IBM is bringing all our Software Group personnel in Massachusetts together under one roof in Littleton, MA. When we're all in there (about 3500 of us), we'll be the largest IBM Software Lab worldwide I'm told. It's a beautiful site. IBM had the two buildings gutted, and completely re-designed. I used to work there, and can testify that it's NOTHING like the boxy drab building where I worked over a decade ago. It's light and airy, modern, with lots of small public spaces for people to congregate. The cubes are small, but the public spaces are absolutely lovely and welcoming.
There are over 800 people in the building so far, and now that the cafeteria and fitness center are open the place has a happy buzz to it. The people who were grumbling the most about giving up their office with a door, having to login and out of their phone every day, and having to follow IBM's clean desk policy are really happy about their new digs. There's a new sense of being part of something bigger than their team. You can watch the cross-pollination beginning to happen.
Because of various organizational twists, I won't get to move until sometime in early 2010. My office is finished and waiting for me, but without a phone or network ports. Yesterday I camped there for the afternoon, doing my meetings using SUT over my wireless connection to the IBM intranet. And it was fine. Still better sound quality than my office phone. Even when my CPU usage creeps up (which it sometimes does when I'm doing something I shouldn't like playing Farmville on Facebook) it's crystal clear. I've heard people worry about SUT dying when Notes replicates...I run Notes local and replicate every 5 minutes. Never a problem and I live on SUT for hours a day.
I just wore out my second USB headset. Good thing those keep getting cheaper!
Beth Benoit | 30 October 2009 03:59:39 PM ET | | Comments (0)
