The Tube is IDEO’s intranet, a suite of online tools that enables hundreds of employees located around the world to collaborate, share learning, and inspire each other as an integral part of their work process. The Tube combines social networking tools such as blogs, wikis, and real-time screen sharing with legacy business systems like HR databases, asset management systems, and e-mail. The system has created ways for individuals to reveal passions and expertise, for teams to learn from each other, for offices to feel better connected, and for the company to build on shared themes and directions.

In addition to hardware and software technologies, the Tube design team considered how IDEO’s culture encourages collaboration and sharing, and what incentives could lead to the adoption of new tools and methods. The unique success of the Tube comes from the insight that effective knowledge sharing is a social activity that is enabled by technology, rather than a technological solution bolted onto an existing work culture. This led to the design of systems that people actually want to use.

More than 1,000 Project Pages were created in the six months since that feature’s launch, and over 10,000 pages in the first 14 months of the wiki’s availability. Ninety-five percent of employees have voluntarily taken personal ownership of their personal pages. And blogs have proliferated widely: In addition to each employee’s individual blog, there are more than 40 blogs addressing a wide variety of subjects. These include company-specific issues, such as career growth and office updates, to more general-interest topics such as social impact, sustainability, and health and wellness projects.