![]() Indeed, the innovations that result from Extreme Blue projects rely heavily on teamwork and soft skills. "And just bringing together the various people from all these really helps foster innovation." "From IBM's point of view, we get to work with new partners and with people in industries we wouldn't have before," says Roche. That students talk with people in other industries has great benefit for IBM itself. Can you use existing components and build upon that?' so rather than starting from the beginning, they can concentrate on linked value," says Roche. "Rather than starting from scratch, we say, 'Look around IBM, talk to people at IBM. In the first few weeks of the internship, students do a lot of research, connect with others and build on existing work. The lack of clearly defined end points gives the students and mentors great scope for investigating new possibilities and ideas, and thus encourages innovation." "The students are given an idea and the freedom to do what they wish with that idea. ![]() "One aspect of the internship program is the fact that the projects are not defined in detail," says O'Gorman. "From the day they start they are encouraged to challenge ideas, come up with ideas many times they reinvent projects," says Roche. ![]() Perhaps most important, the students were given freedom to move boundaries. Senior management were given weekly presentations of progress. In short, the students were encouraged to collaborate with anyone who seemed appropriate.ĭuring the 12-week-long program, interns participated in regular brainstorming sessions, shared ideas with IBM scientists, conducted market and customer analysis, and attended regular status meetings with mentors. Students were given laptops, assigned a business mentor and a technical mentor, and encouraged to contact any of the 350,000 IBM employees throughout the world, as well as people in other industries. The Dublin intern team was charged with creating personal audio radio programming from text sources, including e-mail, calendar, news-feed, online articles and e-learning programs. "Any idea, no matter how small or seemingly unimportant, could be the spark that starts a major new innovation." "Idea-generation and innovation can happen at all levels of an organization," says Brian O'Gorman, software development engineer at IBM Lotus, who also mentored the students. This IBM internship program gives great freedom to do actual work. Instead, IBM takes a more open approach, to encourage innovation among these best-and-brightest students. In many companies, college interns are relegated to the role of IT janitorial work, doing the stuff that no one else wants to take on. "Since are dealing with information overload, I think a lot of them see this as a way to process more information." PodSmart may help executives prepare or catch up during downtime commutes and workouts. The application was created with a younger generation in mind, but executive interest is eclipsing that of other groups, says Michael Roche, IBM's lead developer for PodSmart and mentor on the project.
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