Cutting down the cost of working

I’m currently doing some contract work for a large organization.

It has several departments, in several buildings, at several locations and they spend a lot of time communicating. Or should I say, trying to communicate.

For example, today I was trying to talk to someone from another department.
Guess what, it took us four emails and two phone calls and we still didn’t get to speak to each other!

How simple it would be if we used skype.
No more calling to someone that is “not at their desk”, no more getting the wrong extension and no more emailing to ask what their number is.

Here’s another example:

Someone needed to handover a project to me. It was her last day and she was the only one working on it. She has the file on her computer but her password expires when she leaves so the IT dept had to twick the system so her employee number will be valid for another week, giving us enough time to look for what we need.

An internal wiki will make everyones life easier. All the work that was done will be in one shared place – even the team’s contact details! Brilliant!

So, if you’re working in or running a department, why not experiment?

Get the team on skype and let them work it out.

Start a wiki for one project and see how you go.

Start a flickr account and feel how easy it can be to deal with your corporate photos.

If it fails you can always go back to the old phone/email combo.