Don’t just work from home. Creep out your employees from a distance!
I saw this article recently about the robot that visits your cubicle. Advertised as a “telepresence robot”, Anybots aim to connect workers more seamlessly through the use of video cameras, still camera and a microphone. The basic concept is that, working anywhere from a laptop, you can log into one of these robots which reside in your office and the robot essentially becomes your “avatar”. Your Anybot can zip around the workplace interacting with coworkers; stopping by your desk, sitting in on meetings or impromptu collaboration sessions, heading over to the factory to see what’s coming off the production line, etc. The video demonstration on their website gives you the idea.
While I do see some of the fundamental advantages of “Robot Boss”, I still can’t help but think of all the hilarious and awkward scenarios that could play out in our workplace culture:

It looks like a Segway had a one night stand with a vacuum cleaner. I hope the cleaning staff doesn’t try to use Robot Boss to buff the floors.
People will definitely dress up Robot Boss in embarrassing clothing. Mine would have a handlebar mustache and dress accordingly for the seasons and holidays. 
If you put a piece of paper over the sensors, can you laugh as Robot Boss crashes into walls because it can’t see straight?
Will people eventually prefer Robot Ross to in-person boss? If in-person boss wears cheap cologne, then yes.
I’d like to see Robot Boss take a client out to lunch. Good luck catching a cab, Robot Boss!
I’d be freaked out if [...]

Wherever I go… it goes!!!
For my birthday this past year, I received a Kindle. While I was instantly excited, I was also a bit skeptical. I am a serious book purchaser, and was concerned what this new toy would do for my dream home library. Now that I’ve had a chance to spend some quality time with the Kindle, I can say with confidence that I LOVE IT! What I really love about it are the functions that I was unaware of when I opened it. I had no idea that I could send, receive, and edit documents from the little booger. The best benefit for me is the ability to travel as an even lighter road warrior. Instead of having to bring my laptop, work documents, plus two books and a magazine, now I can just bring my Kindle and my laptop. Sometimes, when I’m really wild, I don’t even bring the laptop. Thanks Kindle (and Dan for giving it to me)!

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Interesting conceptual project from textile designer Celine Marcq: reactive wallcovering that abstractly visualizes energy use. The idea is that your wall can help indicate how much electricity you are using, ideally making us all more conscious in general. This would be especially helpful for those people who have bad habits of leaving everything plugged in. The ambient light is a reminder that even though something isn’t turned on, if it’s plugged in it’s still pulling in electricity. Gets rid of the whole “out of sight, out of mind” mentaility that gets us in trouble in oh so many instances.

Monitoring and displaying energy isn’t necessarily a brand new concept. Several quality companies are leading the effort to track energy usage. My colleague David Ivey recently posted on HOK Life about measures we’re taking in our Chicago office, implementing  Lutron Quantum and EcoSystem to monitor and display energy usage. These measures have helped our Chicago office be recognized as one of the top ten LEED projects in 2009 according to Interiors and Sources Magazine
The reactive wallcovering is definitley a step in a more aesthetic direction to keep us informed of energy usage. I’m sure pretty soon our offices will be these Matrix-esque environments displaying all types of information. Hopefully the visual overload won’t be too seizure-inducing. I would like to hear of any other examples of aesthetic ways to monitor energy or raise awareness that any of you readers have come across.

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I know, as a blogger on multiple sites and avid Facebooker/LinkedIn-er, I should be totally into the Twitter phenomenon.  I just haven’t latched on.  Yes, I signed up (almost 2 years ago), but I don’t think I’ve tweeted more than three times.  And maybe read other people’s tweets five times.
Maybe it’s because my phone is a little on the old side and I haven’t botthered to download an app.  Or maybe it’s because their web interface isn’t so great.  Or the people I’m following aren’t that interesting (j/k @HOKNetwork – I love your workplace tweets!)? 
I ran across an interesting article: Inactivity Matters: 83 Percent of Online Friends are Fakes.  This post talks about how many others are in my predicament…and that Twitter maybe isn’t such a good measure of influence, particularly when compared to sites like LinkedIn and Facebook where there is mutual agreement on the connection.  Interesting…
Do you tweet?  For pleasure? For business?  Signed up but never use it?  Tell us – we promise not to tell your boss!

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I first read about this a few months ago and was fascinated with the idea. The Mars 500 project is a research endeavor that aims to simulate obstacles that a manned mission to Mars would experience, including stress, claustrophobia, fatigue.
Video: Locked & Sealed: 520 days, 6 men, 1 bunker
Six participants will spend a total of 520 days in a series of modules, part of an isolation facility in Moscow.
During the isolation period the candidates will be simulating all elements of the Mars mission, travelling to Mars, orbiting the planet, landing and return to Earth.
The crew will have to be self-reliant, and organise a great deal of their daily tasks. They will be responsible for monitoring and maintaining the health and psychological states of themselves and each other, monitoring and controlling and maintaining systems, including life support, control resource consumption, carry out standard and non-standard cleaning and maintenance, as well as fulfilling scientific investigations.
The other interesting catch…all communication will be on a 20 minute delay to simulate the delays that would be anticipated travelling so far away. Makes my spotty cell phone service not seem so bad, I suppose.
I’m curious to see the research findings on the psychological and physical effects of this experiment and if there are any takeaways in terms of how the “human factors” will ultimately help shape the design and experience of the physical living/working conditions.
Looking at the photos of the facility my first thought was “wow…wood paneling!”. My second thought [...]

Ever wonder how much time you spend reading?  – during your work day, on the bus or train, waiting for appointments, on the beach, in the middle of the night, cramming for an exam, zoning out after a stressful day?   What proportion of that reading is from a printed page or on a screen of some kind? – your laptop, phone, ebook reader, iPad (more on the iPad in a moment).  The digital world is not only changing how we read, but how we learn at work and in our personal lives.
As an ardent reader I was interested in the three kinds of reading described in What’s Next in Digital Reading? (found via Interstitial reading):

Extractive reading - ”Extractive reading is an extension of search – its primarily purpose is to “extract” information from searched databases.  Works great on a backlit screen.
Immersive reading – “…the exercise of deep reading that is dominated by narrative prose and requires a significant investment of time and concentration”  Not so great on a backlit screen.
Pedagogic reading – (think textbook) “…it contains both extractive and immersive qualities. Pedagogic reading is reading that is done to explicitly train the brain using building blocks of information that can be recalled and applied to do higher levels of thinking and learning.”  Textbooks have had the most difficulty switching to digital, partly because of the linear nature of both the teaching/learning process and print textbooks.

With that in mind check out iPad Usability: First Findings From User Testing  (“overly strong print metaphor and weird interaction styles“) and, for more on ’pedegogic’ reading,  The iPad: Gateway Drug to Digital Learning?  (“By putting the [...]

 
The bigger, the better – right?  Over the last few years, I’ve noticed a very downtown, anti-trend here in New York for big headphones with the candy-colored old-skool plastic outer shell.  These are value-engineered noise-cancelling headphones like the kind the guys on the tarmac wear. Ubiquitous white in-ear buds, the iPhone staple, are not only too civilized, they also don’t do a very good job blocking out the noises around you.  And the Bose Noise Cancelling headphones…$300. Seriously?!
 But, seriously, what better way to signal “Do Not Disturb” than a big pair of headphones. Like my Gen-Y colleagues, I pull out the ear goggles when I need to shut it all out and get something done on deadline.  Originally purchased for cross-country business travel, I’ve got a dorky pair of Sennheiser over-ear headphones, and they’re great…
But I find myself a little skeptical of my own actions.  Are headphones the best compromise between the benefit of informal collaboration and the complete lack of privacy in the open plan environment?  Are there better, more subtle ways to focus on the task at hand and politely signal to your colleagues to come back later?  Sure, you can build out phone booths, focus rooms and huddle rooms to solve this problem.  But is that really the best approach – or is the cheapest and simplest solution actually the best? 
I want to know what you think.

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The warning signs have been up for days – ROAD CLOSURES / EVENT DOWNTOWN.  We have been hearing about it on the radio and on the local news – massive gridlock!  It’s the Nuclear Security Summit with 50 Heads of State invited to downtown DC – that is the most present in the US in one location since the founding of the United Nations.  If you live or work in DC, you’re used to occasional motorcades and street closures, however the next three days will be unprecedented.  Over the radio and TV yesterday and this morning, the announcements also included:  ‘Federal workers are encouraged to telecommute’.  Since DC boasts just about the worst traffic in the country, it’s hard to imagine that an event could make it worse.  This morning I braced for the nightmare – I live in the far western suburbs and usually have a commute of about an hour.  I left the house twenty minutes early expecting to inch forward in the gridlock as I approached the office.  Much to my surprise, this was one of the best commuting days ever!  It seems that many Federal workers, and perhaps a number of other workers, followed the advice and worked from home today.  I think they should do that as often as possible.

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CMO.com has posted a very interesting chart of social media sites and the benefits of each for marketing.  See A CMO’s Guide To The Social Media Landscape.  Here’s the chart in PDF.  (Thanks, Paula!)

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Interesting article about the urban nomad workforce:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/worklife/01/07/on.the.go.office/index.html?hpt=Sbin
This quote piqued my interest:
“Humans are inherently pack or herd animals — with even the most self-sufficient among us needing the assistance or nearness of others to occasionally keep us on course”
The article discusses that due to the increasing number of “limbo workers” in the workforce, companies are popping up that cater to these people and their needs. The basic idea is providing a communal physical space, a “home base” for these types of workers to touch down and have a sense of an “office”…work, hang out, enage in basic normal human interactions. While this idea is not new (I have friends who work for themselves and share office or studio space with other people), I find the evolution of this idea fascinating in the way that it starts to reframe how we value space:

I wonder if this trend will end up being a threat to places like Starbucks and other coffee shop-type places where these nomad workers tend to camp out. I’d love to see statistics on what percentage of Starbucks customers are only customers by default of Starbucks being their office. Could be a new workplace design trend…creating business centers within coffee shops and other retail establishments. Or is this already happening and I’m missing it?
Sort of on-topic, I came across this funny video while looking into this article a bit more:
http://improveverywhere.com/2008/02/25/mobile-desktop/

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