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20050314 Monday March 14, 2005

 The Virtual Hallway

A little over a year ago I broke my hip while skiing. Well, to be more precise I broke my hip while falling. Thanks to modern medicine and three 6'' screws, my recovery was not too prolonged. While recovering I worked from home and quickly learned that I missed the interaction of the office. As an engineering manager, one of the most rewarding and important parts of my job is regular conversation with the folks on my team. I say conversation, because given the distributed nature of all teams these days this conversation is just as likely to be over the phone as it to be in the hallway.

Which brings me to my point (finally). What I discovered while recovering was the power of IM and IRC. These tools provide a seamless mechanism for creating a virtual hallway of regular conversation. I personally use GAIM because it works well with both of these protocols and others as well. I have a slight preference for IRC in that the chat rooms provide others the opportunity to listen in and contribute just as with those regular hallway chats. Over the course of the past year IM and IRC have become an invaluable part of my toolbox that I recommend every manager and member of a distributed team investigate.




( Mar 14 2005, 03:10:55 PM CST / Mar 14 2005, 01:46:00 PM CST ) Permalink Comments [2]
Trackback: http://blogs.sun.com/mtibbets/entry/the_virtual_hallway


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