Case study of a brainstorm held within IBM to find ways to help Japan

1. Brainstorming for Japan:
Rapid Distributed Global Collaboration
for Disaster Response
Michael Muller & Sacha Chua
IBM Research & IBM Canada
michael_muller@us.ibm.com , sachac@ca.ibm.com
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2. Agenda
• IBM Connections Communities for Conducting Jams
• Jamming for Japan
– Geographic distribution
– Metrics
– Social Network Analysis
• Outcomes
• Conclusion
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3. IBM Connections for Conducting Jams
• Company-wide Jams 2001-2010
• Re-use a smaller-scale, existing IBM-internal genre from
customer engagements = Customer Idea Jam
• IBM Connections Communities – a tool for online groups
• A “community” is a bounded online space containing
- Members - Feeds - Activities - Files
- Bookmarks - Forums - Blogs - Wikis
how to become “the connected city”
Example: Consulting to a
city administration about
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4. Japan Jam
TOPIC 1: Increasing resilience
Topics
Initial
TOPIC 2: Leveraging technology in rebuilding
TOPIC 3: Nation-wide continuity planning for the future
TOPIC 4: Address public perceptions
TOPIC 5: Engaging global support
Extended
Topics
TOPIC 6: Managing energy consumption
TOPIC 7: Improving supply chain resilience
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5. Global Participation
98th %ile by membership
99th %ile by contributions
99th %ile by participation rate
for communities of
comparable size
color = 1250 people registered
= 275 contributor(s)
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6. Daily Contributions
per Person
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
3/29/2011
3/30/2011
3/31/2011
4/1/2011
4/2/2011
4/3/2011
4/4/2011
4/5/2011
4/6/2011
4/7/2011
4/8/2011
4/9/2011
4/10/2011
4/11/2011
4/12/2011
4/13/2011
4/14/2011
4/15/2011
Daily Contributions
4/16/2011
4/17/2011
4/18/2011
4/19/2011
4/20/2011
4/21/2011
4/22/2011
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7. Daily Contributions
per Person
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
Daily Contributions
per Person 3/29/2011
3/30/2011
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
3/31/2011
4/1/2011
4/3/2011
4/2/2011
4/3/2011
4/4/2011
4/5/2011
4/4/2011
4/6/2011
4/7/2011
4/8/2011
4/9/2011
4/10/2011
Date
Date
4/5/2011
4/11/2011
4/12/2011
4/13/2011
4/14/2011
4/6/2011 4/15/2011
Daily Contributions
4/16/2011
4/17/2011
4/18/2011
4/19/2011
4/20/2011
4/7/2011
4/21/2011
4/22/2011
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8. Community Metrics
1400
1200
Members
People (Cumulative)
Human
Capital
1000
20%
800
Participation
600 rate
Contributors (during brainstorm)
400
200
0
800
Contributions (Cumulative)
700
1. Resilience
Intellectual
600
Capital
500
2. Rebuild 701
400 Discussion
3. Continuity
300
4. Public
Responses
(during brainstorm)
200 5. Global
100 6. Energy
7. Supply
0
3/31/2011
4/10/2011
4/11/2011
3/29/2011
4/12/2011
3/30/2011
4/3/2011
4/5/2011
4/7/2011
4/9/2011
4/2/2011
4/4/2011
4/6/2011
4/8/2011
4/1/2011
Date
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9. SNA: Day “0” (just about to start)
USA
2011-04-04 16:00pm
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10. SNA: Day 1
Nederland
Singapore Japan
UK
USA
India
2011-04-05 16:00pm
Australia
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11. SNA: Day 2
Nederland
Singapore Japan
UK
USA
India
2011-04-06 16:00pm France
Australia
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12. SNA: Day 3 (complete)
Nederland
Singapore Japan
UK
USA
India
2011-04-07 16:00pm France
Australia
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13. Outcomes
• The “canonical” analysis of emergency management
– Planning Responding Recovering Preventing
• When IBM entered the situation
– Responding Recovering Preventing Planning
• Our Jam took place after IBM’s initial response
Recover
Respond Prevent
Planning
Pre-Jam
assistance
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14. Outcomes
Responding Preventing
• Use current tools in new ways (e.g., • Harden existing networks
adapt weather forecasting to • Improve storage redundancy in
radiation spread) remote regions
• Use laptop shock-detectors as • Provide rapid-recovery for
distributed tremor sensors medical and city records
• Telemedicine without power grids
Recovering Planning
• Smart utility management through • Use knowledge management
modeling power demand and and social media technologies
impact of planned rolling power to collect best practices from
outages other regions
• Resilient information technologies • Develop technical and social
for hospitals and cities simulations to test resource
resilience and social response
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15. Conclusions
• Mobilization of a large, entirely-volunteer work “entity”
– Were we a “community?” …of what?
– Or a “team?” … but without an assignment, manager, or deliverable
– Emergent online-community genres of
• remote, intensive work structures (working practices)
• online structures (flexible, structured community spaces)
• Online resource was transformative
– 43 countries + 1250 people, including 275 contributors in 3 days
– Very low articulation costs + Very low contribution costs
– Post-jam analysis was crucial
• Work practices were transformative
– Practiced expert facilitation from rapid customer engagements
– Practiced employee-participation based on previous jams
– Organizational climate that encourages new initiatives
A new family of integrated resources for emergency response
& management
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16. Thank you
michael_muller@us.ibm.com sacha@sachachua.com
slides are available at slideshare.net
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