confs)
3- TeamRooms/Quickplace
4- Internal Newsgroups
5-
.........
98- coffee machine (everybody is mobile these days)
99- paper memos (never seen one of those.....)
but again, that's just my 2 (euro) cents.
I should have made myself more clear. When I said favorite I meant where they spend most of their time. Being online in Sametime does not count. Of course I have never worked there, but my observation is listed below the question now.
Mmh, looks like I disregarded one rule of writing mails/comments: Be careful about use of irony or humor. At least without a smiley.
I always thought it was an ISSL / IGS engagement :-)
