I’ve been passionate about workplace design for over 20 years, in fact I think my interest started way back when I redesigned my bedroom in preparation for my GCSEs. My Dad had bought me a large office desk that was surplus to requirements and it transformed my home working environment. ...
We tend to think everything’s improving all the time, and that only grumpy old folks (like me) think things were better in the past. But with problems like information overload, the decline in conversation, obsession with smartphones and lots of other disruptive change it might be worthwhile to look back...
As I’ve said on this blog many times, throughout my career my over-riding motivation and interest has been to make peoples lives better. For the last 20 of those years it’s been by improving their productivity, eliminating frustrations, improving autonomy, enabling effective team working and creating work spaces that enhance...
I read this tweet today, quoting outgoing Citrix CEO Mark Templeton : "Citrix started with a fundamental idea that work is not a place" Mark Templeton @Citrix CEO #CitrixMobilityDC — David Smith (@DavidSmith_IT) June 10, 2014 Having worked on collaboration services for decades and promoted virtual team working, mobile working...
As part of HP’s happiness at work initiative they have listed 25 new places to work. I’ve repeated the list (minus a few of the less relevant ones like the Eiffel Tower!) below with my comments in blue: The garden. There’s nothing like an English summer. And even if the...
Looks like Microsoft is finally realising that custom workspaces is one of the keys to increasing employee productivity. Rather than assuming that individual offices is the only – and best – way to work they are now moving to a building design that can evolve with the needs of the...
Tom Davenport is spot on, with this post: Here’s a next big thing: companies will need to redesign their workplaces to better fit the needs of knowledge workers. The idea that we should spend our workdays in boring cubicles — either in big downtown buildings or suburban office parks —...
Years ago I setup a collaborative working environment for my team, the idea was for the environment to be really social, we had lots of breakout rooms, large tables where people could sit together, comfy seats, whiteboards everywhere a library area and of course quiet space for when you needed...
Back in 2001, I was given the opportunity to create my own team. It was a great opportunity and I pulled a team of about 30 people together to work on Architecture and Systems Integration projects in the Infrastructure arena. We hit upon a slight problem though we could not find any space within the existing company buildings in the area. This presented us with another great opportunity, work from home, or find and design our own office. This is the story of how we designed our Office and what we learned.