(Business 2.0) – IBM's Research Labs have long been known for hard-tech breakthroughs like the invention of the disc drive and the relational database. Lately, though, Jim Spohrer and his 18-member team of anthropologists, linguists, and the like at the Almaden Services Research Group in San Jose have been practicing a softer sort of science. One current project is to study how Big Blue's IT professionals work together. As Spohrer explained to Business 2.0's Paul Sloan, it's all part of IBM's massive campaign to automate corporate data centers.

Are you studying IT workers so you can replace them with machines?

Absolutely not. The system administrators are begging the researchers to come in. They know how to improve their jobs, and they're happy to communicate all their ideas. They also recognize that it's a good career step to help us figure out how to boost productivity.

What have you found so far?

People see the typical system administrator as the loneliest guy in town. Not so. We've found that 95 percent of the job is communication and 5 percent is twiddling knobs. That finding has made a huge difference in how we're automating corporate data centers. Before, we were trying to create technology that was solely about twiddling the knobs faster.

Overall, who's doing the best job melding technology and human sciences?

eBay would not exist without its reputation system. And what is a reputation system but a piece of human-science technology? Or Amazon. I type in a book, and the suggestions for other books are so excellent that I end up buying twice as many as I'd planned. How? Because of the sophisticated algorithms they use to understand human interest. They've got a model of me. That's what it's about.