IBM challenge.

Solution that educates

Office (personal) internal hackatons for improving any kind of problem (personal rather than commercial aim) – build and grow intrapreneurial activities within company. Invite kids because of their creativity and simple thinking. If contribution to the social welfare, project may be financed through IBM foundation.

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• Estimated time: semi-annual activity

• Estimated costs: opportunity cost since the employees would be working on different projects. I.e. a daily wage costs

Solution that educates

As explained before, mindfulness has a positivte effect on brain cleaning, concentration and reevaluation of personal as well as career goals. Mindfulness sessions would be incorporated within a regular Yoga classes after each there would be a short monologue about meditation and principles of mindfulness. Classes would be each week based on a team schedule.

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• Estimated time: every week

• Estimated costs: depends on a coach, number of participants, time-session. Yet, let' s consider 15€/ employee/ session

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Solution that changes mindset

• Use physical space to demonstrate social media – room in IBM office premises – dedicated areas on walls and shelves for news feed, for friend requests, etc (bringing features of social media to the offline world) yet in an offline version

• This space would be fully equiped with stuff like roolup paper, where you can use post-its to share your insights about future plans, issues, encouraging facts, various toys, things you can touch and play with. To clear your mind while using hands and not thinking about online. Put in simple words, relaxation as well as prototyping room for your ideas.

• Electronic device storage box at the entrance - since this is a technology detox room, all the devices have to be left in the box if you want to pop in.

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• Estimated time: plan+realisation = 5 months

• Estimated costs: detailed plan is needed, however the budget is 25 000€.

Solution that changes mindset

• Every employee has a chance to participate in a VR tutorship framework. The point is to engage with people you would normally not talk to – build a flexible team who will grow together and help each other be present and enjoy being offline.

• To put this tutorship a weight, personal profiles of each participant would be hanging on the walls of VR detox studio to demonstrate and motivate. Moreover, a special toolkit like a board game would be created to give this initiative a taste of random decision makings. E.g. imagine you have a list of places where you'd like to go but you want to step out of your comfort zone so you will just roll the dice to help you rise. I call it "Sheldon trivial decision technique" ( I got inspired from an episode of the Big Bang theory, in which Sheldon makes a trivial decision while rolling the dice so he can fully focus on the daily tasks that matter to his profession.)

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• Estimated time: regular activity

• Estimated costs: free of charge, teoretically, opportunity cost of an employee hour wage.

Solution that changes mindset

• Technology vacation – new form of benefit – how many hours per week? Based on a trade principles, where the only currency is time spent in virtual world.

• Initiative run to help (young) employees prioritize offline activities like hobbies, time spent with a family or just being outside the nature.

• The more you are willing to give up the more you can gain. However, there would be a preset max value.

• This benefit will lower the time you spend doing work, but will increase self-motivation and performance of an employee while doing his or her work.

  • In this case, we take a technology vacation as an investment for making IBM employees clean-minded and refreshed for workload and creative solutions for problems to come.

  • In the beginning, a necessary feature would be a tracked no techology usage. For example 10 hours per month with cooperation of VR tutorship program.

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• Estimated time: long-term program

• Estimated costs: opportunity cost of an employee hour wage depending on the number of hours.

Solution that changes mindset

• GAP time vouchers based on previous activities using technology vacation amount of time.

• Trade your time to gain some skills in anything you want.  In 20 hours you can learn principles of anything – financed from the IBM foundation. (see the Resources tab). E.g. photoshop workshop, pottery, etc.

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• Estimated tim: long-term activity

• Estimated costs: (max) 60€ per voucher

Solution of a social aspect

Foundation or special NGO run by IBM as well as students (campus cooperation) in order to help improving the social-media life balance of IBM employees. In addition, this foundation will be a role model for other companies and a great opportunity for young students to prove their skills and learn some new of a social aspect. Moreover, this foundation will provide funding for all the activities and solutions with regards to the solutions for this challenge, such as VR tutorship, GAP time vouchers etc.

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• Estimated time: long-term activity, preparation up to 1 year.

• Estimated costs: independent leagal entity, thus having a project based budget.

Solution of a social aspect

I’ll Be Mobile (IBM)initiative – regularly organized sport events with a premium feature of having your “dirty clothes” washed by a cleaning/laundry company that hires homeless people. Initiative of IBM foundation Moreover, it will provide laundry cleaning services for its (homeless) employees free of charge to help them get back on their feet.

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• Estimated time: long-term activity, preparation up to 1 year.

• Estimated costs: independent legal entity, run from commercial income and from IBM foundation.