PeteDotCom -> Networking -> Misc -> Team Technology ->   Team Technology (as per handout) We have a dream, it goes something like this: A team of ten members is scattered. Three are a t a divisional headquarters in Chicago, doing product research together. Four more are employees of four different corporate partners - one is a distributor in Columbus, two are production subcontractors in Mexico City and the Philippines, and the fourth is a semi retired telecommuter in Ketchikan, Idaho. Rounding out the team are the professor in London who developed the idea the team has been working on, a marketing whiz in San Francisco, and the team's corporate sponsor, in Osaka, Japan. At the corporate sites are computer networks and lots of machines. Divisional headquarters has the capability to do videoconferencing with the parent company in Japan. A couple of years ago this was a big deal - both groups had to troop down to their corporate video studio and sit in front of cameras to have their tete-a-tetes. But now they have little video eyes mounted in the corners of their Macs and PCs. The image is a little stiff, and the image flickers and flutters a bit, but they ca now call one another at the drop of a hat and have a conversation with live video of each other on their computer screens. The Mexico City and London offices can also be hooked into these calls. It is especially valuable to them to go fact to face with team members because they have never actually met them. Though nervous at first, seeing their faces on screen helped break the ice and after a while made the talks much more animated and interesting. All ten members of the team have faxing capability with everyone else. They can either send a message straight from the computer, using a fax modem, or they can print a message, or photocopy a document, and send it by a regular fax machine. This is especially useful to the people in London and Japan, who are not usually conscious at the time same time of day. Faxing helps them stay current with one another, with in a few hours.  The fax modems are also useful in contacting on-line services. The Japan office subscribes to MCI Mail Columbus in on America Online. Chicago and Japan are hooked up to CompuServe. The fellow in Ketchikan, way up at his cabin in the mountains, uses a little laptop computer and a cellular phone that is connected wirelessly to an Internet gateway in Coeur d'Alene. Using this motley assortment of online bulletin boards, the ten team members can send one another daily memos on problems they're facing and edited versions of one another's documents. The team members in the big cities can take advantage of extra-wide information thoroughfares that ca be shooting huge amounts of data back and forth. If they work with raw text data, they can upload and shop the entire Los Angeles phone book set in a few minutes. They can ship in other media too. They can ship an entire movie to one another through these wide open gateways, or multimedia fax documents, with live video, animation, post it notes, and audio soundtrack. (They don't do all these things, but they could if they need to.) Maybe the team decided that there is too much delay using the Internet and other services, or that the team needs a mechanism that goes beyond mere memo capabilities or sending one another static multimedia documents, What if the team wanted to conduct actual, ongoing meetings, around the globe? They could set their alarm clocks for a certain time, wake up, and do a conference call, by voice, and a secretary could take notes of the conversation and decisions reached. Or they could communication using the latest type of electronic meeting system, one which allows "meetings" to occur outside the realm of real time, that sets up voting situations, records everyone's ideas, and allows team members to prioritize and vote on a host of issues. Everyone enters information by keyboard; everyone sees everyone else's comments displayed and labeled by name, on their monitors. Yes, the people in Asia and Europe would vote later, than the American team, But they would have the same protections as the others - voting  results would be announced only after everyone has voted. What's remarkable to us about this scenario is not that it is a science fiction techno utopia achievable sometimes around the bend a utopia that we never quite get to. It can be done today, with existing, fairly robust communications technology. People in pretty ordinary organizations are doing this right now. This is not to say, however, that these are not suffering from the same problems every other team has. Technology can only do a few things for teams. It can speed communications up, it can make communication easier, and maintain a cleaner paper trail. The team is still a team, not matter how much hardware and software it drags behind it, and prone to all the human frailties that all teams are prone to. A computer will not impose clarity on a fuzzy notion. That is something only we can do. Our prescription for out high tech, far flung, globally partnered team is that they can make a point, maybe twice a year, of buying plane tickets and flying to some agreed upon location and get to know one another again in the flesh. Bring a swimsuit, and make it a vacation.