How We Work: Engagement and Projects

I had the pleasure to work with Jessica in 2006 when we developed a virtual teams methodology and handbook for managers within AB Volvo. Jessica posesses incomparable experience in virtual teams and network organisations. This together with her great personality made Jessica a great mentor and source of inspiration for both me and the project members during the project. Visit www.netage.com to find books and articles from Jessica and her co-worker and husband Jeff Stamps.” August 21, 2007 -- Lennart Wärmlind, Business Development Manager, Sigma

NetAge advises executives on collaboration strategy, working with staff to launch initiatives that become part of the new way the organization works. We provide education and training on-the-job instead of in classrooms. With our client, we co-develop innovative methods and tools that focus on people while addressing clear business issues:

• The IT division of a large financial services organization suddenly outsourced key operations and decentralized its facilities domestically and abroad. The company equipped the pilot teams with NetAge methods, tools, and training, resulting in 34% improvement in collaborative capability. Company-wide deployment is underway.
• A Scandinavian company suddenly globalized. When it realized it needed to jump-start collaboration in its brand-new virtual teams, the company contacted NetAge. Together, we've co-designed and delivered a multi-year program that, having started with the top 150 leaders, now reaches across the company's key programs and delivers similar services to customers.
• When a European energy company regionalized its operations, its people, many of whom had never met, needed to work together immediately. NetAge virtual-team techniques were used to support the successful launch of the organization. When messages slowed in the new organization

This is our specialty, our core expertise, 25 years in the making. We've literally been writing the books for new ways of working since people first went online: Networking (1982), The Age of the Network (1994), Virtual Teams (2000) . We teach collaboration as a competitive advantage, not a problem to tolerate. We believe life in these new organizations is creative and energizing, not difficult and draining.

NetAge provides education for executives and staff in the context of real work. No classrooms. You leave NetAge sessions having agreed with your colleagues to work differently.

Seminars, courses, briefings, virtual-team launches in person and online. By NetAge.

To work effectively across boundaries, you do need the other 10%: new tools.

For 20 years, NetAge has been working with partners to develop software that makes collaboration easier. In the past five years, we've introduced NetAge methods on three platforms:

> With a long-time client, we offer Livelink virtualteams™, available through Open Text Corporation.
> With Volvo IT, we build virtual team rooms on SharePoint.
> With inspiration from another client, we build virtual team rooms on Confluence from Atlassian.

All collaboration platforms can be NetAge environments, where every team room follows the same consistent design principles and good practices, making it easy to go from "room to room."

Energy, IT, pharmaceutical, and manufacturing companies all license NetAge methodology. For non-profits, use of NetAge methodology is free: contact us.

Why is our stuff free to non-profits? Because everyone needs better ways to work in the 21st-century. This is one way we can contribute.