Your dream team to tackle the project works in many different business units on four different continents. You'll be lucky to get them in the same place at the same time even once a quarter. You might resign yourself to spending the next year on airplanes-or accelerate the project by assembling a virtual team using the Internet and other digital technology. Most of the virtual team's collaboration occurs in the digital realm, rather than in shared physical space. Since we've been wired through evolution and socialization to respond to body language and vocal expressions, going virtual can feel like an unnatural act.
Virtual communication calls for applying new habits as well as new technologies.
According to a recent report by Morgan Stanley, more than half the revenue of wireless operators will come from mobile commerce by 2008. Currently, items that do not have to be touched top the mobile commerce sales list. Virtual teams will probably never totally supplant putting people in the same room. But often, organizations move people, when all they really need to move is information. They use available resources rather than matching the best talent to the right task.