(2008-12-22) Vogels Teamwork Academia

As a prelude to acknowledging his whole team's contribution to an award he got, Werner Vogels notes A question I get asked frequently is how working in industry is different from working in academia. My answer from the beginning has been that the main difference is Team Work. While in academia there are Collaboration-s among faculty and there are student teams working together (College Education), the work is still rather individual, as is the reward structure. In industry you cannot get anything done without teamwork. Products do not get build by individuals but by teams (Product Team); definition, implementation, delivery and operation are all collaborative processes that have many people from many different disciplines working together.