Even the lead singer in the band Chicago that had provided music for the event asked if they could have a T-shirt for each member of the band. At the end, all attendees received the first TEAM OS/2 T-shirt, which includes the first Team OS/2 logo on the front and the distinctive IBM blue-stripe logo on the back - except with lower-case letters: 'ibm/2' to represent the new IBM. Prizes included limousine rides that evening. Attendees were asked to nominate their favorite 'Teamer' for the 'Team OS/2 Hall of Fame', and those whose names were drawn came forward to tell the story of their nominee - what sacrifice they had made to promote OS/2 and why they were deserving of recognition. Tickets were limited to those who had requested them on one of the online discussion groups. Microsoft reacted when Steve Ballmer roamed the floor with an application on diskette that had been specially programmed to crash OS/2 and OS/2 enthusiasts gathered for an evening of excitement at the first Team OS/2 party. The IBM Marketing Office in Chicago created a huge banner visible from the streets. Team OS/2 went external that spring, when the first Team OS/2 Party was held in Chicago. He also made a proposal to IBM executives, which they eventually implemented when IBM Personal Software Products moved to Austin, Texas, that they form a 'Grass Roots Marketing Department'. Whittle began to extend the Team OS/2 effort outside of IBM with various posts on CompuServe, Prodigy, bulletin boards, newsgroups, and other venues. Both the OS/2 Ambassador Program and Team OS/2 were effective in evangelizing OS/2 within IBM, but only Team OS/2 was effective in generating support for the promotion of OS/2 outside of IBM. IBM's official program for generating word-of-mouth enthusiasm was called the 'OS/2 Ambassador Program', where OS/2 enthusiasts company-wide could win Gold, Silver, and Bronze Ambassador pins and corporate recognition with various levels of structured achievement. TEAMOS2 FORUM quickly caught the attention of some IBM executives, including Lee Reiswig and Lucy Baney, who after initial scepticism, offered moral and financial support for Whittle's grass roots and online marketing efforts. Within a short time, thousands of IBM employees had added the words TEAMOS2 to their internet phone directory listing, which enabled anyone within IBM to find like-minded OS/2 enthusiasts within the company and work together to overcome the challenges posed by IBM's size, insularity, and top-down marketing style. The forum went viral as increasing numbers of IBMers worldwide began to contribute a wide variety of ideas as to how IBM could effectively compete with Microsoft to establish OS/2 as the industry standard desktop operating system.

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