On Thu, 2007-02-22 at 19:09 -0500, ext Acadia Secure Networks wrote: > Companies like IBM figured this out long ago as a way to keep the > software "factory" humming around the clock while saving on relocation > costs.
At a company level Nokia has offices worldwide as well, and as you may imagine there is a lot of infrastructure facilitating *mobility*. :) Another thing is the day to day at a team level. At http://www-03.ibm.com/employment/ the first thing I have to do is "Select region", I guess for a reason. I don't know how other global companies deal with decentralization at a team level. I know Novell employees working from home. Can I work for Google from home? Different companies take different approaches. I guess there is a reason for Silicon Valley to be in a geographical part of the world. I guess there is a reason why Miguel is living in Boston. Remember that here we deal with hardware as well, and this makes decentralization more complex. I'm a big fan of teleworking myself, I have done it for years and I think it's the best way to work for small teams. However, in big corps with complex structures and big amounts of information it might have counter effects. I guess it's easier to make it happen in quite pyramidal structures with hardcoded vertical management lines. You are a clear unit in the tree, you can be isolated somewhere keeping your performance and confidentiality while doing your chunk of work. However here the structure is relatively flexible and horizontal (in comparison). A lot of parallel activities are going on and you can (and are encouraged to) join them besides your job description. There is no (easy) way to share them from elsewhere. 5 weeks after joining this team I find it's a privilege to be in Helsinki. You can see this "localization" as a problem for you to apply for a job. Or you can see it as a great opportunity to live an experience you hardly would find near your home (and yes, by relocating you are going to lose something in exchange). -- Quim Gil - http://maemo.org _______________________________________________ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
