Harnessing the intellectual capital of global teams

If you take an organisation with over 500 employees working out of multiple offices on six continents, then the mapping interface is a good way to support problem solving among the distributed teams.

Typically, remote teams could share a map through a conference server or e-mail and dial in on a conference line.

One person can "run" the map, using key words and concepts, branch relationships and symbols to capture the global team's thinking, due dates and assignments on what can often be very complex projects.

If you just send around a ten- or twenty-page document such as a business proposal, the response tends to be minimal, because it's hard to get people to stop what they're doing and read a long document.

Through a conference server scenario, a selected group of people can open a map at any time, get access to detailed information, and then add their thoughts to the map at a time that's convenient to them.

For companies whose success is tied directly to their ability to access their intellectual capital located all around the world, then using maps in this way provides a huge benefit.